The Silent Veil: IC

[Luminesa]

Wrath and Patience

Charlotte - Day
January 28th, 1957, 9:45 AM
Charlotte’s apartment, Near South Loop

The 28th had felt like a normal day, as Charlotte had looked back to the business of the week. The week ahead meant that everyone had business to complete as well, as they gathered more information on Carter and watched to see what might happen next. Rozalin and Charlotte had tried a variety of training methods, yet one had not come to mind until now.

“An endurance trial?!” Anselm had protested. “Why would you submit yourself to that? You can’t last the whole five minutes!”

“It’s to see how long she can hold the vision steady and how long I can respond without getting tired.” Charlotte sipped her coffee as she explained the idea as simply as she might describe the weather.

“It’s not a matter of getting tired, it’s a matter of possibly permanently going insane.”

“We’ve agreed to do this, just once. If it goes badly, it goes badly and it’s on me. Not on her.”

Anselm groaned, but nodded. “…You’re really honestly just…testing limits at this point.”

“Yes! How can she fight Heralds, monsters, and possibly Carter if we don’t gradually work toward understanding those limits?”

“…I’m going to tap her shoulder early if you don’t give me a signal.”

“And you can do that. If you think I’m at my limit.”

Anselm put his hands on her shoulders, and sighed. “Never careful as usual. Alright. We’ll do this ONE TIME.”

And so they settled themselves in the proper positions in the living room, with Rozalin facing Charlotte and with Anselm standing by Roz’s shoulder. He would tap her if ever she needed to stop, but for the sake of this trial, only Charlotte would give the indicator that she needed to stop. The absolute limit, however, was four minutes. Rozalin had set that and had ordered for Anselm to watch the clock.

“…Ready?” Charlotte asked her. Routine, nothing unusual, another round at it.

“Mhm.” Roz put her mask on, and she stared toward her friend once again. “Go.”

Those feelings swirled in Charlotte’s chest once again, manifesting out of her as if she had exhaled those fears into the open air. She gazed at a cloud forming her worst fears, until she saw what she had seen several times before.

Faint, unrecognizable figures on the ground, shifting from what she knew in her chest and yet still proclaiming to be them. Various people she loved, and yet the sensation was dull, even as the floor was a dark-red and the air smelled of iron. No, the worst started at about half-a-minute, when a figure walked toward her and stood about a foot away from her.

“Back again to see what caused you to be overwhelmed by hate?”

Charlotte stared up at the menacing, cold voice from her own self glaring down at her. Her reflection spoke with the same soft voice, and yet it clicked and turned with a wicked fire. Charlotte herself was still in pajamas, but her hateful double wore all-black, a suit as sharp as diamond, but as dark as obsidian.

“You know what they can kill. You know what they can take from you. So why don’t you fight back? Huh?”

Never did the vision ever say who “they” were. That point never mattered. She could always feel the anger filling her stomach, like water filling a sinking ship. She tapped her leg, her eyes occasionally flickering to Anselm to let him know she was fine. All of this was still an illusion. Sort of.

“HEY. LOOK AT ME.” The vision grabbed her chin around the first minute, and she could feel her own hand jerking her head to stare back.
“They’ll kill your lover, they’ll kill your family. They’ll show no remorse. They’ll leave you to cry. And you just keep a calm face?!”

Charlotte tried to think of the thoughts which anchored her from giving into such wrath. The love of her friends, her father’s warm welcome, her brothers and their various ways of fussing over her.

Frank’s arms around her, holding her scars, kissing her in the doorway of his apartment. The first time she felt that he did not want to let go.

“Are you DAYDREAMING?!” The vision snapped its fingers in her face. “YOU HAVE THINGS TO DO. PEOPLE TO KILL. THEY NEED TO DIE, NOW. FOR THEIR SINS.”

“…What are their sins, hm? Who even do you want me to hurt?” This time, Charlotte took a breath and tried a mental response. “All this time you have warned me about their sins, which I see, but whose?”

“WHOEVER I SAY WE’RE GOING TO KILL.” In these visions, her voice always rose to a growl which she recognized very well, and yet she shuddered to think of herself using such a voice. She had not used it in…a long time.

Charlotte turned her mind back away again. The temperature in her chest was rising, as wrath tried to take control. As the second minute passed. She could see the bodies more clearly, and yet they still were not recognizable. The dread of knowing the mystery behind their forms was enough. She turned her eyes and thought of snow gently falling, a farmhouse standing in the cold. Boots walking through snow, distant serenity wrapping its arms around her.

A slap across the face pulled her from her thoughts.

“STUPID WOMAN. You’re soft. They made you soft! You can’t be soft, there are people to kill! MONSTERS to kill! WE CAN’T EVEN CALL THEM HUMAN.”

“I do not want to kill right now. I will only kill if I need to.”

“AND BY THE TIME YOU NEED TO, EVERYONE WILL BE DEAD. YOU IDIOT.” Another slap in the opposite direction.

“No. I’ll keep them under my wings. As I always do.”

She thought of soft angel’s wings, though the ones her mind manifested were always jet-black. Her father would have many theological questions, no doubt. She liked them. And in her vision, she could wrap them around anyone she chose. She looked toward Rozalin, and then at Anselm. She thought of Evie and Bernice, and Frank far away. Black wings covered in snow.

Another slap.

“No man could ever love you if they knew what a demon you really were.”

A new attack. She had not faced this statement yet, and though she rose to defend herself, she felt the wind knocked out of her. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her shoulders tense. She was not afraid. She was not afraid.

“SO WAKE THE HELL UP BEFORE YOU DIE!”

“Charlotte?!”

Rozalin’s voice broke the spell as she had pulled off her mask and looked to Charlotte. She was slumped with her elbows on her knees, taking deep breaths, and gently moving hair away from her own face as she stared at the floor.

“…Hey, Char?”

She said nothing for a few moments. The previous times, she had popped her head back up to look at the duo and to smile. Yet now she could feel it. Her heart pounding in her ears. Her chest screaming no, no you were not ready for that one.

“…Charlotte?” Anselm walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Now she looked up at him, and her eyes were exhausted. The hazel looked almost like a dull brown, and her chest heaved on occasion. “…How long did that go?”

“Three-and-a-half minutes. You were so far in it that you didn’t even tell me to turn it off, so I poked Roz to tell her to stop.”

Rozalin walked over to Charlotte and hugged her, not even delaying to ask what she had seen.

The red-haired woman returned the hug with one arm, and she put her face in Roz’s shoulder. She did not cry, though she found the soft sensation to be a comfort. A reminder of why she fought that wrath so intensely.

“Are you sure you’re alright? Do you want some coffee? Something to eat?”

“I’m okay, sweetie. I promise.” Yet Charlotte’s voice was more ragged than usual, as she pulled her head away from her shoulder and attempted to smile at her. “I wanted to do this.”

“You look terrible,” Roz muttered, as she helped to pull a little hair away from her eyes. “…Do you want to lie down?”

“Just for a little while, maybe. Are you okay?”

“I’m worried about you!”

“I know, Rosie. I know.” She hugged her once again, this time a genuine hug as some of her strength returned. But she could not remember a time when she was so happy to go back to bed.

Her friends let her go to her room, knowing that she had pushed herself perhaps too far for her own good. She had been able to walk and to gaze on her surroundings, but her heart was still pounding in her ears. Only when she got to her bed did she find the slightest chance of relief.

A deep sigh left her throat, and she covered her eyes with a hand. She could tell herself she was fine, she could tell herself that she was taking care of her friends. He was fine, he was home in his snowy wonderland.

“No man could ever love you if they knew what a demon you were.”

She knew all her worst fears, she thought. She had calculated them, she had understood them. She knew that voice of wrath and how much she had fought to keep it away. How much it screamed in her ears to kill, to make Carter Knight and everyone else she could find suffer. And perhaps she would get her chance to deal with him, with all the schemes everyone had made.

Yet that one sentence struck her much harder than anything else her voice of wrath had told her.

She uncovered her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Her eyes ached. Her body ached. Training with Rozalin was necessary, but took such a toll on both of them. Roz was worried for her, and every time she finished with a training session she felt as though she had gone a round or two with a professional boxer.

A shadowboxer, in her own case.

She felt tears fall down her cheeks, and she took a deep breath. That wrathful voice had called her soft, as if it was an insult. Yet Charlotte had never described herself as “soft”, and now she knew why. The voice in her head indeed knew her well, and she knew that she had never allowed herself to become so vulnerable, so emotional, over one person’s love for her.

More tears fell. She turned over in the bed, and she pulled a pillow toward herself, burying her face in it. She would pull herself through this fear. She had work to do. She had friends to protect. She had a lover to wait for, or to go see. Either way, she had goals and she had plans.

For now, they fell to the side as soft tears rolled down her cheeks and into the pillow.

[Luminesa]

Co-Write With Oblivion2 and Lumi

Love’s Harsh Winter

Charlotte - Day
January 31st, 1957, 6 AM
Charlotte’s Apartment, Near South Loop

For the first time in a few days, Charlotte’s place was completely still. The kitchen was clean, Rozalin’s notebooks were at the raven-haired woman’s house, Evie and Rozalin were not ringing the phone, and Anselm was a floor below her snoring like a hibernating brown bear. The house was quiet, almost too quiet. She had arrived home from work, and she had collapsed in bed.

“…Huuuuuuhhh…” She exhaled. The Raven had been busy, busy enough for her to drown her worries in her work once again. She was glad for the extra work these days, at least until she got home and felt it in her bones.

Yet she had not been ready to sleep immediately.

In the last three days, when nobody was around, she started holding the pillow beside her in a hug, and she would prop her cheek against it as she stared out the window. The snow was lulling to watch from her comfortable bedroom. She gazed at it, her eyes lost in the soft flurries. Part of her from her past would have hated to see her this way. So melancholy and thoughtful. Yet she was comfortable and at peace. Her heartbeat slowed from the rhythm of the night, long and slow.

She could feel her eyelids eventually becoming heavier, as her pillow was so cold and her body was so warm. Her body would curl against the pillow, quiet and content, and her eyes would finally become shut.

After blinking a few times, Charlotte looked around, and she realized that she was wearing the dress she had worn for the first date. She had not wanted to take it off after that night, and here it felt soft and light against her skin. A fairytale of sorts, she imagined. Her hair fell messily onto the pillow, and she could still smell the perfume she had worn.

Mixing with that perfume, she smelled cologne.

“Hm?”

Even more indicative that someone else was there, she felt hands holding her back. Specifically, they fell over her scars. Her eyes flickered ahead, and she gave a soft gasp as she saw Frank holding her, his eyes closed.

“…Oh…”

A wonderful, sweet sensation rippled through her back and chest. Having not felt him near her in over two weeks, she found herself drawing closer, a blush coming to her cheeks. “…Hello, dear…” she whispered lovingly. He did not react, but only continued to sleep.

And yet as Charlotte moved closer, awareness plunged a stake in her heart. He was still in Canada, far away, and here she was wrapped in a dream. A dream manifesting the ache she had refused to speak aloud.

Afraid to disturb the moment, to feel something that panged and bit her in such a state, she moved slowly. She took a hand and cupped his cheek. Clean-shaven. She looked down. His shirt was a bit unbuttoned, and his suspenders were gone. She looked up. His hair was mussed, and she moved a hand through it.

All the while, he never moved from his position. She heard him breathing softly against her ear. His eyes were not tightly-shut, but serene. She kissed his eyelids, and she realized her heart had skipped to life.

“…You look so pretty asleep…” she whispered. She put her arms around him, and she felt his warmth meld with her own. “Do you hear me while you sleep, dear?…I’m so sorry I didn’t kiss you at the station…I felt every mile the train took from me.”

Something caught in her throat, and she planted a kiss on his neck. She almost wished he would open his eyes and speak to her, but this was enough. She should be grateful. Maybe God, or even some curious Herald, if they were not so malevolent, had given her this time with him in her dreams.

“I promised I would show you what love means, didn’t I?…Maybe…you can hear me. Heh. That would be a nice Silent power. To visit you in your dreams.” She chuckled a little, but then shadows seemed to rise along her walls. Both sides, and on each side the shadows looked like her.

“No man would ever love you if they knew what a demon you were.”

“SO WAKE THE HELL UP!”

Each of the shadows screamed their cruel words to her, and though Frank never stirred in her arms, she felt herself gasp and pull back for a moment. Those vicious words struck her heart, threatening to bring tears to her eyes. She buried her face in his chest, and her pain welled in her own. She refused to listen to the voice that would deny her peace. No, instead she doubled-down.

“…Please God…don’t let him forget about me…I’m still here. I’m still here…” Even if she fought to stay in the dream, she could feel the strings in her heart ripping at a few seams. She stifled a sob, and then it came. Shuddering and soft, muffled by cotton fabric. “I told him…I told you…that I would be Wrath for him…but I can’t be Wrath when I hold him.”

She looked at his face, and she planted a kiss on his cheek. As if he could feel it. Maybe he could, but maybe he just wasn’t saying it. She stared at his face, how much she wanted to see his eyes open and gaze back at her.

Her tears weakened gradually, and she settled her body back against his chest. He never stopped holding her, her scars were warm against his hands. They felt healed. They felt holy. She was consoled by lightning, and convinced that just holding him was enough to turn her from a demon into something lovely.

Her hand searched for a scar on his collarbone, and found it. She nestled her head against it, letting her last tears leave her cheeks as she did so. She could lay in this dream for hours. The sun could fall over her, and she would just continue to lay here. What a happy dream in itself, to tell the sun to screw-off as she held her beloved close.

Yet the sun would not be so incredibly merciful. No, when the sun rose an hour later, Charlotte opened her eyes for real, and realized that she had finally come away from her happy illusion. She stared at the sunlight glowing through her window, her eyes blinking away something that fell down her cheeks. Not too long later, as she got out of bed and put on clothing, a quiet knock came to her door.

Charlotte walked to the door, and she opened it to see Anselm looking down at her with kind concern. “...Good morning, Anselm.”

“Good morning. Uh…so you sounded like your morning was not very good.” Straight to the point as usual.

“Hm?”

She let him into the apartment, and she wiped the remaining dust of the morning out of her eyes. As he closed the door behind him, she sighed.

“You were mumbling in your sleep?”

“Wha…I…well…”

“I’m not saying other people heard you, but I did.”

“So…you didn’t sleep well either.”

“Well I did…and then I woke-up, and then I grabbed food out the fridge, and as I was about to lie back down I heard you mumbling in your sleep.”

Charlotte’s face got as red as her hair, and she looked around her apartment as if other people might have entered behind him. “Did I say anything embarrassing?”

“Embarrassing? No. You miss him. You had stuff you wanted to tell him and you didn’t. Anyone would have probably started to feel a twinge of sadness in your shoes. You just don’t like to tell anyone when you’re hurting.”

Anselm told the truth, and the burning sensation in Charlotte’s face gave way to resignation. She stared at the ground, feeling much weaker than she normally felt. “...I gave so much just to see him. Just to be with him. And now he’s so far away…I keep telling myself it’s okay. He’s okay.”

“But you’re not okay. Didn’t I tell you to be honest with yourself about that?”

She looked up at him and gave a deep sigh. “You did…Did Rozalin call you during the night? Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine, I haven’t heard from her since I left her apartment yesterday. You know her, even if she’s stuck in the house she’ll find ways to keep busy.” The big soldier knew that she was trying to change the subject, to turn her mind back toward the needs of others. Yet he knew that she was ignoring her own feelings for their sake, and he sat on the couch. “Hey, come sit. You look like you’re gonna pass-out. I’ll make you breakfast in a minute, but come sit.”

In a manner much more docile than Charlotte was comfortable with, she followed him and sat with him on the couch.

“Look. Two weeks isn’t…forever. But it feels like forever. I get it. And that’s why…” He paused, and looked out the window. So much activity was bustling, they had so many plans, and Carter was active once again. Yet knowing when he might strike or might just decide to not bother was as difficult as predicting the the weather. The last time he had made an appearance, supposedly at the morgue, he had done nothing. He could very well strike, or he could bide his time, or the FBSS might chase him back into a sewer. Either way, he had thought about the possibilities.

“If Carter decides to not do anything any time soon, if we just gather information and we come to a dead-end, and if Rozalin has been training and we can continue her training consistently…I’m thinking maybe you need to get on a plane and to go see him.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened with growing conflict. “…I can’t leave Rozalin here. She’s still recovering and she needs to train.”

“She’s trained all week! And she’s going to keep training. All I’m saying is that if nothing goes on in a week or so, then maybe you can go up to see him. It’s a couple hours by plane I imagine, and a couple days by train.”

“If Carter does come looking, you know, how am I going to know?”

“Well that’s the thing, again, I’m not saying go now. But if it looks like he’s just hiding away because FBSS is gonna smack him, then why not take the chance. Once he gets busy, you won’t be able.”

“I know. That’s what I’m worried about.”

They sat in the quiet light of the morning, as traffic started to awaken outdoors. Taxis, the trains, people’s cars, people chattering on other floors as they woke-up and went to their jobs. Charlotte leaned back against a pillow on her couch, and she stared at the ceiling.

“Just a few days. You know, Mr. Rochefort would probably allow it.”

“If he doesn’t hold the days I took-off for the dates over my head.”

“It was two days! How often do you take off work? You work on Saturdays and Sundays, you work holidays, the only time you’re off is when your dad has family over. And you needed that time. And you were happy, the happiest I’ve ever seen you. Mr. Rochefort can be a pain, but he’s not an awful boss.”

“I know.”

“So we’ll wait, and we’ll see. Give it another week or two.”

She turned her head toward him, and Anselm gave her an understanding gaze.

“Anselm, are you starting to feel things for Evie? Is that why you’ve gotten so soft too?”

A blush rose to his face. “Now wait a minute, she’s nice and all but I’m not looking for anyone, she’s just a good friend and all!” His exasperation returned, but not entirely. He could see that he had managed to shift something in Charlotte’s mind, though he had to throw his hands in the air at her teasing. “I’m trying to help you, I didn’t get up at 7:30 AM to get bullied like this!”

“You live on the floor below me, and have for five years, that’s what you signed-up for,” she snickered.

“I’m not dating anyone!”

“It would be good for you.”

“Evie doesn’t even see me that way!”

“How do you know? Have you asked her?”

Anselm paused, and he shook his head. “Gah. You’re dancing around the point. Look. Listen. I’ll talk to Evie, or someone, maybe, when all of this settles and maybe I don’t have to constantly worry about world-changing events and alien-monsters that use telepathy and blow-up government buildings. But you’re the one in an active relationship. So is Roz. And you try to put everything on your back, including Rozalin, when all of us are doing this together. So maybe, just maybe, it would be good for you to take a few days if everything pans out.”

Charlotte sighed and nodded.

“It’ll be good for you.”

“But I won’t want to leave him.”

“Well you’ll have to. For a little while.” Anselm thought about it, and he looked in the direction of Rozalin’s apartment. “Shoot, I’d almost tell you to bring Roz, but Frank is gonna have his hands full with you.”

“Probably a lot less trouble for her to get into in Clairesholm.”

“Probably. Though she could probably also find trouble in a plastic bag. The point is I can take care of her, and Evie is pitching in, and Georgie is here and I can ring him up. And she’s healing, she won’t be sitting at home for days and days once we start some physical therapy.”

“And while I’m gone you’d keep her out of trouble?”

“I will literally chain her to the house if she even thinks about trying to find Carter. And I say this having seen Donovan handcuff her to a bed and hating every second of it.”

She sighed and nodded to him, though her eyes flooded with tons of worries and questions.

“There’s not a lot that’s certain these days. But I want to make certain that you and Roz are safe and happy. You’re both safe and Roz hasn’t gotten herself into trouble in two weeks. I’d say that’s a lifetime record. And if she can keep it up, and she will, then you deserve some time off.”

Charlotte finally acquiesced, knowing that even if her heart feared for the future, her heart also wanted to make plans, to not be paralyzed by fear. They had moved forward in finding information on Carter. And she wanted to make sure that all of her own effort in love was not going to vanish. Rationally, she knew it would not.

And yet she wanted to go. To see that snowy world, to see where Frank’s soul lived and hid when it was not tormented by the flurrying violence and panic of Chicago.

To watch for dry lightning in the woods of Calgary.

***
When Charlotte had managed to go to and from errands and made her way home with groceries, a letter arrived in her mailbox, and she eyeballed it after bringing her bags inside the house. Pulling it out of the mailbox, she brought it inside and gave it a look. When she saw the address, her heart began to jump.

The letter had arrived in a clean envelope, with tidy script detailing Charlotte’s home address in Chicago, as well as a return address for Clairesholm, Alberta. Opening the envelope, Charlotte would find a letter written on slightly aged paper, as though whomever used it had a small stack somewhere that they’d been carefully hoarding away over the years. The same tidy script revealed itself to be Frank’s as it began:

‘My Dearest Charlotte,

I’m writing to you the evening of January 27th. I arrived in Calgary this morning and found my sister waiting for me, having borrowed a truck from an old family friend (and the owner of the Clairesholm general store!).

My trip through the inner provinces from Ontario was rather boring and uneventful, the same cannot be said of my time in my nation’s capital. Plenty of questions and not enough time to see the sights, I’ve been given to believe that Ottawa is a lovely city though I’ve not experienced this for myself. Perhaps if I can find time for a visit in the future I might be able to form a more accurate opinion of it. Things are still cold here in Alberta, snow is thick on the ground and spring isn’t for several months. That said there isn’t enough to keep me busy, and thusly there isn’t enough to keep me from thinking of you, as I have every day and every night since I was forced to leave. Thinking of you has rather been something of a curse. I see you everywhere that I go, and when I dream I dream of your lips and your arms around me.

It strikes me that this is what being on the home front feels like, as I am far from the danger and you are very close to it. I would have called but I was worried that I might catch you sleeping or during your all too infrequent time off, so I shall write to you as my mother did my father when he was away at War and she was at home alone.

I hope in our time apart you have not forgotten me, or our time together. Not that it has been long, but it is a frequent if irrational worry of mine. I will put it simply, as I only have to write these words rather than say them; I don’t know how to feel with you out of my life presently. It’s not something I’ve had to handle before and it’s not something I care to be handling. The world feels greyer without you, less hopeful. But I must remain strong, for you are fighting an incredibly hard fight. You and everyone I’ve left behind, whom I miss too (yes, even Roz.)

And so Frank had the same fear, that they had forgotten each other. And yet nothing could be further from the truth. Charlotte’s heart was in her mouth, and she swallowed it as she continued to read. She could hear his voice in the words, and she could almost feel his hand writing the words in ink.

I write this to you, not to force your thoughts towards me and my absence, but to let you know that I am safe and at home, and that what you do is terribly important. Don’t lose your focus, or your way. I believe in you and the little team that fate has helped us mash together. Fear not for stumbling, as to stumble is not to lose one’s way, but merely to have lived and made a small mistake.

My family is hale and hearty, and they all tease me about you. I think they’re just glad to have something to finally tease me about after all these years, my sister especially. She says that I have puppy eyes and I positively moon when I’m thinking about you. I don’t know about the first, but perhaps the second is approaching correct. I’m not exactly the expert here.

I eagerly await any correspondence that you deign to write and send up to my quiet part of the world; I’ve been here a day but the anticipation feels almost as much like lightning in my veins as the thing itself. Say hello to everyone for me, and know that I care for you and believe in you so much more than you can imagine.

Until I am in your arms again,

Your Francis

Ps. please forgive the rambling nature of this letter, as I’ve had a rather tall glass of my brother in law’s home made applejack.

If he had been in the same room, Charlotte would have chided him once again for apologizing. Yet her throat could hardly summon words. He sounded so sweet, he was his normal shy self. She could imagine his face as his sister teased him over her.

She stared at the words a second time, and then a third time. She realized that her heart was practically punching her ribs, and so she needed to do something with her hands. She put the letter reverently on the coffee table, away from any coffee cups that could spill on it, and she rushed to the kitchen to find a notepad. She found one, out of which Rozalin had torn a page or two or three. She chuckled. Frank would not have been surprised as Roz being a busy bee, or at Anselm worrying over everyone. No, he hoped that the world was safe and calm.

And in a way, when she read the letter, it was.

And so now she wrote one of her own, and yet she felt hope spring wildly in her chest, like Old Faithful rushing to burst through the earth. She would write back, and even more, if the Fates aligned, she would possibly take-up Anselm on his offer. But for the moment, the sweetness was in her words, and the life which had filled her heart in her dreams fell like confetti through her pen.

[Luminesa]

Co-Write With Oblivion2 and Lumi (Flashback?)

Claresholm Diaries

The Party - Day
First or Second Week of February, 1957
Charlotte’s Apartment, Near South Loop

With the appointment of Ruth Hawthorne to the position of the FBSS Director on the 1st, the attitude of the party changed. Donovan was gone, and hopefully the scars he had left would be gone in time. Of course, he also took plenty of expertise with him, but Ruth also brought incredible expertise of her own, and a certain toughness and energy which Donovan could never have hoped to match. Like a phoenix, she scared cowards and emboldened the brave, and as the party had learned of the news, they indeed felt a new fire burn in their hearts.

“YES!!! RUTH HAWTHORNE FOR FBSS DIRECTOR!” Evie had been the most excited, waving a newspaper at the TV and almost smacking Rozalin with it.

“Careful where you’re swinging that thing,” Anselm had murmured, though he was smirking as she stood with utter confidence.

“I WILL SWING MY STUFF WHEREVER I WANT!” To that end, she chucked her newspaper at his face and cheered louder. Rozalin stood and clapped with her, towering over the woman and yet still almost getting crushed in a hug. “That man who tortured you is GONE!”

“Ruth I think would definitely be a better leader.” Charlotte chimed in, as she watched the two excited nearby. “She’s beloved by most people and it’s about time the government gave her similar respect.”

“I feel like it would be hard to disrespect a woman who once punched Japanese ships until they sank, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this administration had already tried to slight her,” Rozalin added, as she tried to breathe through Evie’s hug.

“Now she just needs to run for President!” Evie suggested.

“You know, she probably could,” Roz agreed. She looked down at her friends, who nodded in their agreement as well. They had watched her address on TV, and they agreed that she would not only be their best bet as the leader of the FBSS, but all of them remembered how Carter had spoken about her so contemptibly. He had described her as a puppet, and now she had the government’s backing to utterly crush him. And so into the sewers he would go, as one who dwelled in darkness might flee from a phoenix’s wrathful fire.

And so the days became quieter, for some time, until Charlotte came back to the offer Anselm had suggested. Quietly, she had explained the plan to Rozalin and Evie. Both of them were glad for her, as each of them had noticed that time had worn on Charlotte and had given her a little less of her usual spark.
Of course, Roz’s mind always went back to worries about Carter. Yet she was recovering, and her foot was definitely starting to feel better, though she had a few weeks before she could finally get out of her bandages for good. She was becoming confident in her training, however, and Charlotte had given Anselm a list of ways to help her. She was reminded that she was learning in more ways than one to stand on her own two feet, and that Frank would have wanted her to diversify and focus on her training anyway.

And in the meantime, Charlotte had told Anselm to contact her if he needed her to be home for any emergencies. He trusted that she would be fine, as did the other ladies, but all three of them hugged her as she packed her bags for the trip, to the point that she could not tell which one was hugging the hardest.

“Roz, you’re gonna break my arms!”

“I think that’s Evie.”

“You send a postcard or something, alright?!”

“It’s going to be a couple of days, Evie, I’m gonna be back!”

“Well send one anyway, and take a photo too!”

Charlotte snickered, and she stared up at the two taller friends as Evie released her. Anselm pat her shoulders, and Rozalin was the last to let her go. “Don’t go doing anything dangerous, Rosie.”

“Let him know we all said hello.”

“But you promise, right?”

“Yes. I promise.” As Charlotte had promised Frank that she would not rush into his fight, so Rozalin now was determined to do right by her best friend when she had not before. She would not cause her to pull away from him before she was ready to return, and so she took an extra minute to hug her before she helped her to bring her bags to the car.

Charlotte had not informed Frank that she was necessarily coming, but she certainly had sent her letter on the 28th, which would have arrived around the 1st or 2nd. In her own pretty handwriting, she had given him a part of her to cling to, as he had done for her.

Dear Frank,

I got your letter in the mail and I must say, it was incredibly sweet. It warmed my heart to hear from you again, and it’s been quite cold in Chicago as usual, no doubt even colder in Calgary. I imagined you sitting in the dark and thinking it over as you wrote your letter, and you looked as beautiful in my mind as always. You always look beautiful when your mind is wandering to the stars.

We have all been well down here. Incredibly busy, incredibly stressed, but also very healthy. It’s certainly the thing we can be thankful for the most. And you sound as though you have been healthy and well in Calgary as well. Your family sounds very jovial and fun, and I hope that their company has soothed your soul somewhat.

Chicago has remained a rather uncertain place, but we have managed in a variety of ways. Rozalin has been training well, and though she has missed you dearly, she has handled herself like a champ. Georgie has been visiting her also, and so her spirits have lifted as well. He seems like a sweetheart. A little skittish, but very doting. Speaking of skittishness, Anselm continues to worry over everyone, including you. Though he knows you are also far safer than we are here. It’s strange, knowing that this city continues to boil and stir like a witch’s cauldron. I’ve always loved that much about it, though these days I have felt less certain of that sentiment. I find myself dreaming of farmhouses and snow, and of lightning, from time to time.

She had paused when writing the letter, as her heart had pounded and her hand had trembled. She had not actually written many letters to lovers, as they were usually close enough for her to access. And yet even when Frank had been close to her, she had felt that glittering presence about him that made him a new experience to her. And so she tried her best to communicate such in the rest of the letter.

It becomes harder to come to this point of the letter, because it is hard to describe how much I’ve missed you. How does one count all the stars in the sky? How would I reach up with a big net and put them all in a little jar so I can keep them? I would give them all to you if only you asked, though I imagine the Mounties would be very confused by the strange parcel.

Of course, they can be confused as much as their hearts desire. You’ve become every star in my sky and every snowflake that falls outside my window. I watch them, and I feel closer to you. I must imagine it feels very strange to hear something like that, and it is strange almost writing it on paper. But you are the first and only person who has ever made me feel this way.

And don’t feel worried about calling me, or checking to make sure that we are well. I would wake-up from a half-hour’s sleep to come speak to you. Perhaps soon enough the world will be quiet again, and we can be at peace. I dream of that, and then my mind wanders back to you. You are the peace in my heart, and please don’t forget that. Take care of yourself for me, until we find each other again. Then I’ll do the taking care part.

Love,
Charlotte S.

P.S. You sound adorable when you ramble.

And so she had sent the letter, and had let that settle in her chest for a few days. But for now, with the world seeming to open to her just a little, she had bought the plane ticket and had made her way. She just hoped that he would be glad to see her, that he would not think she was abandoning her friends, and that he would still feel the same way as when he had written his letter to her.

***
The plane ride had been about three hours, and in that time, she had thought about the directions he had given her. Find the pharmacist in Claresholm, ask about the McArthur Farm. When she had landed in Calgary, she kept the directions on a map as she hurried out of the airport and started to look for a taxi. All the while, her eyes gazed around, as she looked upon this place which was so incredibly new to her.

Calgary was not an especially large city, not atleast as Charlotte knew them. It didn’t have the hustle of New York or the industry of Chicago or Detroit, it certainly didn’t have the grandiosity of Washington D.C. It had the flavour of certain mid-western towns that had recently grown into cities in the last few decades; streets had been widened and public transit was becoming available. But the buildings, particularly those away from the downtown core still had a sort of cow town feel to them. The people here were just as varied too: oil and gas moguls seemed to rub shoulders past farmers and immigrants as often as not, and there were more than a few languages being spoken on the streets.

Claresholm, judging by its position on the map, was more than a hundred and thirty kilometres away, which was atleast an hour and a half driving quickly by car in the sort of conditions the city was experiencing. The locals called it a chinook; apparently warm air could blow in over the Rockies from the coastal regions from west to east and give those regions nestled into the foothills of the mountains, like Calgary, a warm hour of weather. This weather could get so warm in fact that it could bring on a few days of ‘false’ spring, making the roads wet and slushy and filling the gutters with all sorts of debris. This would last until the winds blew themselves out and winter once again took hold, freezing everything back into a slippery sheet of ice until the local authorities could take care of things.

Driving would be difficult at the best of times once you got too far away from the cities of the western provinces, and would only get worse with strange weather such as this. However, busses ran from Calgary to Claresholm twice daily, as Greyhound had found it profitable to help needy farmer’s wives go to the city for a shopping trip a few times a year.

Still, Charlotte would have some hours to burn until the next bus left at six that evening, and the downtown core, while not equipped with the same sort of shopping facilities as larger American cities, would prove to have the sorts of goods that one wouldn’t strictly see at home. The food too, would be much more rustic, but sprinkled here and there would be Indian influences beginning to spring up as well as some Chinese and Japanese culture sprinkled about. Regional, provincial, but with the beginning of an odd sort of charm.

Even Charlotte, for all her bravery and recklessness, was not one to try and drive in the conditions which showed themselves as she asked some locals about the weather conditions. She could drive on Chicago’s icy roads, but she had known the city for almost 17 years. Calgary, and Claresholm, provided very different conditions, and so she decided to spend some time shopping while she waited for the evening bus.

She enjoyed the walk around the town centre, and she used the walk to clear her head of jet lag. The city was much smaller than both Chicago and the Bronx, and yet she found herself enjoying the less chaotic bustle of Calgary. In a way it was still largely fresh and green, and if she looked far enough, she could see mountains.

She got a late lunch at a Japanese restaurant, which had reminded her of a gift she had bought for Frank at Rozalin’s behest. It was in her bag, wrapped tightly in a pretty package, something of a Valentine’s Day gift. As she realized that Valentine’s Day was hardly a week away, she could only shake her head at how much she felt like a teenage girl falling in love. To accidentally stumble into the holiday of chocolates and cute cards in a foreign city, surrounded by people who did not know her name.

She had even bought a bouquet of flowers, a bright set of daisies. Though they were not the chrysanthemums she had bought him in Chicago, she hoped he would love them anyway. She remembered what Anselm had told her when she had gone to see Frank in prison. Even with her gifts, he would just be happy to see her.

Her daydreaming and her growing nerves were not to deter her goals, however, as she found the Greyhound bus at 6 PM sharp and hopped on. She watched the snow falling around her as she pulled her suitcase and her carry-on bag onto the bus, and she waited for her rather rustic chariot to take her to Claresholm.

As she sat down and took a breath, she stared out the window at the city and wondered if perhaps she was rushing too much. No, the snowfall increased and she could feel a twinge in her chest. She was headed in the right direction, with the right pace.

If Calgary was what cow town grew up into, Claresholm was still growing. The town might have had a thousand people in it at best, and all of the town’s houses seemed scattered about across the horizon, save for a few that seemed to hug the few hills in the area and play host to what amounted to the centre of town. Still, despite its relatively small size it seemed to be doing decent for itself. There were two medical clinics, a dentist, a general goods store, a small Hudson’s Bay Company outlet, and a scattering of other specialty stores. There was a park and what would amount to a significant chunk of green space once the snow had all melted and gone away for the year. A pair of schools too.

The bus dropped Charlotte off in front of the post office, which doubled as a bus station in a town this size. It was closed at this time of evening, as the 6 PM from Calgary was the last stop of the day for such a small town. In fact, much of the businesses seemed closed at this time of the evening, only just after seven thirty. The lights were on however at a Tavern not far from the post office. Luckee’s Taphouse it was called, and it featured a one eyed leprechaun hiding bashfully behind a four leaf clover upon its signage. Lively conversation, music, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke and stewing meat seemed to be wafting from its doors and windows all the way down the streets.

Once again, Charlotte hopped out of a vehicle into another new place, this time into Claresholm. The sky was growing dark, and the snow fell in the brim of her hat, dancing in her hair and welcoming her to this tiny town. She had never stayed in anything quite so small, and she was awed by the site. She could see the horizon, she could see huge fields which were illuminated by evening light. She smelled smoke, hot food, and farms. She almost wondered if she was dreaming, and she pinched herself as she looked at Luckee’s Taphouse.

If the general store was not open, then this certainly was the second-best option. No doubt, someone would point her in the right direction. Not to mention she recalled that Frank had mentioned how excited they might be at hearing that he had a girlfriend. New to this experience, she allowed the adventure to take her where it might lead, breathless at the wild beauty which nestled this little town that was Frank’s world. Only when someone walked past her into the taphouse did she hurry in out of the cold, suitcase and all. She looked a little tired, with her hair mussed and her scarf a little awry, but more bright-eyed than she had in weeks.

The evening crowd seemed to be in full swing as men and women joked and talked over dinner. Beer and liquor made their way to and fro as the serving girls put a little something extra in their walk for the regulars. Most of the folk by the door turned to get a look at the newcomer, some suspiciously, but most just curiously.

A man behind the bar gave Charlotte a little wave, beckoning her closer. “Lo, there!” He said in an Irish brogue, “You lookin’ like ya just got oif tha bus! Come on o’wer and put yer suitcase down a moment! I’ll make sure none o’this lot goes riflin’ through yer frillies.”

Still wondering partially if she was in a dream, she listened to the bartender and paid no mind to people giving her odd looks at the door. The man seemed friendly enough, as though he was beckoning a lost kitten inside a house with a bowl of milk. In a way, she was lost, but in the best way she could have imagined. She walked to the bar, looking around at the crowd and taking-in the sights. Her heart almost seemed to catch in her ribs. Just as Frank had started to see her everywhere, her eyes had started to wander, looking for him at times. Only when she got to the bar did she come back to reality.

“Hello there. Thank you for being so kind,” she greeted, “you see, I did actually just get off a bus.” She giggled a bit, and found herself looking back toward the crowd. “My name is Charlotte. Charlotte Bergman-Schultz, most people just call me Charlotte or Miss Schultz. I’m…here visiting someone, and he gave me the right city, the right town, and the name of the farm. But the general store was closed, so now I’m here in your lovely establishment. ”

She listened to the music pouring around her, and she realized that she did not often visit other bars where she was a complete stranger, never mind an absolute foreigner. Most of the bars in Chicago had a bartender who knew her, or who knew someone who knew her, or who had spoken to a distant person with whom she had once brushed shoulders. Outside of the States, she had only been to Germany once, and it had not been a pleasant experience.

Now she was in a much different place, her mind swirling with images from her dreams. The daisies in her carry-on bag, and the gift in her suitcase, peered from their hiding places in her heart. She pulled her hat off her head and saw the snow which had started to melt in the warm building. She wiped a lash, and felt it there as well. All of this place was indeed real, and she had to remember to breathe.

“…May I have a rum, please? I’m…I must admit, I am rather tired from hopping from a plane, to a taxi, to a Greyhound all in one day.” Her voice softened, both from her tiredness but also from her wonder.

The Barman whistles lowly in appreciation, “Sounds like a lot o’ mucking about just to get here. Why don’t you have yourself a seat, I’ll get you that rum on the double.”

As Charlotte got closer, she’d realize that that fellow was fifty if he was a day. He has that wiry lean sort of build that older gentlemen started to get when they got into middle age, provided they took a bit of care of themselves. One of his bright blue eyes didn’t seem to move either and had a glassy sheen to it. Charlotte would realize swiftly after that it’s because it was glass. This could very well be the Luckee of Luckee’s taphouse.

“Here you are Miss Schultz.” He said with a warm smile, sliding two fingers of spiced rum on ice along the bar top to her. “Anyfing else I can get you? Somethin’ to tae eat maybe?”

“Thank you, sir.” She took a sip of the rum and was satisfied by the taste and the way it hit her throat. “The day’s special, or any sort of soup or sandwich works for me, please. I last ate lunch a few hours ago, and the journey opened another gaping hole in my stomach it feels.” She smirked, and she shot her main question a few seconds after placing her order.

The Barman nodded and hustled about, ladling her a bowl of thick, hearty beef stew. It was positively laden with chunks of potatoes, carrot rounds, celery and onion and peppered to perfection. It came with a heel of crusty bread, likely baked locally, and a thick dab of butter for the bread.

“Speaking of the journey, I’m looking for Frank McArthur. I don’t see him here, so I imagine he’s at his sister’s farm as he told me he would be. I’m more or less uncertain about how to get there once I leave here, though I’d certainly be glad to eat here first.” Seeing the farm in her dreams did not correlate to knowing the building in real life, as much as she wished it would. Yet she imagined it would be further away from town than most, based on the rumor he had mentioned that people told about him.

The bartender had been about to ask who exactly she was looking for when she’d mentioned the Lieutenant. “Ol’ Francis, eh?” Luckee asked with a raised eyebrow, finally taking a good long look at Charlotte and her features. His gaze is somewhere between curious and hesitant and around her Charlotte would notice that some of the other patrons had started to listen intently to what she had to say.

“He don’t come by here often.” He admitted, “But that’s not to say he ain’t welcome around here. What’s your business with McArthur? We know he just come back from Chicago, and we know the sorta things that go on in Chicago… We ain’t lettin’ no Mafiosos botherin’ the Leftenant.”

The stew was delicious, and Charlotte ate happily. The warmth alone made for half the filling feeling in her stomach, and the rest was the metric ton of veggies which filled the beef stew. She was quite pleased, and she listened to Luckee’s question before she pulled herself away from the stew to answer him.

Of course, the answer about the Mafia in her life was complicated. Yet she was not in Claresholm as a member or associate of the mob. She was here as Charlotte, alone and in love. She looked around at the watchful eyes, and while she did not lose her nerve, she could not help but give a blush. In Chicago, she managed her way around by being more perceptive than most. Here, everyone seemed perceptive.

“We’ve been dating for a couple of weeks now,” she explained plainly, though her blush grew as she answered. “I wanted to come up to see him for a couple of days. Chicago is a madhouse, and…I must admit, for my short time being here, this place is lovely. Quite the change of scenery.”

That drove everybody listening to silence for a long moment. Luckee spoke up first, “Let me have a good look at you.” He stepped as close to her as the bartop separating the two of them would allow. His good eye flicked back and forth at her blushing features. Then his face broke into a wide grin, “So you’re the one he’s been moping about! Ol’ Mona said he’d met a gal down there in the land of the Yankees, didn’t fink for a moment any such woman would be coming up here lookin for him though.”

Another woman, pretty and brunette, with a slightly hooked nose and dark eyes scowled at Charlotte and spoke up, “She doesn’t seem so pretty to me.”

“Easy Becca, easy.” Luckee said gently, “Go bring a few more beers over to table twelve.” The bartender waited until the young woman did as he asked before explaining to Charlotte, “Don’t mind her. She came down from Calgary a few years back and took a shine to our Frank. She could trip any single man in here and maybe a couple married ones, but not ol’ Francis. He kept to himself and weren’t nothin’ but polite. Drove her absolutely mad. So, you’re lookin’ to get to the McArthur farm eh? You could walk and get there in about an hour, but it’ll be plum dark before you manage, and carrying all your things? I’d be right surprised if you didn’t collapse on the side of the road.”

On any day in Chicago, a girl who had tried to pick-on Charlotte tended to run into a well-placed eye roll at best and a scrap at worst, depending on her mood. Yet the usually-fiery redhead barely registered Becca’s comment. She looked back at the girl almost with curiosity. She was quite pretty, and she had no doubt that Becca had tried her hardest with Frank. And yet he had picked Charlotte. And she had picked him.

The extra pairs of eyes remained on her, and while she was relieved by Luckee’s quick defense, she could still feel her heart drumming in her chest. “Polite and shy sounds exactly like him,” she murmured as she remembered to speak. She gave a sweet smile, and she suddenly felt small. Her father had raised her to run well in a big city, to fight and to smile big, to brighten a doorway with her normal charms. Yet here she could only occasionally allow her eyes to flicker to the starry skies outside, and she felt as though some force was stealing her ability to breathe.

She sipped her drink before she managed to regain a little of her presence. “Polite, shy, and lovely.” Her blush still remained, but she looked to Luckee and remembered her mission as she chewed on the warm, rustic bread and swallowed it. “I would gladly make the walk, though you are right, not to mention it’s quite cold. Is there perhaps another way? If not, I could still attempt the walk, or stay somewhere for the night.”

”Dearie, yer in Claresholm. You’ll find we take care of our own here.” Luckee said with a wide grin before bellowing, “Lucas, get your boney arse over here!” A brown haired man turned to look over from his seat across the bar and saw the Irishman beckoning him over. “Lucas here worked at the McArthur farm this summer, that Chicago money Francis sent home kept him on the payroll, kept the family out of a pretty big bind with him and two others workin’ their fields.” Luckee explained, “He’s real reliable, so long as he don’t got more than a single beer in him. Which is about where I fink he’s at.”

“Luckee.” Lucas said in a deep baritone. He was clad in the stereotypical flannel shirt and jeans of his type of man. He had an easy smile and wind tousled hair, no doubt many a young farmer's daughter had sighed over him. “What you be needin’ old timer?”

“It’s not me, but what you can do for our friend Francis.” Luckee gestured at Charlotte. “This here is his American lady love, Miss Schultz. She’s needin’ a lift to the farm, think you can oblige?”

“For a pretty lady, of course.” He said with a smile, “But for Frank McArthur? Absolutely.” He turned his attention to Charlotte, “Let me get my hat and we can load your things up in my truck and head on out. Though, do finish your stew. Luckee knows what he’s all about in that regard.”

Luckee laughed and tipped an invisible hat at the farmhand while he sauntered off to gather up his things and pay his tab with the server, Becca.

Charlotte chuckled at Luckee’s gesture, and she smiled to Lucas as he agreed to bring her to the farm once she was done eating. “Thank you. And yes, the food and the hospitality are both splendid.” Indeed, she had not even registered Becca’s jealousy, though perhaps she might later when her head was clearer. Regardless, her opinion of her mattered little to her. She had seen the way the shy farm-boy had blossomed in front of her when she had first appeared dressed in pink satin. Certainly Becca was a beauty, but something in Charlotte had pulled Frank out of his hiding place and deep into the fire which burned in her heart.

She continued to eat, finishing her stew and her rum at a steady pace. The food was delicious, the rum was cold and warmed her chest, and the atmosphere felt light and merry. Even if others had given her suspicious looks, she only had eyes for her goal, and for finding the place she had seen in her heart. She generously tipped Luckee, as she remembered the conversions to Canadian dollars from US dollars, and she smiled at him. “I’ll be sure to come back around while I’m here in Claresholm. Thank you very kindly.”

Taking a deep breath, she located her suitcase and her bag and she hauled them both along once again as she found Lucas. “Hello there. I’m ready when you are.”

“Sounds good to me, Miss.” The farm hand said easily. Now that she had been exposed to a native Canadian that wasn’t Frank, Charlotte could hear that most people’s accents were very similar to the typical midwestern American accent. Frank’s maintained something of his Scottish grandparents in it still, but even his was similar to the others in Claresholm.

Lucas led the way to his truck, gently carrying Charlotte’s suitcase with him out into the street. His vehicle, a 1950 Chevrolet Advanced Pick Up, was a creamy white and apparently well maintained. Charlotte couldn’t spot a lick of rust on the vehicle. He carefully swung her luggage up into the box and shut the tailgate. A gentleman, he opened the passenger side door and allowed Charlotte to clamber in before he hopped in and turned the truck over, allowing her to roar to life.

The drive was short and not overly filled with anything to look at; traveling south from Claresholm all there was to see were farms, ranches and empty fields stretching out to the horizon. After a few minutes they turned right along a winding lane and traveled towards a lone farm house, two floors tall, starkly a rich brown against the pale white of the snow.

Lucas pulled up beside two other vehicles, one a used navy blue Ford Four Door Sedan, and a much newer Chevrolet pick up in cherry red that gleamed in the light of the farmhouse.

“Here you are miss. You need a hand with your things?”

The farmhouses reminded her of some distant memory. Something quaint, something peaceful. She could not quite remember what. Rozalin had told her stories before about the English countryside, how some towns were beautiful and well-kept and others were overgrown and almost primal in nature. Somewhere in-between were the rolling hills in Claresholm, and the empty fields which filled the spaces in the valley. Her eyes gazed up at the trees, at everything draped in snow. She stared up at the sky, her eyes almost attempting to count the stars and failing.

When they had arrived, she got out of the truck and let her eyes fall over the McArthur farmhouse. Tall, stately, and peaceful, the furthest thing from the bustle of Chicago that she could imagine. A gentle realm of solitude which nursed Frank’s quiet, thoughtful nature. A little pocket of the world which had inspired the odd rumors the townsfolk held about him.

The most telling feeling, of course, was the fact that she felt friction in the air.

She took a deep, aching breath, before she realized how she must have looked and turned back to Lucas. Her face burned once again with self-awareness, and she smiled. “I’m…terribly sorry. Ah. If you would not mind. I would gladly do so myself, though the stew at Luckee’s has got me feeling a little drowsy.”

“Of course ma’am.” The farmhand said with a smile, leaving his truck to idle as he hopped out and popped the tailgate, gathering up Charlotte’s things. He led her across the driveway, the snow crunching under their feet, and stepped up to the porch. There was the murmur of conversation inside that ended as soon as Lucas knocked on the door. The faint clack of a shotgun being racked broke the silence before a woman’s voice chided, “Jesus Christ Francis, put that thing away before you hurt somebody. You paranoid old so and so.”

Frank’s voice murmured something too soft to be heard through the door as Lucas spoke up, “It’s Luke, folks. Got someone here looking for you.”

The door opened and revealed a young woman with a heart shaped face and bright eyes, a perfect match for Frank’s own. “Well hello there Lucas.” She said cheerily as somewhere behind her someone rapidly unloaded the shells in the weapon and began to set them aside. “Who’s this here with you?” She smiled at Charlotte and then the expression on her face froze in disbelief. “Well my word…”

The door swung open a bit more to reveal the sitting room beyond, where Frank looked up from his seat, the now emptied shotgun in his hand and another man sitting across from him looking terribly concerned.

“Charlotte?” Frank said breathlessly, his eyebrows skyrocketing to the top of his face. “Charlotte!” He yelled jubilantly, racing across the room, scooping her up in his arms and twirling her about. “What in blazes are you doing here?!”

The next few seconds swept Charlotte in a blur which shook and rattled her all the way to her core. She had waited patiently as Lucas had spoken to who she had presumed to be Mona. The woman who came to the door was indeed her, a pretty lady with a kindly face. She was about to greet Mona herself, when Frank hardly gave her time to breathe before he rushed to her and pulled her into his arms.

“AH! Frank! Oh my goodness!” She put her arms around him as she heard the joy in his voice, the way he called her name first with apprehension and then with excitement. She laughed at his sudden energy, at the way he whirled her in the air and caused her hat to fly somewhere in the living room. Her scarf was also on the steps, but both articles had left her mind. Everything in her heart, every little dream, every gaze into the snow outside her bedroom window now found its goal, its safe place.

Its home.

She continued to laugh, the tension in her chest finding sweet relief and bubbling out of her lungs. When she finally found herself, her cheeks remained red and her eyes were glimmering with tears. She had to keep her composure, just a little. “Chicago decided not to entirely rear its head entirely while you were gone, so I decided to come up and see you. We’ve all missed you. I’ve…oh goodness…”

Her voice caught in her throat, her attempt to speak failing for a few moments as she remembered that her feet were still a few inches above the ground. She was practically floating, lost in the faelike realm that surrounded Frank and lost in the sweet friction she felt in his arms. “I’ve missed you so much,” she managed in a whisper far shyer than her usual self would allow, her strength giving way to the intensity bursting in her heart.

Frank set her down gently, smiling for all the world like he’d just been given the greatest of gifts. For truly, he had been. “I feel the same…” He murmured softly before leaning forward and pressing a sweet kiss to her perfect lips. Their embrace ended short when Lucas cleared his throat a little awkwardly. “Oh- uh…” Frank stammered and disentangled himself from Charlotte to go shake Lucas’ hand. “Thank you Luke, what do I owe you for your trouble?”

“Nothin’ at all Frank, it was my pleasure being able to help out some more, you and your family have done alright by me.” The younger man said with a smile. He nodded to Mona and then the other man at the table, “Have a good night folks.”

The door closed behind him as Frank brought Charlotte’s things inside. It was Mona’s turn to clear her throat now as Frank stood staring at Charlotte, almost unbelieving of her presence. “Francis… Would you care to introduce us all?”

“Oh uh, of course.” Frank said a little embarrassed, “Charlotte this is my sister and her husband; Mona and Arthur Simms. Arthur runs the pharmacy in town as I believe I’ve told you. Mona, Arthur, this is Charlotte Schultz my uh… Girlfriend? Sweetheart? My girl. She’s my girl.”

Mona offered her hand out while Arthur stood up and waved, making himself busy by packing away the shotgun that Frank had grabbed from its place hanging high up on the wall and setting the shells back into a box. “It’s a pleasure to meet the girl Frank’s been huffing and sighing over.” Mona said with a wicked smile, casting a side eyed look at her half brother.

“I have not been huffing or sighing.” Frank said indignantly.

“Sorry Frank,” Arthur said as he made the shotgun shells disappear into a closet, “But you have been.”

“Thanks Art.” Frank grumbled as Mona gripped Charlotte’s hand firmly.

“Don’t mention it!” The pharmacist said brightly. His hair was beginning to thin out on top, and he was a little portly, but he had a cheery disposition and his eyes twinkled with gentle humour. It would be immediately apparent to Charlotte, a watcher of people, that despite the apparent physical mismatch Arthur and Mona were very contentedly in love and more than comfortable with one another.

Charlotte had already struggled to think and speak when she had been at Luckee’s, and as Frank had kissed her she became absolutely dizzy. She could have held him forever, standing in the doorway of the snowy farm and letting the endless white flakes fall over her hair and coat. Yet Lucas and Mona did their best to pull the couple back to Earth, and Charlotte managed to thank the former kindly before entering with her beloved to meet his family.

Arthur and Mona were a sweet couple, very happy with the slow roll of their domestic life. The husband was a cheery man, with a gentle twinkle in his eyes which reminded her of her second-oldest brother, Jacob. He had always managed to sneak a grin or an understanding look her way when the oldest had fussed at her for her mischief. And then Mona seemed much like a woman after her own heart, immediately teasing Frank as she had witnessed him melting over his pretty lover.

She shook Mona’s hand, and she nodded to her. “And it’s wonderful to meet you, Mona,” she responded, “I certainly hope I’m not imposing myself too much by arriving unannounced. My impulses sometimes get the best of me, though I must say Frank is the best impulse I’ve ever followed.” She winked, recognizing a fellow mischief-maker when she met one, and allowing her voice to regain a little of its usual spark.

“Oh, you’re not putting us out at all.” Mona said with an easy smile, “Is she Artie?”

“No dear, not in the slightest.” Her husband answered, ushering Charlotte down into a chair by the table. The kitchen and dining rooms seemed like they were built for a larger family than was presently there, the table itself could probably seat a dozen, though only five chairs and a high chair for the baby were pulled out at the moment, the others presumably down the stairs to the basement.

“We don’t have the guest room made up, I’m afraid, we’ve a bunch of clutter in there right now.” Mona explained with a shrug, “And each of the children has their own room. You’ll have to take Frank’s room, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll handle the couch just fine.” Frank said with an easy nod. “My room is off in the back corner upstairs, away from most everyone else’s. I sleep through the baby waking up just fine, I reckon you will too.”

“That’s not a problem at all,” Charlotte replied, her heart still floating, a little battered by excitement, behind her ribs. She looked at the high-chairs and then around at the rest of the kitchen. What a homie, cozy place. Her eyes wandered back to Frank for a moment, wanting nothing more than to look at him but knowing that his sister and her husband probably wished to talk to her. She turned her head back to them, the blush coming back to her cheeks, and she smiled. “I’ve got quite a few little nieces at this point, I’ve helped rock children to sleep quite a few times and have passed-out many times with babies around.”

“Then you’ll have no problems at all.” Arthur said with a grin. “Michael is our third, and he’s getting to the point where he can almost sleep through the night. Holly and Amos are three and four, but you can be sure they’ll come knocking on your door in the morning. For some strange reason they seem to love their uncle Frank.”

“Fruncle. The kids call me Fruncle.” Frank explains with a somewhat shy expression. “Apparently they like the way I toss them about in the air and make plane noises.”

“And snow forts.” Mona reminds him.

“Right, and snow forts. They’ll wake me up first thing in the morning to have any excuse to play.”

Fruncle. What an adorable name. Charlotte found herself suppressing a giggle, though her eyes twinkled gleefully toward Frank as he and Arthur talked about the little ones. He was perfectly comfortable with being an uncle, with the little games and the quiet affections that such brought.

“My little nieces like to call me Aunt Lottie,” she explained, smirking at the silly nickname, “and when my brothers would come over with them, I’m pretty sure they would have a contest to see who could stick as many random objects as they could in my hair without getting caught. I found gum, pencils, and I think once I found a little toy horse. I’m still not sure where that came from.”

She thought back on how old they were now. The youngest was two, and the oldest was seven, and there were five of them between her three brothers. How much had time flown. She felt odd with her mind settling back to domestic thoughts, rather than to thoughts of world-rending crises or monsters, and yet she enjoyed the feeling.

“I’ll be glad to help care for the children if ever you need it, while I’m here. In case you need to get any extra rest, what with such an active little brood I imagine the two of you rarely have a dull moment. And I haven’t seen my own nieces in a while, I had almost forgotten how fun it was being an aunt.”

Arthur was all affronted dignity, though perhaps about half put on in a strong attempt at humor. “Why the very idea! Making our guest watch our children for us? Absolutely out of the question.” He favoured Charlotte with a brief wink before Mona chimed in.

“Well at any rate, I’m sure Fruncle here wouldn’t mind watching the kids by himself for an afternoon so us girls can get to know one another. How long do you think you’ll be staying dear?”

She chuckled at Arthur’s wink, appreciating the slight way he worked his humor into the conversation. No wonder he was so comfortable with Mona, who seemed all light and candles. Fae-like, much like her brother. “I’d be delighted. I’ll be here for three or four days. My boss let me take the break, because I hardly take them. That should be plenty of time for us to talk and to gossip.” She gave a side-eye back to Frank, her sweet voice absolutely devious. “And to see Fruncle being precious with the little ones.”

“Oh yes, he’s quite the doting uncle, though he’d deny it to hell and back.” Mona said with a snerk. Frank for his part kept his jaws laced tightly together. Opening his mouth now would just lead to worse teasing and Frank wasn’t armed for that sort of thing today. Not with Charlotte so suddenly brought back into his life anyway.

“But I’d be absolutely delighted to hear all about Chicago, Charlotte dear.” Mona continued. “I’ve only seen Vancouver and Calgary myself, but I’m given to understand that the States builds proper cities.”

“That isn’t always a good thing.” Frank said with an eye roll. “And Chicago is no Prague or Rome.”

“Oh yes, mister worldly over there.” Mona teased as Frank seemed to have forgotten about his earlier decision to keep quiet. “I still want to hear about it. Chicago is far away and exciting as far as I’m concerned.”

“Chicago is definitely exciting,” Charlotte explained, “I’ve lived there for almost half my life and there’s still things I haven’t taken the time to do. When you spend a lot of it working, though, any place seems to get smaller after a while. Though smaller is not a bad thing either.”

She thought on the most recent experiences of the glitz and glamor. She had been to The Palmer-to discuss faraway schemes with Evie and a friend. Schemes that Arthur and Mona would never quite understand, and she would not dare try to explain them. Some things simply did not come into the sanctity of a home, as her father had once explained about separating his work life from his home life.

She had also visited The Tavern Lounge, which was glamorous enough-but that was quite some time ago, and she was not as enthused going there given the Chicago Outfit’s hold over it until just two months ago. The Loop was the most populated place, and the one which contained all her dearest friends.

“It’s surprising how much one can fit into such a dense area of land right by a huge, powerful lake. But there’s something for everyone. Parks everywhere, libraries, movies, dancehalls everywhere, some sort of food and drink for everyone’s liking, and you make friends with the most oddball people and enjoy it.”

Of course, the ‘oddball people’ were perhaps the part of Chicago she liked the most. Without them, Chicago was just another glittering city on a postcard, something nice to frame but nothing to look twice upon.

“And it’s…quite the culture shock, I suppose, for a city girl like me to have ended-up in a little town like this. But it is truly lovely, when you can walk around in a place and you can hear yourself think. Which is a little harder to do in Chicago, admittedly.”

“Plenty of peace and quiet.” Mona admitted.

“A fella can really lay down roots and grow out here.” Arthur added, pouring himself a glass of apple jack before sitting down at the table. “I studied in Toronto.” He said with a smile, “So I get both sides of this story. Frank here is probably the one who gets it best.”

The Forceman shrugs, “A lot of cities I’d been to were being torn to pieces, and European cities are vastly different than anything North American. A lot of them had been looted and plundered before, so they had this sort of… I dunno, solidity to them? Like you could tear down every last building but it would still come back together. Helps too when both sides recognize that there are some things that really ought not to be destroyed. Chicago isn’t my favourite American city though… If I had to pick one it would probably be New Orleans. Now that is a different world entirely.”

Arthur blinked at his brother in law’s explanation. “I think that might be the most words I’ve ever heard you speak at once. Why aren’t you always like this?”

Frank shoots a quick glance at Charlotte before answering his brother in law, “I guess I just feel comfortable right now.”

“Riiiight.” Arthur said dubiously but chose wisely not to press Frank. He was generally a nice guy, but there were times when you had to know that folding your hand was the wiser choice.

Charlotte loved to hear Frank talk and to wax poetic about basically anything, and she leaned her chin on her hand as she listened to him.
She thought back to her gifts, as he talked about his time Over There, and remembered that she needed to give them to Frank when she got a moment alone with him. For now, however, she followed the flow of conversation and enjoyed the way Frank and Arthur’s banter bounced back-and-forth.

“I’ve been around New York City, and I was born in The Bronx. Quite the experience of an absolute noise war. But people tend to leave you be, and it really does make one feel the smallest they can. Chicago is much that way, but I haven’t felt as intimidated there as did in New York. Then again, I was much older when I got to Chicago. I’ve also been to St. Louis and to San Francisco, I suppose I liked San Francisco a little more.”

Admittedly, she was a little surprised to hear that Frank enjoyed New Orleans. If Chicago was boisterous and busy, New Orleans was equally so, and twice as colorful. At the very least from what Mr. Rochefort had let forth from his own ramblings at times. Yet anywhere he wanted to go, she made a mental note about visiting or finding.

“New Orleans is definitely interesting from what I’ve heard. It has plenty of ghost stories, would be quite the fun excursion I think at some point in the future. Nothing wrong at all with seeking a bit of a thrill, is there, dear?” She gave a wink back toward Frank, filling a gap in the banter that Arthur would not have been able to reach.

“I’ve seen a lot of thrills in my time.” Frank said dryly, refusing to be baited this time. “But if you’re out looking for interesting, New Orleans is certainly that. Good food, good music, better booze. It’s a good place for a person to enjoy themselves, do some dancing, see a show or two.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a ringing endorsement coming from you.” Mona said with a bit of a smirk. “Anywhere else you’d recommend a gal to go to?”

“Tokyo.” Frank answered without hesitation. “Beautiful city, and old too. The food is different than what you’re used to, and don’t get me started on chopsticks. But it is good.”

“My brother the globetrotter.” Mona giggles, “Well some of us can’t afford to just fly around the world. We’ve got families and farms to tend to. You would too if you hadn’t signed the farm over to me.”

Frank shrugged at that, “It was looking more likely than not that I wouldn’t have a family. It made more sense for you to have it.”

Charlotte only smiled as Frank dodged the bait. Of course, he was trying not to be snatched in a moment while his sister and brother-in-law were right in front of him. She did not mind. Yet she listened to how Frank had given the farm away to his sister, and her mind went to the distance only a little. He had thought he would never have a family. She thought back to how he had mentioned he would never want a wife or children to bear the burden of his being a Silent, how his eyes had glowed with a quiet sadness over his inner conflict. So many experiences he had given away, or that he had not felt, because he felt he either did not deserve them or would not be able to keep them.

Her eyes wandered around the house. To the silence outdoors, to the domestic quiet which filled the space, to the way she almost spotted a snowflake or two in Frank’s hair. This calm, happy life was what he wanted. He would not express it outwardly, as he continued to keep all of his feelings in his chest as usual. And yet everything he loved and reached toward was peace, with a hint of festivity and a pop of color.

“And we’ll go to Tokyo too,” she thought, “and I’ll pick you any cherry blossoms you want.”

[Luminesa]

Continued co-write with Oblivion 2 and Lumi

Claresholm Diaries - Pt. 2

Screw you, NS word limits.

She realized that she had been staring at him for a little long in the drop in conversation, and she blinked as she gave a gentle smile. “I would quite enjoy that sort of a visit as well. I haven’t been outside of the States much, as much as I would have liked. I got him chrysanthemums on our first date, and I think we were both awestruck by how pretty they were. They’re quite the special flowers in Japan,” she explained, as she turned back to Mona, “but I couldn’t quite find those while I was shopping in Calgary.”

She pulled the daisies, which had managed during the various rides in different vehicles, and she blushed as she held them out to Frank, looking much like a little girl picking flowers for her crush. “Until we can get to Japan and find some cherry blossoms, these will have to do?”


Frank took the flowers tentatively as Arthur whistled. “It’s a real rare girl who’ll buy you flowers, McArthur.”

“Yeah.” Frank said with emotion thick in his voice. He got up from his seat and found a vase for them, filling it with water from the tap and placing the daisies in it. He placed them on the counter, where the sunbeams from the nearby window would warm their leaves.

“Arthur, dearest.” Mona said softly, “Perhaps it’s time we head off to bed. It’s about that time, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, I think you’re right.” The portly pharmacist said, glancing at his watch and then giving Charlotte a kindly smile. “Don’t stay up too late you crazy kids.” He joked softly before making his way up the wooden staircase to the master bedroom above.

“Francis will show you to your new room when you decide to call it a night.” Mona said, all sunshine in her voice now that she’s done teasing Frank. “It was so good meeting you, and I look forward to swapping stories about my poor brother with you. Good night, Charlotte dear.”

Mona too beat a quiet retreat up the stairs, and it was only when the door to her and her husband's room clicked closed that Frank spoke up. “She’s a good sister.” The Forceman said, pulling out the chair beside Charlotte and sitting down beside her now. “She’s always had my back, and I’m glad she seems to like you.”
Arthur and Mona seemed to have a good idea of what sort of atmosphere was in the air when they decided to head to bed. Finally, Frank took a seat next to Charlotte, and they were alone together. For the first time in weeks.

“She’s very lovely, I certainly agree,” Charlotte replied, her blush never fading as she looked at him. Something about Claresholm had revealed something in her which would have almost made her friends and her father not recognize her, and she had only been here for a couple of hours at most. She enjoyed quiet here. She enjoyed the space just the two of them filled in such a tiny place, which most people could not easily find on a map.

“Your whole family seems like good and kind people. And I haven’t met the little ones yet, but I don’t doubt they will be just as sweet.”

“Michael is too young to do much at the moment. Holly is a mischief maker, like her mother.” Frank said with a wry chuckle, “Amos is serious as they come though. I hope he loosens up though. I try, but I don’t think I’ve met a child so stern. He’s always watching his siblings, trying his hardest to do up his own shoes and dress himself. Always seems to be concentrating on something. He reminds me a lot of dad. He seemed to be good at everything he put his mind to like that… Though I suppose he’s not related to my old man at all.” Frank shrugged. “I don’t pretend to know how kids work in the slightest.”

He makes eye contact with Charlotte now too, “I don’t pretend to understand how you work in the slightest either. I didn’t expect you to visit, figured things would have to get real bad for me to get asked back first.” He glances up towards the stairs. “They don’t know what I was doing in Chicago. Not exactly anyway. I’d like to keep it that way if I can.”

“Of course.” He had his secrets, and she had hers. He knew many of her secrets, and she kept many of his. She took a breath and straightened herself. “Well we thought things were going to get worse for a few days, but…our rat problem got chased back into the sewers for a bit thanks to Ruth.” She gave a serious look, of course insinuating the rat problem to be a particular blonde nuisance, but she had the slightest smile as she moved onto Ruth, and then onto the rest. “Anselm has been fussing over me and he was worried for…well, all of us. But that’s not news. I…suppose I ended-up not being busy one evening, and all of what I had not told myself to feel just built in my chest. And it…flooded out.”

She thought to the letter she had written to him, how she had trouble describing how much she had missed him. Maybe in person, she had thought, she would have an easier time. No, the color still rose to her cheeks, and her heart started back jumping like a wheel on a rough road. “And something told me, after we realized that we might get a little peace for some time…that perhaps finding you here was right.” She gave a quiet chuckle, but she could not pretend to understand herself either. Her heart was stirring under his eyes, her hands were shaking under her gloves. She reached and wiped a little snow out of his hair, and he would have felt her fingers shaking.

He reaches up and takes her hands in his; hands made rough by years of war and hard work. Gently he squeezes her much softer hands and then presses a kiss gently against the back of each one. “Well, I hope you turn out to be right… I missed you something awful, but if our friends needed you and you were gone because of me? I’d feel selfish. I like that I’m allowed to feel selfish around you but…” He laughs lightly, “I don’t really know how to feel about it. None of it makes much sense to me. I’m just glad you’re here, and that’s really all I know for sure. That and I know that I’m going to have an awful hard time falling asleep tonight.”

“Well, I told Anselm I’ll check-in and ask how things are, and if I’m needed…that’ll be it. I certainly hope that perhaps we can have a little reprieve from various horrors. And you most certainly deserve it.” She felt a little selfish herself, though she had made various contingency plans. Should things go wrong, she was willing to take the blame. Yet peace had remained in Chicago for at least a week, and perhaps it would continue. Everyone deserved it.

She blinked away a tear and quickly wiped it, before her eyes darted to her suitcase. “Ah, we were talking about Tokyo and…Rozalin would not let me be until I bought this. She found it one day after we were talking and she practically dragged me to the shop. And when I saw it, I knew it reminded me of you.” She let the semi-comical image of Roz pulling Charlotte’s arm along somewhere in The Loop fill the air as she dug for the present. She had wrapped it well, in shiny, dark-green paper with a red bow, almost as if she was giving a late Christmas or Hanukkah gift. An early Valentine’s present, she supposed, was the next best thing.

“I would have shipped it, if I had not been able to make it here…but I do like being able to give gifts in-person.” She handed him the box. Inside was a beautiful gift, one which had made both women excited and which had bubbled in Charlotte’s heart. An ocean-blue men’s kimono with a tachibana pattern in elegant white, yellow, and orange. Something that reminded her of the man Frank hid away from the world, deep away in his heart.

Frank opened the box slowly, his eyes occasionally glancing over to Charlotte, almost as if he couldn’t believe that she’d have bought him something. He openly gaped when he pulled the Kimono from the box, holding it up to the light. “It’s incredible.” He breathed softly. “I don’t know when I’d ever wear it but… Jesus Christ, Char.” He swore lowly.

He set it back down in the box with a strange little smile, “And here I am without a gift to give you in return. Hell, I wouldn’t even know what to get you in return, it’s just… Incredible.”

The box gets set aside as he leans forward and kisses Charlotte as well as he’s able from his seated position. “Ah, I wish I had you all to myself while you were here.” He murmurs, pressing his forehead against her own as his thoughts turned to the soft caress of her skin against his during the darkest hours of the night.

She kissed him back, making-up for the kiss that was cut short on the steps outside of the farmhouse. She clung to him, and when he put his forehead against hers, she forgot once again where she was. She opened her eyes and realized how close he was breathing against her, and she felt her blush rise a little. “You are my gift, sweetie. I couldn’t have asked for anything more wonderful.” She kissed his neck, and she held his face. Things she had not done since he had left from Chicago.

“Of course, if you’re worried about waking-up your sister and her husband, and I certainly don’t want to do that-after all, they do have little ones to care for-I can always just hold you close for the night.” She spoke the suggestion openly, knowing that either way, she was close to him now, holding him, and that was all that mattered to her.

“The bed squeaks something awful.” Frank said in a tone that was both amused and wistful at the same time. “Which is why I said I’d take the couch. I know you wouldn’t be averse to sharing, but I really doubt either of us could manage to behave ourselves. Better to just… Not tempt fate at all.”

“So…” He continued with a faint smile, “I suppose I’ll be happy with just this. It was far more than I thought I’d be blessed with anyhow. So really, who am I to complain? As to this, I’m your gift business… Have you ever considered that I feel the same way about you being mine? Therefore I believe I’m allowed to feel bad I don’t have a gift for you.”

She nodded, the blush continuing to fill her cheeks. No more echoes of her being a demon played in her head. Her nightmares were far away, at least for now. She stroked his hair and looked at his eyes. Come morning, they would awaken to find her, and would be just as beautiful. Charlotte would go outside to see Claresholm in the daytime, and all that she wished for in this place would flood with light.

However, here in the dark, in the cozy kitchen, she would have at least these few moments alone with him. She pulled him up to his feet, the way she had in his apartment, and she pulled him into one more kiss. Three days. Three days to see where her dream had lead her, what fortune her gamble had brought.

But before she would let him go, she let the kiss linger, for the many miles she had traveled to find him. The wall was a bit far, but near the kitchen counter would do, as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Sure, he could feel bad for not getting her a gift. But he would have to worry about that after she was finished and had gone to bed.

As they pressed up against the counter top he let his tongue dart along the edge of her lips, his chest flush with hers as their hearts hammered together in time.

He came up for air after a moment, that twinkle in his eye showing that he might have less than gentlemanly things on his mind. “You’re impossible.” He murmured lovingly, even as his hand ran down her back and settled on her shapely rear. “Whatever am I to do with you?”

She chuckled as she pulled back for air herself, letting her arms stay around his waist. She did, however, lean her head back against his chest, and she closed her eyes. “That’s a very good question. I don’t think I always have the answer to that myself,” she whispered. Yet she was happy as could be right where she was, and this little world had become, for some time, theirs.

[Luminesa]

Heartbeat Warfare - Flashback?

Rozalin - Day
Early February, 1957, 10 AM
Rozalin’s Apartment, Near South Loop

While the party had supported Charlotte going to see Frank while Carter seemed to be hiding, Rozalin and Anselm found a unique challenge with her out of the house. She had left behind quite a few plans, schemes, and contingencies, which they knew and they hoped they would not have to use in the three days that she was out. Yet the most important difficulty was Rozalin’s training.

At least two weeks now into the training, she had definitely gained more endurance, and better focus with the scope of her abilities. Yet expanding her power-set was the harder part. Anselm did not consider himself the most creative individual when it came to such things, as his intuition was a constant banging alarm, but not enough to recognize how Silent powers worked. He knew that Roz would need to solve part of that problem herself, and she was smart enough to do so. She poured over more books than most doctors, he imagined. Yet they needed to settle on an idea.

Roz had also seen this problem, and thus the situation with Frank and Charlotte being away, at least temporarily for the latter, meant that she needed to make attempts to learn her powers on her own. She got out of the bed in the morning, and before Anselm arrived, she wore her mask and looked toward the mirror. She did not attempt to create her own nightmares-not without a spotter who could watch her if she needed to be saved from herself. No, rather, she decided to see if she could make her amplification powers “bounce” around the room. Not that she needed any sort of a physical apparatus to assist her, but she wanted to see if one might refract the power somehow.

She definitely felt something like friction in the air as she turned and examined the room while standing from her focal point. The room felt heavier, almost humid, as if she was waiting for something to fill the space. People, animals, something living which could react. She could hear her heartbeat punching in her chest. Frank had mentioned that he had felt as though his mask spoke to him. Now she seemed to hear it, that specter in her chest telling her more, more, more. She needed more. More people, more fans, more enemies, more power. Yet she tucked all of the silent shouting away neatly in her chest, and she tried to move to another point in the room.

Her powers could easily fill her apartment space, and several spaces much larger. The morgue, the first floor of the warehouse in Archer Heights, The Raven, The Tavern Lounge, not in that order of scale. She wondered if she could have amplified her powers to fill even larger spaces. The possibilities scared her, and reminded her that the masks they wore were capable of truly disturbing feats when paired with an intelligent human being. And indeed, they always seemed to pick smart individuals.

“Well…smart in some ways more than others, depending on the person…” She reminded herself. Frank was overall intelligent, both intuitive and knowledgeable, and creative when he needed to be. Ruth was very similar, and had less reservations about putting an enemy through the ground if she needed to win. Carter seemed to be less intuitive than both of them, but his ability to guide an impulse to make what he needed was enough for him to survive, as it was for Rue.

Her contemplation on how masks connected with humans found a sudden interruption when a sound began to fill the thick, waiting air. She turned her head in a few directions, and she then looked toward the doorway of her apartment. A thumping sound, as if someone had been walking back and forth for a distance. Someone was thinking deeply, or perhaps worrying and mulling over decisions. Deciding to follow the sound, she walked to the door and heard it become louder.

THU-THUMP. THU-THUMP. THU-THUMP. THU-THUMP.

“...Huh. It just sounds like someone’s heartbeat…wait.” Her eyes widened. Deciding to take a risk, she opened the door and peeked out. Nobody was on the steps, and nobody seemed to be looking up to her. Yet when she looked down toward the street, she saw Anselm standing outside of his car, and the beating in her ears started to get much stronger. Even more telling was the fact that she could see he was lost in thought, perhaps his mind was racing too much. Only when his eyes flickered up toward the apartment did he see Rozalin wearing her mask.

“Oh! Hey! Get inside!” he hissed. His heartbeat immediately jumped, becoming faster with worry as he saw the mask.

She followed his instructions, and then listened to him hurrying up the steps. Louder, and louder, and louder, until she could barely hear herself think. Rozalin removed the mask as he opened the door, and she rubbed her temples as she leaned her back against the door when Anselm closed it.

“What were you doing looking outside with the mask on?! You know someone could have seen you?!”

“I…heard your heartbeat.” She looked confused saying something so odd, and he looked at her with equal confusion. “I was using my mask to see how it could amplify power around my room, and I realized that I could hear your heartbeat?”

“...How in the…but I wasn’t even in the building?”

Rozalin shrugged, and she put her mask back on to demonstrate. She started to amplify the power in the room to a point, and immediately jumped back an inch or so, as she heard Anselm’s heartbeat pulse in her ears.

“Huh? What happened?”

“Well…that’s bizarre…” She started to explain, as she went and removed her mask again. “It seems like when I started to look in your direction, after I amplified the…force I usually put into reflecting nightmares…perhaps somehow I managed to hear your heartbeat in particular. It must have already been loud? What were you worrying about outside?”

“Eh, nothing, I had just realized I had slept-in and I thought I had missed Charlotte sending me a call. Then I remembered I hadn’t. Then I realized I needed to come back over here for something and-”

“Everything piled-up in your head like a traffic jam.”

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Anselm nodded, and then looked at her mask. “So…when you focused on yourself…did you hear your own heartbeat?”

“Mhm. Quite loudly. I suppose I’ve been nervous all morning myself.”

“Well Charlotte’s fine, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m going to guess she didn’t get much sleep when she got to his place.”

Rozalin snickered, and she put the mask back on her face to test something. She listened for a few moments, and she looked down at Anselm’s chest. “Your heartbeat slowed a bit, and it got lower. You’ve relaxed a little.”

Anselm grinned, a little sheepish. “Geez I really am easy to read now, not sure how to feel about that.”

“You were easy to read before, it’s not like you’re good at hiding when you’re nervous.”

“And being your friend means if I hide it you’re probably going to get eaten by some Disciple or whatever.”

“Okay, I wasn’t about to get eaten, I was…”

“I dunno, about to get thrown around, get punched, get stabbed through with another vine and have your blood sipped out of you like a wine glass?” Anselm’s heartbeat started to pound in her ears again as she focused on him, and his face was suddenly much more serious. “You’re lucky someone got those stitches out of your hand without asking why you had them or why you did them on yourself!”

Rozalin took a deep breath. She had not felt the pain in some time, but now her own heartbeat pounded alongside her friend’s. “...You…make another good point.”
“I hope I do, because the next time you do that you’re going to end-up in a hearse, not an ambulance or the back of my car.”

Roz nodded, and took deep breaths as she once again removed her mask. Wiping her eyes, despite the lack of tears, she sighed. “It seems like…it picked-up both of our heartbeats this time. So the…amplifying feature does ‘bounce’, if I so choose. Or it can pass through people and make the projections?”

“Now that part is physics, and I failed physics in school,” Anselm responded, though his expression softened as he saw how shaken she suddenly was. “But I think I’ve preached at you enough, at least for now. And Charlotte did too. And if Frank was here he’d probably have given you the talk of your life. Shoot, he might still do it. I dunno. But the point is…it looks like you’re starting to learn something new? And we’ve got new friends, new plans…and now you’ve found a new ability.”

“...I want to try something.”

“Uh oh.”

“Relax, it’s not danger. But now that…I see how it changes back and forth in conversations…I need to understand how this connects with emotions. And location. I want to try with the first concept first.”

“How so?”

“Come sit down.”

Anselm followed her, and sat on the couch across from her. Rozalin grabbed a notepad, and she began to write some words on paper. Perhaps the start of more evidence.

“A sort of…word association experiment. I’m going to put my mask on, and I’m going to give you a word, an image, or a phrase. I want to hear you give a verbal answer. And then I’ll listen to your heart.”

“Oh geez, like a lie-detector test?”

“Not necessarily. Though it could be.” Rozalin smiled at him. “We need to be creative to understand how my powers work, right? Well here’s an opportunity.” She put her mask on, and she started to amplify the power rolling through the living room. “Boston.”

“Ha…” Anselm grinned a little, but with his grin came a soft glint of remembrance in his eyes. Rozalin heard his heart slow a bit. “…Now you reminded me that I need to call my mom.”

“That would be a good idea. Hmmmm. Paris.”

“Beautiful. Unfortunately it was also full of Nazis when I was there. Filthy bastards knew how to ruin a good city.” His heart remained steady, until he spoke the last sentence. His heart began to beat a little faster, and became louder almost immediately.

Rozalin continued to take notes. She weighed an idea for a few moments, not sure whether or not to take the risk. She eyed him, and he seemed to be waiting.

“…Trench.”

Anselm paused, and something in his lower back and mid-shoulder twinged. Old wounds. Very old wounds. Rozalin could hear his heartbeat pulse a little faster. “God. You’re really aiming for all the stuff that really gets the heart going. Though it wasn’t a trench, it was…” He swallowed a bit, and looked down at the floor. He had told this story before, at least in parts.

“We had to dig the grave out for a French kid whose body we found in a village…actually no…that was…” He stroked his chin for a few moments before looking back to her. “A lot of kids that day. Some women, too.” A sigh rattled his throat oddly, ringing with emotion. “Man. That war killed a lot of kids.”

“It did. I’m…sorry, I know that was a painful question.”

Anselm shook his head. Rozalin could hear that his heart was thumping loudly, and quickly, and she watched his eyes for a few moments. Yet he quickly pulled away from that place. “We did what we did so our kids don’t have to see all that. You know that very well.”

She nodded. “Let’s move to people. Your mom.”

His smile returned. “She’d be mad as hell if she knew the mess I was in right now. ‘Anselm Stephen, what did I tell ye about messing wit wha’ brings t’ Good Lord pain?’” He copied her much-thicker Irish accent affectionately, knowing how much she had both shown pride and chided him when he had gotten home from Over There. Notably, his heart relaxed, but also got louder. The feeling was not only comforting, but significant. Fear and worry were not the only ways to make a heartbeat louder for the mask.

Rozalin took more notes. “Your favorite movie star?”

Anselm stroked his chin, blushing a bit all of a sudden at the idea. Roz could hear his heartbeat growing louder once again, after the short interval between questions. “You know, you and I have seen a bunch of movies and I’ve hardly even thought about it.”

“Lies, you’ve thought of someone.”

“Alright alright. Uh…” His heartbeat continued, and although he tried to hide it in his face, Rozalin noted how loud the noise was in her ears.

“Are you able to hear how loud your heart sounds right now?”

“Uh?! W…What’s that supposed to mean? Hold on, you said this wasn’t going to be a lie detector test!”

“I said it could be, not that it wouldn’t be!”

“Alright alright. I don’t think I have an actress that really comes to mind and makes my heart jump a lot, uh…Lena Horne.”

Rozalin nodded at his answer.

“She’s uh…she’s quite pretty.” He tugged at his collar and looked away for a few moments. “And she’s got a hell of some pipes.”

“Your heart got louder. You see? I can tell what you’re feeling, and you don’t even have to say it.”

“Okay then why am I talking again?”

Rozalin took the mask off, and she smiled. “Because I like to hear you talk, you big oaf. When you’re not constantly fussing you’re actually sweet!”

Anselm chuckled and sighed, for once far more relaxed than normal. “Ought to try that trick on you and to see if it works the same way.”

“And perhaps try using it to find a person at a distance?”

“Bingo. I already have an idea for that.”

“Oh?”

“As long as you don’t run somewhere and have the world see your mask, it might work.”

And so plans were born from two heartbeats, both eyeing the world which Carter could ruin at any moment. Yet for now they had time to breathe and to try such new plans. They had made progress, and that progress mattered more with every passing second.

[Luminesa]

Co-Write With Oblivion2 and Lumi

In The Mountain Sun - Flashback Cont.

February 6th, 1957, 4:30 AM
The McArthur Farm, Claresholm

Frank woke up feeling exceptionally warm. The McArthur farmhouse was not known for being particularly toasty in the early days of February as spring didn’t seem likely to tear its head up anytime in the next few weeks. This was after all, winter’s country. As awareness began to filter in he realized that he was seeing more limbs in the blankets than he could account for, and then it all came back to him.

Charlotte had come for a visit, and in the dead of night she’d stolen down here to try and sneak in a quiet rendezvous. A pleasant night it had turned out to be, and a pleasant morning it could be were they anywhere but here.

Turning over on the couch to face his flame haired lover he gently pressed kisses along her nose, cheeks, lips, and eyelids as his fingers trailed softly along the curve of her side. “Charlotte…” He whispered in a sing song voice. “Baaaaby…” He saw an eye begin to flutter open and so he kissed her a little bit harder. “The children are going to be awake soon… And you’re still stark naked…” He whispered against her ear, pressing himself against her to remind her just how naked they both were. Such an advanced state of undress would surely scandalize his sister’s kids.

The last time Charlotte had held Frank through the night, she had been the first to awaken. Her racing thoughts had summoned her from the coziest sleep she had experienced in a long time, and she had been unable to enjoy the experience of being awakened by her lover. She felt him pull her a little closer as he awakened first, this time, and her eyes stayed closed just for a moment. Yet reality, much softer than the morning of the Herald fight, still whispered in her ear that perhaps she needed to find herself her clothes, which were upstairs.

She blinked awake and gazed at him, smiling as she returned a kiss before she fully came to some awareness of herself. She blushed brightly as she remembered that she was not, in fact, in hers or Frank’s apartment. Tearing herself away from such a pleasant morning was not something she wanted to do, but she also refused to be an impolite guest-as much as she could manage, anyhow. She looked around and found her nightgown, before chuckling at Frank’s sweet greeting.

“We certainly don’t want them to ask those questions,” she murmured back, before she reached for the nightgown and pulled it over herself. At least something to cover her until she got to her clothing. She sighed, and she smirked over at him. “…Well, let me head upstairs, I’ll be back in a moment. You ought to also find your clothes, dear.”

She winked at him and then hurried up the steps, trying to keep as quiet as she could, until Frank saw the flaming curls disappear behind a door.

Frank had kept his clothes with him that night, he had a pair of plaid pajama pants draped over the back of the couch next to a white T Shirt. He slipped them on and headed for the kitchen where he diligently got to work starting coffee and making headway on breakfast.

He sliced potatoes and tomatoes, greased pans for eggs and thick slices of bacon and generally went about the business of preparing to feed a farmhouse. He’d gotten good at it over the years, his sister often didn’t have the energy after dealing with her children day in and day out and attempting to run the farm, so Frank pitched in wherever he could.

Charlotte returned downstairs a few moments later, a little more done-up. The farmhouse was rather chilly, given the conditions outdoors, and so she had put a kelly-green sweater over her normal button-down shirt. In black jeans and boots, she nodded as she found that she was warm enough. Then again, she had been warm enough on the couch as well. But morning had broken, and she was not going to delay it. She smelled food wafting from downstairs, and she started down the steps.

“Well, well, the house smells lovely doesn’t it?” She greeted him from behind, though she could not help but wonder if she needed to make herself useful. However, no children were crying or running around. Yet. So she stayed and kissed his neck before looking out the window at the snow.

Something about looking into the snow reminded her to check on her friends, and so she pulled herself away to find the phone. When she did, she chuckled to herself. “I ought to let the group know I made it here and didn’t get eaten by a grizzly. One of them is going to be awake at this hour, I’m sure.”

She called Rozalin’s number first, which did not seem to go through. She stood by the phone, and then frowned, but nodded to herself. She had to remind herself that she was also in a different time zone, meaning she was an hour behind them. If Rozalin was asleep, Anselm had just gotten home from work. “Hm. She’s probably asleep. Ah well, let’s try the other one.”

Charlotte had indeed caught Anselm at the right time, and his voice grumbled to life on the other end. “…Anselm McKinney, who’s this?”

“Hello from Claresholm!” she greeted, keeping her voice down despite her cheer.

“Charlotte! Oh good, uh…I just realized…and this is gonna sound stupid…but I don’t have the number to the house.”

“It’s not stupid, that’s why I called you.” She couldn’t help but chuckle. “How are you? How are Rosie and Evie?”

“Eh, we’re fine. I worked, Rosie and Evie hung-out and talked, God only knows what they discussed. Nothing particularly holy, I imagine. But Roz has been asleep for a while now. And how are you? Where’s Frank?”

“He’s over here cooking breakfast. And looking very handsome doing it.”

Anselm snickered on the other end. “Yeah, well, don’t distract him too much or one of you is going to burn down the farm.”

“Already done, Ans.” A devilish grin came over her face, which she only slightly covered with her mouth.

A long pause came from over the other end of the phone. “…Right. So uh. I expected as much. Um. Yeah. Well I’ll call Roz later to let her know you’re both doing well. Tell him I said hello!”

“I will! Tell Rosie I said hi and that we’re doing just fine.”

“Will do. Now if you excuse me, I don’t want to faint on my kitchen floor like I did while talking to Evie.”

“No you do not. Talk to you later!” She hung up, and she turned back to smile at Frank. In a way, she was relieved as well. Calling Anselm and having a normal conversation reassured her that all was well, and that the world might last another day. “Life as usual goes on, so it seems.”

Frank had been stealing glances at Charlotte as he flipped bacon and started frying eggs and tomatoes in the pan. “Well that’s something, anyway.” He said lightly as the coffee came to a brew on the stove. He set it aside and gestured for Charlotte to help herself if she wanted.

“Cups are up there,” he gestured to a cupboard up to his left. “Sugar is in the cupboard next to it, and then there’s cream and milk both in the fridge. I’ll take care of this, Art should be down just about-“

“Now.” The portly pharmacist said with a whimsical smile, followed by a long yawn. “Good heavens Frank, how you get up in the morning so easily, I’ll never understand.”

“How you move so quietly for a fella your size is beyond me.” Frank answered good naturedly. “Coffee is ready, it’s that Bolivian stuff you liked from before. The real dark roast, you know the one.”

“I do, I do.” Arthur said with a smile before beaming at Charlotte. “Morning dearie. I trust the bed upstairs wasn’t too uncomfortable for you?” He grabbed his own cup of coffee and filled it before taking a sip and drinking it black. “Damn good stuff Frank, how’s it you get this again?”

“Old war buddy of mine works for a coffee company in South America these days. He sends me coffee and other things like fruits from time to time and in return I give him a good deal on one of our bigger cows. Nothing that hurts the margins but hey, fresh fruit and good coffee is pretty worth it, don’t you think?” Frank answered, again talking more than Arthur was used to. The pharmacist even gaped a little before chuckling.

“You know quite a few characters don’t you?” He said finally.

“Eh, the Force was full of interesting fellows. I just happen to be one of the saner ones.”

“Good morning, Arthur. The bed worked just fine, thank you.” Charlotte responded brightly, her answer not a total lie. The bed had indeed worked well, and if she had the bed at home, she would have slept through the night just fine. Yet she had enjoyed even more waking-up with Frank before everyone else. Of course, Arthur and Mona did not need to know that part.

She listened to Frank and Arthur once again as she helped herself to the coffee, along with some cream and sugar. It was indeed pleasant, and she even forgot about the chill outdoors for a few moments. She had largely forgotten about it between everything else, but hot coffee and breakfast always helped. “And you managed a rather peaceful sleep I hope? It sounds as though the little ones got some rest as well,” she spoke to Arthur as she leaned against the counter and giggled affectionately at Frank’s talkativeness.

“Yeah, the little ones were cooperative last night. The youngest squawked once, but Mona is an old hand at this whole kids thing at this point.” Arthur said with a broad smile.

“I’m glad you’re finding the farmhouse comfortable though,” He continued after a sip of coffee, “It doesn’t have all the amenities of the big city, but it’s nice and quiet, and I like that myself. On the subject of not like the city; did you need me to feed the animals this morning before I open up the Pharmacy for the day, Frank?”

Frank waves that thought aside dismissively, “Nah. I’ll manage just fine. Besides, Mona is going to want to scandalize me in my absence. You know how she is.”

“How who is?” Mona asked, staggering down the stairs with bleary eyes. Unlike her brother, she definitely needed caffeine to get functioning in the morning. “You’re not talking about me when I’m not around are you?” Belatedly she flashed a tired smile at Charlotte as she made her way to the coffee. “Morning Charlotte, Sweetheart.”

“Good morning, Mona,” Charlotte answered with a kinder smile. Mona reminded her of how she once found a sister-in-law sleeping on the floor of her living room, after two of the nieces had decided to be feisty, trying to go to bed in the unholy hours of the morning. At the very least, Mona was able to make her way around the kitchen. “Now what’s this about scandal, sweetie? We’re two good, honest women, aren’t we?” Her smile toward Frank took a little more mischief, as she herself realized that between arriving in Claresholm and then spending the night with Frank, she had perhaps needed the coffee more than she had initially considered.

Frank and Arthur looked at one another with arched eyebrows and knowing looks. “Mhm.” Frank said before turning his attention to breakfast. There was a sudden sound of bare feet thumping down the stairs and two sets of eyes peered down at Charlotte. “Mommy, there’s a woman at the table.” One of them piped in the high voice of a young boy. Amos, no doubt.

“That’s uncle Frank’s girlfriend.” Mona mumbled as she filled her coffee cup and laced it liberally with sugar.

“What’s a girlfriend?” The little girl beside him asked causing Frank to speak up. “It’s what mommies and daddies are before they get married, Sweetheart.”

“Ooooooh!” The Simms siblings said at once before coming down the stairs. Amos was tall for his four years, with a serious expression behind his dark eyes. He looked much like his father in his face though with his mother’s slim build. “My name is Amos.” The young boy said formally, holding out a little hand for Charlotte to shake.

“And I’m Holly!” The little girl said stepping close and smiling wildly. She had an exuberant energy and long, flowing brown hair. “You’re pretty!” She said with a giggle, reaching out to touch Charlotte’s hair.

Charlotte had taken a seat at the table next to Mona, when at last two of the three little ones had found their way to the kitchen. They rushed down to see the newcomer, and she smiled at both of them. Amos was indeed precocious both in his height and in his mannerisms, and she was glad to shake his hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Amos. My name is Charlotte. You’re a handsome little man, and you’re a pretty little lady.” She smiled cheerfully at Amos and then at Holly, who reminded her a little of herself at her age. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Holly.” She showed no reservations about the children coming around her. She looked over to Amos and nodded to him. “You have a good eye and a firm handshake. Two things my daddy always told me to have when meeting new people. You’re a smart boy, I can tell.” As for Holly, she simply giggled when the little girl started to play with her hair. “I have a niece who has hair just like yours. She likes for me to braid it, but it’s harder to braid curly hair sometimes.”

The little girl gasped, “Can we play braids today?! I’d love to play braids today!” Amos seemed to be mostly immune to flattery, only allowing himself the ghost of a smile before seeing how Frank was doing. “Fruncle, I’m hungry.”

The little boy said over the sound of frying bacon, eggs and potatoes.

“Yeah?” The Forceman said, looking over with a faint smile and ruffling his nephew’s hair. “Why don’t you get me an apple from the bowl and I’ll slice some up for you while I finish up here?”

“Kay.” Amos said with a nod, toddling off to do just that.

Meanwhile Mona was beginning to look more herself as the caffeine began to kick in. “So I suspect it’ll be me, you, and the kids this morning while Francis sees to the animals?” Frank made a grunting noise, presumably in affirmation. Mona herself nodded as if it had been.

“Great, so then you can tell me all about how you met and the sort of trouble my big brother has gotten up to in Chicago. He’s perfectly alright here, but the second he leaves he seems to find all sorts of trouble. I for one don’t believe this story about working in a tractor factory.”

Frank simply looked over his shoulder and gave Charlotte a very faint shake of his head.

“I’d love to braid your hair, sweetie,” Charlotte replied to Holly with a gentle smile at the little girl’s excitement. Amos did not seem as open to continuing to converse with her, moving instead toward Frank and running to fetch him an apple. She thought it was adorable, the way the little boy was so serious and yet so admiring of his uncle.

She looked over to Mona as she insinuated on their to-be conversation as well, and she smiled. Luckily, she was sitting at an angle to where she could see Frank as well, and she caught the shake of his head. Even more than that, she could see the nervous look in his eyes. As she had reminded herself of her father’s words the previous night, she recalled them now with the faintest of nods. Some things just did not need to come into a home.

“Oh it’s true! What, your brother looks very handsome working with heavy machinery. But he looks pleasant all the time.”

She jumped from doting over the children to twirling around the story Frank had made without skipping a beat, knowing that she had done the same herself in the past, as had her own father. Weaving stories around uncomfortable or questionable truths had almost become a pastime in the Bergman-Schultz household, if not a part of the job itself. And Charlotte could never forget that her poor sweet mother knew too much, and thus died begging for Chaim to protect them from “that life”.

“See, at home I’m a bartender. He got tired at work and so he came into my establishment one night. Looking very tired and…in need of someone to talk to.” She had to restrain herself from her usual manner of teasing, given the innocent ears in the room. Nevertheless, her eyes still twinkled as she spoke to Mona. “We talked about work, and what do you know, we found that we both found each other interesting company. He started coming around after work and well, we went from there and now we’re here.”

The way Mona narrowed her eyes made it very clear that she didn’t believe a word of what Charlotte was telling her. She was about to open her mouth and say so when Frank announced that breakfast was ready and began to pile things on plates for everyone to dish up from. There was a stack of empty plates with cutlery on the table already, so everyone just needed to grab a set and then go and fill their plates with whatever food they fancied.

Charlotte felt a little relief when Frank announced that the food was ready. Mona was a smart woman, she could tell by her eyes. No wonder both of her children were speaking so well, and were so aware. They were allowed to be small, and yet their intelligence was not to underestimate. Their mother could also see through a smokescreen, though the red-haired gambler wished that she wouldn’t. Only because she feared what might happen if she started to question her brother.

Luckily, the food was piping-hot and delicious, enough to melt her worries as she served herself. She continued to sit opposite Frank, only so she could catch his subtle cues if ever he had some sort of worry he needed to communicate. She winked at him as she sipped her coffee, reminding him gently that everything would be fine. She would make sure of it. “The food is delicious, sweetie. You’re quite the cook as usual.” She looked to Mona, and decided to extend a bit of an olive branch by adding to what gossip she could. “He did make me a roast when I visited him for a date. Very gentlemanly of him.”

This managed to soften Mona’s expression, if only a little bit. “Yes, he stepped up quite a lot when I was pregnant with Amos. Arthur here can’t cook all too well, so Frank did his best to learn. I’d say his best was good enough in this case.”

The children nodded enthusiastically, apparently their Fruncle being at the stove wasn’t such a bad thing. Arthur for his part looked bashful at the idea of not knowing how to cook, he struck Charlotte as doing many things either bashfully or jovially; this was not a man who frowned often.

“I like when Fruncle makes roast.” Amos said gravely as he inspected a strip of bacon and then put it in his fist and began to chew it.

“Fork, Amos.” Arthur chided gently, which got Amos to start using his cutlery properly. “So a bartender huh?“ Arthur said with a smile, “That must be an interesting job in Chicago, what with it having been Capone’s moonshine capital once upon a time. It must pay well too if you flew on out here.”

“Ah goodness. If my mother hadn’t fussed over me when I was a little girl, I wouldn’t have learned to cook at all. My brothers thought I was ridiculous. ‘She’s the girl, when’s she going to cook?’ is what my oldest brother would say. Then my father took over, and somehow I managed. I still think he’s the better cook than me, ” she answered about Frank. Turning to Arthur as well, she smirked. “And you still probably cook better than Abram, I’d be surprised if he managed to learn to boil water.”

Arthur turned the questions to her, and a famous name came into the conversation. Al Capone. A name her father would have rolled his eyes at. She had heard that his name was everywhere at one point, but he was hardly the biggest fish in the pond. Perhaps the loudest. Then again, her father found most glitzy mob-men to be a hard sell.

“You meet quite a lot of people, hear a lot of stories for sure. I’ve worked at it for over ten years. It’s good work for good pay, and I’ve saved my money well over the years.” She smiled back, this time telling the whole truth. Her own past was easy to swallow, if she did not get into certain small details. The neutrality she had fought for The Raven to have gave her that freedom. “And I’ve made quite a few good friends from it. And a boyfriend.” That part was true, as well. Of course, how was something only she could totally know the truth about. She sipped her coffee and chewed a little more of her potatoes.

“Still I mean…” Arthur shifted his fork about ineffectually in the air as if trying to use it to make a particular point, “It’s Chicago. Place like that has always seemed to me like it’s the wild Wild West. Hell, Mona near blew a gasket when she heard Frank was headed down there for work.”

“I can take care of myself.” Frank said as neutrally as he could from his part of the table.

“It doesn’t matter whether you can or can't, what matters is whether or not you co-.” Mona started to say before her husband cut her off.

“Like I said, she nearly blew a gasket over the whole thing. How’ve you managed for so long?”

“Me?” Charlotte inquired. She thought on the question a bit as she continued to eat. She swallowed her food well before she gave an answer. “I’ve kept a cool head for the most part. I’m good at business. My father raised me to not get anxious when other people start trying to take advantage of me, and when I started to work, I held onto that. Good intuition is something you have to have in a place like Chicago. But making good friends who care about you is the most important part. Like I said, a big city is no fun if you don’t have good friends.”

And indeed, she thought to Rozalin and Anselm. Even if Roz was unstable in love and Anselm was a worrywart, all three of them had come together to care for each other. Her good sense protected Roz, Rozalin’s kindness grounded her, and Anselm’s practical nature made sure that both of them stayed out of trouble. Most of the time. And then as Evie had entered the circle, she was the cheer and enthusiasm they had needed when all three of them had been nervous or glum.

“A cool head huh?” Arthur said thoughtfully, “Is that what you see in her Frank?”

Frank looked at his brother in law as if it was the stupidest question in the world. “Anyone with eyes in their head can see what I see in Charlotte. I don’t just mean her beauty either; she’s a wonderful woman, unafraid of most anything, and she works hard to get what she wants. She makes me feel like I matter; if there’s more to relationships then that then I’m not sure I care to know about them.” Frank said softly before standing up to scrape his plate clean and put his boots on. “I need to go feed the animals now. I’ll be back.”

“Right.” Said Arthur, “I should pack some food up and head into town.”

Mona had stepped upstairs to go and feed her youngest for a few minutes before bringing the babe back downstairs and stealing a kiss from her husband. “Love you.” She whispered softly.

“I love you more.” He grinned before smooching each of his children on their brows, waving at Charlotte, and walking out the door. Once his car had started and pulled out of the yard, Mona spoke.

“So… What’s my brother really been doing in Chicago then?” Her voice was low and edged hard even as she cradled baby Michael who squirmed and made little burbling noises against her shoulder. “And don’t tell me building tractors. My brother is decent enough with tools but Francis ain’t no factory man, and you know as well as I do that International Harvester doesn’t go looking for Canadian labour in an American plant.”

Charlotte could see the steel in Mona’s eyes. There was love for her brother, fear for his life, and anger that he had kept secrets. She could tell when Arthur had tried to soothe her at the table. Chances were that she could do very little to prevent what would come next. Yet she would try to at least respect the privacy of one and the intelligence of the other.

She clicked her nails on the table as she looked down at Michael. He was a beautiful baby, but his appearance did not soften Mona’s at all. “…No, he’s not a factory man,” she answered quietly, looking the woman in the eye with a calm gaze. She had faced Anselm’s terror, Carter’s threats, and Rozalin’s emotional outbursts, but a calm woman was the most frightening of all. “And you and I are both intelligent women. And strong. And I’m not saying that as flattery. I’m saying it because tough and intelligent women don’t like to be told ‘no’. I’ve been there myself.”

She sighed after she gave her preface. “There was some military work involved. I genuinely can’t say I know all of the details, and I imagine most of it is confidential. But I know that he was asked to come down to Chicago, because he was smart enough to handle some complicated situations. Not many people could handle Chicago the way he has. When it was all done, he was sent back here.”

In her body, she was calm, and she bet on her answer. Yet in her chest, she was shaking. Frank believed so strongly in her. She knew she had walked into a minefield, and she was determined to come from it strong. Yet she knew that no matter what she said, she had to find some way to soothe a fire. This was a family, and the last thing she wanted was to hurt her beloved’s family.

Mona was quiet, thoughtful, but with a small smouldering anger in her core. “Military work huh?” She said with a scoff. “Yeah I know the sort of military work the Americans had in mind? You think I can’t put two and two together with headlines like ‘Titaness Smashes Syndicates’ and my brother in town? Please. I’m not a fool.”

She gave Charlotte a dark look, “And I don’t believe that bit about you not knowing for a damn second. You know how many years we’ve all wondered what kind of woman would get Frank on the hook? One he’d be honest with, we all said. One he could explain his whole world to.”

Mona leaned back in her chair and patted her fussy infant on the back in an attempt to get the poor boy to belch. “Way I see it, you can keep selling me up the river like you’ve been doing, or you can put your big girl pants on and tell me to my face that you will not tell me what my brother’s business in Chicago was.”

“And I never said you were a fool, nor would I ever suggest it,” Charlotte answered, never losing her cool. Mona was not a North Side gangster who had tried to steal money from her, or that Marshall Evans fellow who had abused young Diane. No, she was still someone who deserved the truth, but Charlotte wondered how much more she could give.

“And Frank is the most honest man I’ve ever met. I love that in him. I love the quiet way he holds the world to his chest and ponders over things. And I know that has caused you anger, that he has pondered and has not said anything to you. But…”

She looked down at the table, and at her empty cup of coffee. She looked at Michael as he cried. Something told her she could not stop the flames from rising. She could feel the tension in her neck, as if it might strangle her. Yet she refused to back away from a flame.

“There were most definitely some small things he could not tell me, and that is not a lie. And only because there were some places where I could not follow him. However…I can tell you this. Frank fought with several dangerous people as a part of his work, though there’s something you should know about that.”

All in, as she had said many times in her life. All in, all in when she could have, should have run away.

“Most of anyone that went after Frank in Chicago was a coward. I can most certainly tell you that. There are many wicked and dangerous people in Chicago, but most of them are cowards and frauds, and several of them decided that they did not want him to know that they existed. I don’t know all of their names, because Frank didn’t know all of their names either, but I knew they existed. And Frank is not a coward, there’s not a frightened bone in his body. But snakes and rats hate nothing more than a fearless man. So they tried to go for him. These people were arrogant beyond measure, but without a modicum of wit. Obviously, he can fight for himself. But as you said, that’s not what was to be worried about.”

She looked away from Michael, turning her eyes directly to Mona. Lightning struck in her eyes, the way it had when she had watched it from The Raven. “But I found those cowards myself. I found them, and I made sure that Frank came home safely to you. To you, to a family that loves him. To your beautiful home. Yes, he fought against several people who wanted him dead, but he was never alone. Not even for a moment.”

Something in her voice changed when she spoke the last sentence. Her quiet steel sharpened, not at Mona, but at the shadows who had come for Frank. She could still see them, if her eyes looked hard enough into the past. She was not merely his lover, but his protector, his guardian, his confessor. She had it tattooed in her chest, in the passionate fire that rose to her eyes when she spoke his name.

Mona looked thoughtful and then worried as her eyes drifted off to the left, watching her children play in the living room with a wooden block set that had belonged to her and her brother when they were both young. “He got tangled up with that man, didn’t he? The one in the papers. Knight.”

She wasn’t expecting an answer but instead she held baby Michael closer in her arms, swaying her baby from side to side. “I never should have let him leave. I knew it was going to be something dangerous because that’s all he seems to get involved in; dangerous things.”

She looked at Charlotte then, the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “He says they might ask him back sometime, that him being sent back was a misunderstanding… It’s just going to be more danger if he goes back. And you’re going to let him do it too, aren’t you?”

Charlotte softened as she listened to Mona’s fear. Once again, Carter Knight had found his detestable way to somewhere he did not belong. To Claresholm, to a sacred space he could not begin to understand. She also looked toward the children. Frank had things Carter did not, and that made his work all the more dangerous. Carter had nothing to lose, Frank had everything.

She looked back to Mona, and she reached for her hand. Her own eyes had tears in them. All of the long nights she had spent awake, wondering. Fearful. Her nightmare of finding his body under the petals. She remained strong, but in her strength was warmth.

“Carter Knight is a bastard, a freak, and among the many cowards in Chicago. He lives in the sewer, he hides behind innocent girls, and he believes himself to be a man when he’s hardly a boy. He’s not even half the man your brother is.”

A tear fell down her cheek. “But unfortunately, I don’t have any control over where Frank goes. I came up here to see him, because I wanted to know his world, and what he loves here. And I would come back here as often as I could. If he asked me to, I would follow him back here every time.”

“You seem like a nice girl, Charlotte. Clearly you’ve got secrets and baggage, but you’re nice.” Mona said, wiping away a tear of her own. “But that’s not going to stop me from killing my brother when he comes back inside. Maybe it’s best if you put on some warmer clothes and have yourself a walk around the property or something… You may not want to hear what comes next.”

Charlotte nodded. She recalled some of the hardest fights she had with her own family, the fights her mother and father had. Yet they still had loved each other. She hoped that brother and sister would be fine afterward, but she knew that she could not change what was coming. She had done her best. She wiped her own tear away, and then one of Mona’s. “A walk outside sounds just fine. I’ve been wanting to see what this place looks like in the daytime.”

She stood, and looked over at the children playing. She would come back to visit later, but for now, she knew destiny stood in the way. She went upstairs to find her coat, scarf, gloves, and hat, and she came back downstairs. She gave a kind smile toward Mona, and then she walked outside, looking out toward the farm from the front porch as she closed the door behind her.

Frost left her lips, and she felt a tear frozen on her cheek. She tried to wipe it away, and then walked out into the snow.

[Segmentia]

March 12th, 1957
Bureau of Federal Law Enforcement Headquarters Building
Washington D.C.

It was early morning when Ruth Hawthorne arrived at the BFLE building, the large building a peak example of the Art Deco style. The new, large name placard basically had the paint still drying on it, that’s how recently, and quickly, it had been put up. It had been a hectic few months, but Ruth could say she was pretty happy with them looking back. After being offered the position of Director of the FBSS by Donovan and MacArthur she had been shocked. She hadn’t needed much time to think on it though, knowing it would be a major step forwards not just for herself, but for her own causes as well. So a few days after Donovan had left, and Frank had been deported though she had tried to get a letter to him, she had wrapped up her business in Chicago and headed to D.C. There she had been given the crash courses she would need, shadowing Donovan as he went about his job, and everything else.

The confirmation hearing had been tough but fairly standard, or so she had been told. She had been questioned and grilled pretty hard, but in the end she had been voted in. Of course there had been protests, even a few riots, mostly in the deep south, where the idea of an African-American being in charge of a Federal Agency obviously hadn’t sat well. MacArthur was having none of it though, and had sent in the Army. Not the National Guard, but the proper US Army. It had been an overstep for sure, but no one had really complained too loudly. After all, the US was still in a wave of organized crime violence, even with all the work Ruth and others had done to combat it.

She still remembered being properly sworn into her post, in the Oval Office no less, MacArthur and Eisenhower realizing it for the momentous occasion it was. Her parents had been there, and her four sisters, her sisters having much the same body features as Ruth, though less muscular. There had been pictures aplenty, reporters, the whole nine yards. The name change had been one of the first things she had suggested. The old name was too narrow, and too directed. The Federal Bureau of Silent Suppression? Sure, Silent crime and criminals were a problem, but its Federal mandate had been for all organized crime and more, not just that of the Silent variety, and for too long the FBSS had been blind to much that hadn’t involved Silents.

That had all been more or less a month and a half ago, and Ruth was really in the swing of things now. Like all agents, she had to adhere to the dress code. Although women's suits weren’t unheard of, most of them had come in the form of flashy cinema flicks, or suits otherwise not really meant for proper work. In this area Ruth had become a bit of a trailblazer it seemed, needing to have custom tailored business suits to comply with her own agency's dress code. She didn’t mind them at all, really, made of fine material and although business-like, they also accentuated her feminine figure.

Arriving at her office she greeted and chatted with her secretary, Ann, for several minutes as the woman brought her files and other things to sign off on. Ann was a Silent, her Mask turning her body into a liquid metal that she could control and meld to her will. It was honestly pretty amazing to see. Ruth was just shocked that Donovan had had a Silent secretary/bodyguard, the hypocrite.

“The last of your meetings is later today, with Agent Fant. You’ll be busy once you get back from Canada, nothing exceptionally important is expected to crop up, but if anything does happen Deputy Director Higgs is more than suited for the task.

Deputy Director Higgs, now there was an intimidating man. USMC veteran, fought all over the Pacific in some of the bloodiest battles in that theater of the Second World War. He was a massive man, almost as tall as Ruth, and built like a bull. Ruth had been worried that he would resign, or otherwise try to undermine her since she had, for all intents and purposes, stolen a job he was slated to have. But Higgs had admitted to her that he was actually thrilled not to be in charge. “Actually I should be thanking you, Director Hawthorne. With all this new shit going on? I might not get the bigger office, but at least I get to keep my weekends for the most part.” The man had said. And damn if he hadn’t been correct.


-Cowrite between Segmentia and Antimersia-

March 12th, 1957
Bureau of Federal Law Enforcement Headquarters Building, Washington D.C., Directors Office

The waiting room that formed the antechamber to the Directors office was, like most of the massive BFLE, a stunning display of Art Deco style. It was finely furnished with a few comfortable chairs, a coffee table, and a small coffee maker in one of the corners of the room. Agent Fant would likely notice that the coffee maker was a new addition. Director Donovan never had one there, even though his meetings would usually keep people sitting in the waiting room for up to an hour.

The secretary with the substantial womanly figure was still there, though she seemed quite a bit happier now. The sleek Silent mask sitting on her desk might have something to do with that. Silents hadn't exactly been encouraged to join the FBSS, but Donovan's secretary had been one. Secretary and bodyguard no doubt.

The door to the office opened and three senior agents walked out, nodding to Fant as they passed. And then Fants new boss appeared at the door.

"We'll meet again next week, let's hope the Mexican government is more helpful than we're thinking they will be." Ruth said to the departing agents, getting a chorus of mumbles along the lines of 'Yeah right' as they left. Then she looked at Fant and frowned. "You're early." She said, checking her wrist watch, but shrugged and motioned for him to follow.

Michael Fant had been on suspension for some time. He, along with Nolan England were convenient scapegoats for the public to latch onto in the wake of the mess at the Chicago Morgue a couple months earlier. In the end, Fant was more than pleased to only get an indefinite suspension rather than being fully fired. And he became hopeful for his future when he learned of Ruth Hawthorne's ascension to her new position. An ascension that surprised himself and many others throughout the Bureau. This hope became concerned worry when he suddenly got a call to meet the new Director in person. He made his way to D.C. and to the former FBSS, now BFLE headquarters, feeling almost out of place with all of the signs being changed to reflect the new name change. But he did his best to get comfortable, arriving nearly half an hour early for his scheduled meeting. Hoping that it would give a good impression.

"I've always believed fifteen minutes early is right on time, and on time is late, Director Hawthorne." Fant replied as he followed Ruth into her new office.

"Good old 'Hurry up and wait'." Ruth mused. Her office was large and in the same Art Deco style as the rest of the building, but she had made it a little brighter. There were a few potted plants, some paintings hanging on the walls, and all in all a more comfortable space, at least as far as the office of the director of a Federal bureau went. The desk was new as well, fairly larger than Donovans had been, but once Ruth sat behind it in her chair it seemed like a normal desk. It was sometimes hard to forget just how big Ruth Hawthorne was.

"Take a seat, Agent." Ruth said, gesturing to one of the chairs across from her as she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a leather-bound folder, setting it on the desk in front of her, but not opening it.

Fant marveled slightly at the sight of the office. The brass almost shimmering in the edges of the room. The massive desk at the center, and the equally statuesque woman sitting behind it. Fant silently wondered how Ruth even fit inside of some buildings. But he was more engrossed in being in the Director's office. Somewhere that usually only high level agents were privy to enter. He took his seat as instructed, unbuttoning his suit coat to sit comfortably. His toned form pressed tightly against the white dress shirt underneath. He tried his best to smile, remaining hopeful that this might be a conversation about reinstatement, rather than one of his firing.

"So, Chicago was quite the cluster-fuck, hm?" Ruth said, flipping open the folder. The question was rhetorical, since she had been there after all. "Agent England has been dismissed from the Agency, Donovan left that for me to sign off on the sneaky bastard." Ruth frowned, her eyes scanning over the papers in the folder.

"And then there was Carter Knights little display at the International Amphitheater, and right before I was sworn in." She sighed, sitting back in her chair and looking Fant directly in the eyes. "Do you have any guess as to why I had you come here, Agent Fant?" She asked.

"Yes Ma'am, Chicago has certainly been nothing short of a hot zone." Fant replied to her comments, speaking stiffly. He thought for a moment about what he should say. He knows that the likely two answers are either reinstatement and firing. But her words haven't really given him any inkling one way or the other. Lamenting about having to dismiss Agent England, yet still following through with it. Speaking about how Chicago is in a tumultuous state, and yet bringing him into her office. It all seemed contradictory. "I have a couple ideas, Director. But I have no clue which is the right one." he answered her.

Ruth favored Fant with an amused little grin. "So much for the vaunted investigative abilities of FBSS agents." She chuckled, and then flipped the folder and pushed it across the desk, allowing Fant to read it, though she beat him to the punch. "You're being reinstated, effective immediately. You are going back to Chicago, Agent Fant, and I'm putting you in charge of the Carter Knight case, and you'll report directly to me on it." She said, tone purely business like. "You'll find the authorizations to officially employ Rozalin Harkner as an informant, as well as authorization to do so to others, with my permission of course."

Fant's eyes nearly crossed hearing all of this, and then reading it right after in the papers inside of the folder. "I... have to be honest with you, Director Hawthorne. I thought reinstatement and firing were the only outcomes. I never would have guessed that being given the Carter Knight case was even on the table. Thank you, Ma'am." He replied, picking up the folder to read through it more carefully. He was a little wary of employing Harkner, considering how close she is to Knight himself. But he wasn't going to make his first act back as an agent, questioning the Director's decisions. Besides, Rozalin had been more than helpful both in the investigation as well as the fight against the Herald. Enough that his concerns over loyalties are minor at best.

"I'll get on the next flight out. But, if I may, Director, can I ask about Frank McArthur? I had heard that his deportation went through. I'm sure you're ahead of me on this but I hope you are at least considering allowing him to return."

"I'll be personally seeing Frank McArthur most likely tomorrow." Ruth replied. "Trust me, I'm as weary as you are about Harkner, and yes it showed on your face. But Frank acts as the bridge. She might not want to work with you or even me indirectly, but she'll work with Frank. If he agrees to come back, he'll officially be an advisor, you two seemed to work well together, and I expect that to happen again. I can't personally be out there hunting down Carter Knight anymore, Agent Fant, which is why you're getting the case and while I'm going to be bringing Frank back."

Ruth explained. "He had a little network in Chicago beyond just Harkner, and I expect you to make use of it. Frank knows how to follow orders, but he can be bullheaded, and will be especially after how he was treated. Take your time settling back in Chicago, and if you want to wait until Frank is back before speaking to Harkner, that's fine, but I expect results." Ruth fixed him with one more stern look, before she stood up and extended a hand. "Welcome back to the Bureau of Federal Law Enforcement, Senior special agent Fant."

Fant stood up to shake Ruth's hand. "Thank you very much Director Hawthorne. I will do everything in my power to get this done. I won't let you down." Fant's face practically beamed with a smile looking up at the taller woman while shaking her hand. He never thought he'd get a promotion after how everything went down. But here it is. He's going back to Chicago. And just like how he managed to work with the right people to take down the Herald, he will do the same to Carter Knight

-End of co-write-

After the meeting with newly promoted Special Agent Fant, Ruth would wrap up a little bit more paperwork, before leaving for the airport. The trip had already been arranged with the Canadian government, and when they arrived in Canada she was met by two agents. It was annoying but entirely understandable. They had a car waiting, though Ruth had brought her own driver, and after just a brief delay they were on their way to the McArthur farm.

–Co-write between Segmentia and Oblivion2–

March 13th, 1957
The McArthur Residence
Claresholm, Alberta, Canada

Spring was finally beginning to show its face in southern Alberta. Sunny weather brought the return of temperatures in the positives, which brought snow to begin melting now in earnest rather than the false spring of the chinook winds that occasionally blew through this part of the world.

Frank had the farmhouse to himself this afternoon as his brother in law Arthur had left this morning to go run his pharmacy in town and his sister had taken her children into town to run a few errands. That left Frank no company but the animals who were out in their fields stretching their legs for a while before they would need to be returned to the barns. The fields were still covered in snow so there was no grazing to be had.

He checked on them from time to time from the kitchen window from the table he sat at. He was reading when he heard the sound of a motor running along the laneway, and it wasn’t the Chevy pickup he’d let his sister borrow, or his brother in law’s four door ford.

“Someone else.” Frank murmured, getting up from the table and lighting a cigarette before taking the shotgun down from its place on the wall and loading in a handful of shells. Whoever they were, he wasn’t about to get bushwhacked by em.

Quickly he glanced upwards to the floor boards of where his bedroom would be. His mask was up there and it would afford Frank far more firepower than a simple firearm could. But he wanted his sister to have a house to come back to so he left it for the time being. Odds are he was just being paranoid, but a healthy amount of paranoia had kept him alive while undercover in Chicago. A little more wouldn’t hurt.

The car was a black Sedan and as it crunched up the gravel driveway and got closer Frank might be able to see the Canadian government license plate on the front. He would see two people sitting in the front, one of them wearing the red tunic of the RCMP, and the driver wearing a nice but indistinct business suit.

Ruth Hawthorne was not surprised by the Canadians having someone tag along with her to this meeting, but lifting her eyes and looking at the RCMP officer and then the officer sitting next to her, who hadn't identified just what branch of the Canadian government he worked for. She understood the game, hell honestly she was told that the Canadian government were secretly worried about her visit. She wondered why that was. Because she was the head of a major US Federal organization? Because she was a Silent, and quite the special one as well?

At least her driver was one of hers, a BFLW man. Lord, she kept wanting to spout off the old FBSS letters, she was far too used to them. Thankfully she hadn't made the slip up yet, it would be a bit humiliating to forget the new name that she had personally asked for.

The sedan came to a stop at the farm house, the two Canadian officers exiting first. And then Ruth exited, standing tall as she usually did. She turned towards the house and saw Frank there, a shotgun resting in the crook of one arm.

"Hey Frank." She greeted him rather casually as she walked around the car.

Frank frowned, the sight of the government delegation was larger than he had expected to receive. Ruth too was a wild card he hadn’t prepared for in the slightest. Was someone worried he wouldn’t cooperate?

He glanced from the Mountie, to the spook and then back to Ruth. Yes, that was exactly the worry. “Hello Ruth, you look good. Though if you were hoping to take me out for dinner in your fancy suit, I’m afraid your a few months too late. I’m spoken for these days.”

His lip curled up at the dry joke, but his eyes remained hard and unamused. “Did Donovan send you up here for me? Decided he’d like his messes cleaned up after all?”

Ruth laughed. Genuinely laughed. She had been told she had a nice laugh and that she should laugh more, and now she was. It died down after a few seconds. "A bit out of the loop there, Frank?" Ruth said, walking towards the porch, stopping at where the few steps lead up on to it. She put her hands on her hips and grinned wide.

"Donovan retired about a month and a half ago." She said, "The new director wanted someone to come up here and talk with you."

Frank took a moment and lit a cigarette, taking a long drag as he eyed Ruth speculatively, “Well I guess it couldn’t be worse, so long as it isn’t Patton anyway.”

He gestured with the shotgun. “You want to come on up then and have something to drink? I’m afraid your government friends will have to stay outside, my sister and her kids live here and I would rather not upset her more than I need to.”

The words were said in a polite tone, but it was very clear that Frank wasn’t requesting that the Mountie and suits stay outside; it was very much a condition of Ruth entering his house and attempting to convince him to come back to Chicago.

Ruth was still grinning as she cleared the steps up with a single step. "No, it's not Patton." She said still grinning. "She figured she would come here and talk to you herself." She wondered if Frank was awake enough to have caught it, hell she was still surprised he hadn't heard about it even here. Sure he wasn't in the US, but it had been big news.

Frank blinked twice, paused, and then blinked again. “Oh holy shit.” He paused and the shotgun’s barrel slid to point at the porch planking down at his feet, that’s how surprising the news was. “Oh holy shit.” He said again. “It’s you? You’re the new FBSS head?”

He let out a low whistle. “What a rum old world this is now, huh?” He allowed himself a genuine smile now. “Well now you have to come in so I can shake your hand and get you a proper celebratory drink, even if it is a month and change late.”

He gestured with a cigarette laden hand, “The lads still stay out though.”

"Mmmhm." Ruth grinned. "Though it's called the Bureau of Federal Law Enforcement now. And it sure is, I even got a letter from Stalin." She laughed again, gesturing for Frank to lead the way. "My guy always stays with the car, the other two aren't really mine." She turned and shrugged at the frowning Canadian agents. They clearly didn't like being out of earshot of what might be said, but they didn't have a warrant to trespass into Frank's home.

"I'll take that drink though, even if it is a bit late. Remind me to send you a bottle of the Popes stuff that I got."

“You got it.” Frank said, holding the door open for Ruth and ushering her inside. Before heading inside himself he took a long drag on his cigarette and flicked it off the edge of the porch towards the government agents. The message was clear; you’re not welcome here.

Stepping inside, Frank set the shotgun up on the hooks on the wall for it before gesturing for Ruth to have a seat at the vast kitchen table that dominated the dining room. It looked like it could comfortably seat a dozen or more but only five chairs were pulled out for it at the moment.

“Scotch is about the nicest stuff I have about now.” Frank said as he grabbed a pair of the fine tumblers from his mother’s crystal collection and poured two fingers for each of them. He handed Ruth her glass and raised his own in toast. “To your promotion, director Hawthorne.” He said her title with particular relish before having himself a long sip of his scotch and setting the glass down on the table. “About time one of our lot made it big.”

"One of us that wasn't Paperclipped, anyway." Ruth mused as she sat down and took the glass, raising it up. She downed it in one go, but she was sure to enjoy it for a few moments before swallowing. She set the glass down. "Thanks, Frank." She smiled at him. He knew something was up, she was sure. She wouldn't have come all this way just to give him news and have a few drinks with him, especially not as the head of a Federal Agency, and certainly not with two Canadian agents tagging along.

"So, want me to cut to the chase, or do you want to ease into that?" She asked.

“It’s your show.” Frank said with a shrug, sitting down across from her. “Your the one with government sanction after all, so you do it the way you want and because it’s you I’ll give you the time of day that you deserve.”

Ruth raised a brow at him. "I'm sitting under your roof, drinking your Scotch, Frank, that makes it your show." But she shrugged.

"I want you to come back and work the Knight case." She started, holding up a hand to wave off any instant reactions. "You'll have official sanction as an advisor, and you'd be working with Special Agent Fant again, who in turn has official capacity to make that rag-tag group you assembled into official informants and such. I'm asking you to do this because I can't just dedicate all my attention to Carter Knight now, I can't be in Chicago just waiting around for him to show up, and I would like someone I know I can trust to at the very least be there." She said, simple and to the point.

"Also, just no more explosives." She said, cracking a small grin.

Frank held off his initial objections and thoughts, instead chewing over what she had to say. Fant was a good guy, maybe a little overeager but he knew when to bend a rule or two to accomplish a proper result.

By the sounds of it though, Ruth wanted a lid kept on the situation. Frank downed the rest of his scotch, assuming the soldiering aspects of his personality again. “Yeah, and Blue Bolt ain’t exactly subtle either. Let’s call a spade a shovel here Ruth; if you want me back in Chicago it’s because you know you’re going to need a heavy hitter. Problem with that is this Knight thing is a lot more complex than either of us realized when we jumped on board. What with that Herald thing? It’s only going to get more and more strange as time goes on, and we both know how little the US Government likes strange. Things -will- boil over, Ruth. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

"It's my job to be ready for that." Ruth stated simply. "I'm also not asking for Blue Bolt, I'm asking for Frank McArthur. I'm sure the Mask might be needed at one point or other, but if I just needed a heavy hitter Silent I could call upon a dozen other people. And yes, its complex and strange, but that's why I need a team working on it. You and Roz were in it pretty deep from what I recall, and I don't see Roz being fully willing to work with just Special Agent Fant on this. She trusts you, and I trust you. I trust Fant as well but I'd rather have too many people on a problem instead of too few."

Frank sucked his teeth thoughtfully at that. It wasn’t firepower that Ruth needed, but Frank. His connections and his ability to bring people together and lead. “I’d need certain guarantees.” Frank said at last. “My sister is going to kill me if I go back to Chicago, so for starters you’re going to have to increase my rate. I’d like all of the things FBSS confiscated when they deported me back too; if you can’t get the unregistered weapons back that’s fine, it’s not a deal breaker. I’d need a new apartment; anything left of the mob probably knows where I was staying by now, so I can’t go back there.”

He paused before adding his final two things, “I also need to know I can call you and have you weigh in on any disagreements I may have with Fant. I don’t expect many, or any at all really, but I’m not coming back and wearing the leash again Ruth, not even for you. Finally, I need to know that if the shit does hit the fan and we have to escalate, I won’t be hung out to dry again. The US Government is only getting a second chance from me because you’re here asking, they will not be getting a third.”

"The weapons will be a no-go, but through Fant you'll have access to weapons." Ruth said, mulling it over. "I can grant all that, but I want a guarantee of my own. You don't use your mask unless it is absolutely a last resort. I know what you can do with it, and I'm not going to have that in the middle of a major US city. Fant has more details but your primary job would be, for now, investigation. Fant has already been told to call me directly when and if he's going to move on Knight, because I sure as hell will be there for it." Ruth said.

“Then get me a new M1911.” Frank countered back. “The herald turned mine into rusty thorns, tried to take my goddamn hand off with it.” He raised his hand and showed her the scars where he’d sealed the wound closed with his power.

“You get me a new handgun that’s all mine, and I’ll play ball by those rules.”

"Deal." Ruth said, reaching her hand across the table for a handshake. There would be some official documents to sign eventually, once he reached Fant, but to Ruth a handshake was as binding as any piece of paper or legal agreement ever was.

Frank, being a western gentleman himself, would agree with the binding nature of the handshake. It was a persons’ bond, and the fate of much of the west had been decided on similar deals and similar handshakes.

He reached over and squeezed Ruth’s hand firmly, he wasn’t ashamed to say she was stronger than he was. Not anymore. Ruth had changed his life for the better all those years ago, he could only hope she wouldn’t get him into a situation where it would end too quickly either.

“Tell Fant that I’ll be a few days getting my affairs in order here. I’ll have to hire some more hands in town to take over for me. Mollify my sister and the kids. Just tell him not to tell the crew I’m coming down, I think I deserve to surprise them for once.”

Ruth nodded as she stood up. "Sure thing. And hey, being an advisor comes with time off, you know. Might help to mollify your sister a bit." She said, "I hate to come all this way for such a quick chat and dash, but your government is about as keen on me as my government is about you." She chuckled. It was to be expected, of course, and she didn't mind much.

"Remind me later to invite you down to my house one day, now that I've come to visit you in your frozen hellscape, you can come down South and visit me some time." She said, as they walked to the door.

“Probably best if you do anyway.” Frank admits as he got to his feet too. “If Mona saw you and the government boys here for me, she’d want to shake your hand and then break your jaw. I will however take you up on a visit south.” He opened the door for Ruth, “I’ve an especial fondness for New Orleans and I could always make a side trip down that way after Gumbo at your place. Presuming of course the Director still cooks her own meals.”

"If you ever do come and visit, I'm pretty sure my ma would be the one cooking, which is a hell of a lot better than mine." Ruth said, walking down the steps. "I'll let Fant know to expect you and to keep his mouth shut about it. Hopefully all this nonsense can be sorted out before long. but well." Ruth just shrugged. Nothing was turning out to be quite that easy.

She made her way back around and got back into the Sedan, and a minute later it was driving away down the gravel driveway.

Frank settled back onto the porch and waved sardonically at the Mounties and then respectfully at Ruth. He watched them all travel back up the laneway and out onto the highway. When they were gone Frank sighed and cursed lowly, “Fuck.”

How was he going to explain this to Mona?

–End co-write–

[Luminesa]

Break the Frost

Rozalin - Day
March 13th, 1957, 2 PM
Mercy Hospital, Near the Loop

“Glad to finally have the cast off?”

Rozalin looked over at Bernice as she sat on the hospital bed. The young nurse smiled brightly at her, checking her over as she got up from the bed and walked on her foot. She had been walking more and more as she had spent time recovering from her injuries, and by this point she felt as comfortable as she had ever felt while walking around. She turned to Bernice and grinned. “Feels absolutely wonderful.”

“Great, now how are we going to keep you in the house?” Anselm questioned, though with a bit of a smirk as he saw how relieved she was.

“You weren’t keeping me in the house all the time before.” Indeed, Rozalin had to pay her bills, though she still had investigative work to support. Two weeks of staying in the house had also made her slightly stir-crazy, and she could only read through so many textbooks before her head exploded. She had thus managed to make her return to The Raven during the second week of February, after Charlotte had returned from Canada.

“And now we’re going to have to double-lock your doors,” her tall and bulky friend complained.

Roz almost looked a little indignant. “I promised you two I was not going to misbehave, and I haven’t!”

“That’s right, and business has been better with her back around,” Charlotte gave Roz a big smirk, “I’d say for everyone involved.”

The raven-haired woman had to agree. She may have not been an Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughn, but when she came back to The Raven, her usual crowd had missed her. Even if some of them had looked a little concerned to see her ankle cast, nobody asked questions and nobody would have gotten answers anyhow. She was quite relieved to just be singing and performing again. And Charlotte had raised her a glass as she had finished her first performance.

So everyone managed to get a taste of normalcy once again, but for Rozalin this time was different. The first time Carter had vanished had been tense. Questions of when he would appear still played in everyone’s minds, but outside of Frank and outside of finding Georgie again, Roz had socially isolated herself for much of that first “break”. Now she had all of her friends around her, including Bernice but excluding Frank.

His not being around still stung. Anselm and Charlotte were her closest friends, and Evie and Bernice managed to come around often enough to make her laugh and to bond more closely. Georgie had visited as well, and he still gave her butterflies as she built their little relationship.

Yet none of them were Silents. None of them understood entirely the way that she felt an aching need for more power, more knowledge, more…something, when she wore her mask and trained. She felt she was missing something, that she was not paying attention to something in her training. And even if she could tell her friends, everyone was guessing at how to help her or what worked to train with a Silent.

Even so, their guesses were decent. Her ability to track heartbeats and to connect them to certain people was improving. She had heard Anselm’s heartbeat outside, and Charlotte’s heartbeat as she arrived in her apartment one morning. Evie had decided to stand across the street one day to test how far she could extend her powers, and Rozalin could almost determine her out of a group of people. That test had gotten a couple of odd looks at the short woman standing on the street corner.

“Hey! Take a picture, it’ll last longer!”

Rozalin had snickered so hard that she had to sit down. The man who had taken a second look at Evie had skittered down the road the moment she had fussed at him.

Anselm, who had been standing in the house during the incident, had looked out the window at Evie crossing her arms. Roz could hear his heartbeat louder than Evie’s, and they formed an odd harmony of loud and soft in her ears. “If she and Charlotte were both out there they would have laughed at him.”

“You mean like I’m doing? Did you see him? He ran like she threw water on him.” She then looked back out, and as Evie crossed the street with her head high, she smiled. “Would have been funny if she had thrown water on him.”

Most of all, spring had finally arrived in Chicago. Flower-trees were blooming. Birds chirped their happier greetings outside the windows, and people shed a layer or two of clothing when walking outdoors. A pleasant chill floated off Lake Michigan, and even Carter’s attack on the amphitheatre seemed to drift out of the minds of many. Those who had seen the attack, of course, would not forget what had happened. Yet after a long, cold, stuffy winter, spring seemed to bring a second wind for Chicago after yet another gut-punch. No small part thanks to Ruth Hawthorne, of course, who now headed the FBLE and who was making moves to keep Carter as the painful shadow that he was. And Roz and her friends, and their secret schemes, would also make sure that no movement or hint went untracked and unnoted.

For everyone, it was a group effort which pulled them closer together, even despite distance. For Rozalin, it was more than a personal goal. It was vindication.

[Antimersia]

March 17th, 1957
11:35pm
A seemingly abandoned warehouse
The Docks

Even in a bright city like Chicago, there can be dark spots. The Docks are a prime example. Few if any street lights, no cars, hell the most light you might get in your immediate vicinity is from a lit cigarette of some dock worker headed home for the night. The dockyards and warehouses are pitch black. The alleys, somehow seem even darker than that. Yet tonight is slightly different. A bright orange-red light hovers through the street. Illuminating two figures as they make their way long the side walk, seemingly looking for something specific. The glowing light is coming from the taller of the two figures, a man in a black oni mask. He is wearing a dark blue suit with a powder blue collared shirt underneath. The heels of his leather shoes tap against the concrete. Beside him, skipping playfully, is a young lady over a foot shorter than the man. Her head is covered in bandage wrappings, with only two stark white twin tails poking out. She is wearing a peculiar outfit for the day, a pink, long sleeved, dress that ends in frills just above her knees. As well as a black tank top over top the dress. Her shoes a blood red flats that clack on the sidewalk with each skip.

Carter and Null walk together through the street. Carter's hand starting to feel the inklings of pain from the flame he ignited over his hand to lead their way through. The pair avoid being seen. Null's identity is mostly unknown, but few are unaware of what Carter Knight's mask looks like. They come upon their destination. If their information wasn't accurate, the slew of birds on the rooftop would be more than enough proof for them that they found the right place.

"Momma'd tell mah brothers stories 'bout druids, ya know. Animal talkin' folk. She always said nevuh trust 'em. Dem that talk to the croc, act like the croc." Null said telepathically, her accent pervasive and her irreverence palpable. She practically dances as she spoke.

"Don't concern yourself with it. Your mother was likely right. But this one talks to birds. And like her birds, she is a scavenger. Not a predator." Carter replied, the soothing voice of Loretta filling Null's mind.

"Ya'll sure that she ain't gonna mess wit our heads?" She asked as the pair approached a plain, bare wall in the alley beside the warehouse.

"She hasn't shown any signs of having such an ability. Although we would be smart to act with caution regardless." Carter replied, his voice shifting to that of Donovan Lance. Carter places his hand on the wall and is about to change it when a rats squeaks loudly and begins to run past. A clotted string of blood springs forth from Null's palm and wraps around the rat tightly. Getting more and more tight until the bones and organs of the poor creature are crushed to pieces. The blood retracts to Null's hand, bringing the rat's corpse up with it. She holds the almost liquidous body in her palm, listfully rocking it back and forth, feeling the blood slosh inside of it.

"I ain't nevuh played wit rat blood before. Ya'll think it's much different from ours, Catawump?" Null asked, using the affectionate though insulting nickname she created for Carter.

"Its warm blooded and a mammal. The only difference I'd imagine would be the diseases in it." He replied. His hand had begun its work, turning the walk before him into a large stained oak door. Carter turned the newly created brass door knob and pushed it open, gesturing for Null to go in first in a gentlemanly manner.

"Why thank ya." She telepathically said enthusiastically. She scratched open scabs along both arms, letting blood flow and shaping it into two scythe like blades, taking clotted shape out of the sides of her forearms. Readying herself for a potential fight as she stepped in. Carter stepping in right behind her as they enter, looking for the young lady they hoped to commune with this evening, Rue.

Rue, late into the night, is still working. Cases she has been paid to work on need to at least be documented and kept. The clacks of a typewritter in her hidden room is the only sound that could be heard. There is one massive raven bird upon her lap, twice the size of a normal corvid, who is fast asleep. There is also three more ravens in the room with her as her guards, ready to inform him of anything that is happening. The mysterious rose that she got from the Herald is in the room as well, carefully enshrined within a vase beside stacked documents of spied information.

The Silent woman stretches her arms and back, cracks of joints echoing as she sighs. Her work is near over. She was about to continue typing when she hears the sound of her birds squacking outside, in the main storage area of her warehouse lair. As Carter and Null broke into the abandoned building, they were quickly spotted by the ravens and pigeons in the rafters who started making noises. Rue immediately took out her Mask from her pockets, and armed herself with a gun just in case. Her eyes flash, and her consciousness spreads through her legion. There she sees Carter and his new cult kid barging in her sanctum with not much of an invitation or warning. She frowns as she exits, and the birds come to silence as she does.

All of them focus their attention to Carter and Null, like silent gargoyles perched upon church roofs watching sinners come and by. Rue does not reveal herseld immediately, however, but she projects her telepathic voice towards the two. The ravens open their beaks, and her voice spills out of them as she commands them to mimic her speech. "Hello there, good friends. It's such a late visit. I assume this is for business?" Rue asks them as she hides behind crates and boxes, trying to gauge if her visitors have any evil intentions towards her.

"Talkin birds? That's funny as all heck. Can ya'll do other stuff?" Nulls asks playfully.

"Business is one way to put it." Carter replies, choosing not to engage with Null's exuberance, his telepathic voice sounding like a cacophony people speaking at once. As if, in a rare moment, the minds behind Carter have found a shared focus. "You were not an easy person to find. Although, I presume that is by design. I must applaud you in your efforts. Thirty former informants for the organizations of the Hand had to die before I was even given the vague location of the docks."

"Yes'm. And I tell ya, we made those boys sca-ream. That rat lookin' fence was a good 'ole time. He begged for his mama. It was a HOOT." Null interjected.

"Please excuse my enthusiastic companion. She gets a little excitable whenever she puts on her mask. I was hoping to offer you a deal. Something of an, exclusivity agreement." Carter said, with a propositioning gesture.

"...Shut up kid. Let the grown ups talk." One of the birds make a clicking sound as Null runs her mouth off as she speaks of good old torture. She has spotted the hidden weapons on her person, and the dead rat that she still holds. She doesn't mind if her customers come bearing arms, but her mocking tone, the rat she killed, and her threatening tone (even if not made consciously) got to her nerves.

"First and foremost, I don't know what to feel after hearing that you killed a couple informants. Some of those are enemies, some "friends" and contacts that are useful." One group of birds squack to the right in response. "But less people in the market, the better for me." Rue leans against the large cargoes and boxes within the warehouse as she thinks. "...So, Mister Carter Knight, it seems that you've come to me for my services. What do you want, Mister Hero?"

Null pouts under her mask. Though no one would be able to tell visually. The bandages covering up almost her entire face. She sways in place, waiting and saying nothing so Carter can speak with Rue. She wants to chew Rue out. And do likely a lot more for insulting her like that. But she knows that would be bad for Carter's, and by extension her goals. So she behaves, for now.

"Things are going to be heating up in the coming weeks. Now that definitive proof of the other side of the veil is out there, and that the dangers of it have been made public. At least to a degree. I am finally ready to show the world the path to freedom that I sought out from the beginning. Freedom can only come from knowledge. And they now know that their leaders, their friends and family, have been lying. Lying to the public and one another in order to protect secrets that they have no right to keep. And I am going to make my moves. Tear this industrial society down bring by brick. And break the chains of society that are wrapped around the ankles of the people. And then, when my vision is realized, I will break them from the chains and fears from the Veil as well. So you ask what I want, birdkeeper? I want allies. I want people on my side that will aid me in this future. Something Rozalin and those others have taught me. People need friends, if they ever hope to accomplish their goals. So tell me, will you join us?" Carter asks, his voices converging again, sounding righteous and determined.

"I don't fight for justice Carter. Let us all be honest. There is no utopia and no true freedom. One way or another humans will try to chain each other in one capacity or so. You want to break society, Carter? You want to create a new world order... with you and your cronies at the top, is that it?" The crows at the rafters guffaw and laugh, but their tone is more self deprecating and in amusement. In Rue's mind, it was humanity that failed her. In their hunger for power and war, they left those at the bottom to starve and scrape for the crumbs left at their wake.

With or without society, humans are the most cruel animals of all. In the company of her friends, Rue found simple honesty. Her friends simply wanted companionship, safety, and food. Even if there is competition, the group dynamic of helping the lesser and mourning the dying is in view. Humans, in their pride for their height at the top of the food chain, are more vile than their lessers.

And so... Rue learned to play the game. The only way for salvation is to oppress, and the ladder continues to climb eternally. Carter is blind and too idealistic to think that he won't be another chain and oppressor in his new world where he is the power atop the pyramid. "You know that I only fight for myself... For my self gain. I know that you've told me that money is worthless to you... but to me it is everything. Every action, every moment, everything has its price. What will you pay me to be your ally in your new age, Carter Knight?"

"You misunderstand birdkeeper. The last thing in this world that I want to be, is in charge. I'm just a sword clearing the brush so the people can pass through freely. But, if money is the only thing that drive you, well, I can certainly acquiesce to such a request." Carter says, beginning to look around for a good wide open space in the cluttered warehouse. He places his hand on the ground, and the concrete and dirt below his feet begin to swirl and reshape. The color changes, the matter rises, and takes a new form. In a matter of just under two minutes, sitting on the ground where the concrete used to be, is now a large pallet filled up high with gold bars. Each one being pure one hundred percent gold. A rough count would guess that two hundred bars lay on the pallet all in all. "Is this sufficient? It may not be as shiny as you might like. But sadly, pure gold doesn't shine unless polished." Carter says bemusingly.

A loud cacophony echoes in the warehouse as every single crow cackles in glee. The sound of a person's clapping mixes with their delighted as they see a cloaked figure slip out of the shadows, a petite form that reveals nothing but an ivory mask and grey soulless eyes. "...We have a deal, Mister Carter. If you shall be the sword that reaps the tall grass, then I will be your all-seeing eye. It is a pleasure to be in your employ."

"Hooray!" Null exclaims. Her clotted blood scythes retracting into her many arms wounds suddenly as she relaxes her guard.

"Splendid. I hope this shall by your exclusivity as well. I'd prefer your knowledge not aid anyone else in the short term. Although if you require more simply let me know. I said money is valueless to me for a reason. Two minutes to provide more than most could earn in a lifetime. Sometimes I wonder if I should just flood the economy. Let the system tear itself down. But that would take far too long, and cause far too much suffering. Is it not better to kill a few hundred for the freedom of thousands, rather than starve thousands until they take the freedom for themselves?" Carter replied, almost unable to stop himself from speaking. With so many minds in his head at once, stopping himself from rants through his telepathy grows increasingly more difficult by the day. "But I do have need of information at this moment. In the wake of the morgue incident, I have heard that the mayor of Chicago has gone... underground. He hasn't made a public appearance in weeks. Do find him for me. I wish to have a chat."

"...The mayor you say? I will be finding him soon." They see shifting in the darkness of the warehouse, little critters moving like an army. The Silent woman before them moves towards the pair, but her attention is at the stack of gold on the ground. Two hundred bars of gold, right in front of her. She kneels down and embraces the pile of gold, running her fingers against the golden bricks.

Ravens fly down towards her, and they settle on her shoulders and on the gold. Like master like pets, it seems, or is it the other way around? Carter and Null sees that the woman is enchanted by gold and wealth, or at least has the mentality of a dragon towards it. It isn't about earning and spending and having a good life. It's about having, and having, and having, and never to be deprived of such a pleasure. "...I will find him. Don't worry." Grey eyes flicker back to the two, fearless ones that seem to say that she is not afraid if they would betray her at this very moment.

"very good. We shall be on the move. Its dangerous to stay in one location for too long these days. but I'm sure you'll be able to find me and let me know when you've found him." Carter replies, sounding pleased with himself. "Come along, Niella. Let's leave the young lady to her riches."

"I told ya to call me Null!" Null replies angrily as she follow Carter back out of the warehouse. The pair, disappearing into the night.

[Luminesa]

Thirty Curses and a Rose

The Party - Day
March 18th, 1957, 9 AM
Charlotte’s Apartment, Near South Loop

Even as the spring air brought warmth and refreshment from the winter, so Carter’s actions slowly began to boil under the surface once again. Of course, nobody at the moment had definitive proof that he was behind a string of murders once again. Yet over the course of the week, and perhaps a little longer, a steady string of murders began to rear their ugly heads in the newspaper.

Rozalin as usual collected the papers as the murders began to show a pattern. At least in the double digits now, she highlighted the names as the news on the TV spoke about more deaths. Even if she was barely awake from a night of performing again, her heart pounded with worry.

“Most of them are slightly-older men, and most of them were killed in a rather gruesome manner…” Charlotte murmured, as she sat on the couch and frowned at the TV.

“You know any of their names?” Anselm looked over to her as he brought breakfast-pancakes-and he stood staring at the TV. He had a new apron, a gift for his birthday a few weeks ago. Even if it was robin’s egg blue and covered in white daisies, he still looked quite serious with his hands on his hips while he stared at the TV.

Charlotte looked up at him. “I probably would if I sat down with the list.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Roz chimed from her spot on the couch. She had her knees pulled up almost parallel with her chest, in order to support her notebook.

“A few of them look like associates…I’ve seen a few of them around, but I’ve never talked to most of them,” the redhead murmured.

“So the Hand is making a comeback?” Anselm questioned.

“No.” Her hazel eyes turned up to him. “No, because they’re not all part of one gang.”

“So it could be a gang war? An all-out for survival?”

“Not when they’ve all died in the strange ways they have,” Rozalin murmured, as she highlighted and added more names to a list. “They all bled-out or had deep gashes all over…”

Anselm raised his eyebrows, as the news seemed to also discuss the events. “Someone decided to kill people with knives or swords?”

“Knives is a lot more likely than swords,” Roz suggested.

“Knives or broken glass,” Charlotte agreed.

Of course, as the numbers increased, Rozalin’s eyebrows furrowed closer together. Her quiet writing ate another twenty minutes, while she intermittently ate bites of Anselm’s pancakes. After a few more minutes, she shook her head, before she turned to Charlotte and Anselm. “Almost thirty people.”

“Thirty?!” the latter’s eyebrows rose into his hair.

“Mhm. Same number as at the bank.” Roz’s tone was grave and dark.

Charlotte looked away from the TV and down toward her coffee cup. Of course Carter might be after gang associates, he hated them. When he was not controlling Dillinger’s men, anyway. But if he was behind the murders, then he was not just after this many people for being gang associates or even actual gangsters. No. This trail had some sort of a purpose. “Rozalin, can you make a map of the locations where all the men died?”

“Sure, but it’s going to be all over town. Just need a map of Chicago and a pen, though.” When Charlotte went and found both, Roz set to work.

“Keep in mind, he’s got someone else with him now. That little girl. They could be doing the killing together or apart,” Roz suggested.

“The girl from the concert?!” Anselm questioned.

Roz nodded and looked up at him. “If she did go with him and is a Silent, I don’t have a good feeling about what he might ask her to do to others…” She tapped the pen against her chin, and she looked back toward the others.

“But what I don’t understand is what all this has to do with his whole thing about the ‘Veil’,” Anselm questioned, “he made a huge speech about it, and about that…dog? Thing? And then left it on stage? And now he’s killing random associates?”

“The murders has nothing to do with it,” Rozalin muttered, “because chances are that when he didn’t get much support for that angle at the concert, he decided to swing back to his normal tactics.”

“…It’s an incredibly stupid venture either way,” Charlotte piped-in, “to kill thirty more people who have little or nothing to do with your goals? To turn away from the threat that is supposed going to attack our…world, country, state, or city?”

Roz nodded, and then rolled her eyes. “His whole thing about…wanting to destroy industrial civilization.”

“And yet here’s a possible world-ending threat and he’s not focusing on it?” Anselm asked.

“Well they’re also after him, so maybe it’s more complicated than he’s made it to be,” Charlotte answered.

The raven-haired woman shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure about that. The Herald wanted him, but also wanted to fight us. But this is definitely something that is out of his control. Either way…” She clicked and un-clicked her pen. Very little of the events made sense to her with Carter as the possible suspect. Yet the Veil remained, and oddly made sense to her. Something about what waited would pull the picture together. After they now knew about Diane, after they now knew Carter’s corkboard of plans, and even if they did not know in which order he would try to fulfill those plans, they could understand that certain things and places were targets sitting and waiting.

And as with all things, the upper hand lie in reaching the things and the places that he could not.

“We need to get to the rose that the FBLE has…and possibly that Disciple he dragged onto the stage,” Roz suggested.

Charlotte nodded, and while Anselm looked worried, at this point he could not put the brakes on this ride. He was along with it, whether it led through Chicago or another world. “Well, Ruth runs the FBLE now, maybe she’d be willing to let you study it?” the red-haired woman inquired.

“Maybe…” Roz did not quite trust herself with such things related to the Disciples, after she could not trust herself with the Herald’s thorn. More experiments, less rage. She had to focus, to make it her priority. If Frank had been free, he would have raked her over the coals for her irresponsibility with the thorn. Now she had another chance to learn about another otherworldly specimen…and she had one chance to take the lead over Carter once again.

[Antimersia]

March 18th, 1957
Early morning
A defunct Outfit wetroom
Somewhere in center city Chicago

Nights are often long for Carter. He sleeps when he can, but his sleep is rarely peaceful. Even in the most comfortable of locations. An abandoned mob wetroom is not the more comfortable of places. The blood stains on the floor, and walls. The large metal meat hooks, hanging from the ceiling. The metal tables, covered with rusted iron stains. All combine to post an unpleasant picture. As freely as Carter kills, one wouldn’t take him for squeamish. But he has never hidden than murder is not his goal nor his preference. Such things make him greatly uncomfortable. But when you have to maintain secrecy, as well as now provide for the housing of another, one tends to make due to the best of their ability.

Null meanwhile, was clearly unaffected by these sights. She sleeps so soundly that she snores. Loud enough that Carter had actually been rather thankful for the soundproofing that the wetroom already had installed. He stands from his bed, one of a pair of identical ones that he created from other furniture that was already in the room, and looks up at the lone high up window to see the beams of light starting to shine through. With the morning come, another sleepless night passes. He gathers his things and heads out of the building, heading down the street to get some breakfast to bring back for himself and Null to enjoy. The diner just over a block away is kind enough to package some meals for him. He gets himself a simple order of eggs and bacon. But for Null, he gets a full meal with eggs, sausage, and pancakes. Food in hand he returns to the wetroom to see Null still sleeping the day away. He places the food down on a clean table. One that he had to create simply to be certain that it is clean. He opens the package that the food is in and lets the smell waft throughout the room. Null sniffs herself awake, almost mindlessly grabbing a plastic fork and digging in.

“Good morning.” Carter says cheekily. His soft yet deep voice often confuses Null. She is almost more comfortable with hearing the many voices that enter her mind while he wears his mask, as opposed to his true voice. He takes a bite of bacon before continuing. “Make sure you eat everything. Today is going to be long, and interesting.”

“Huh? Why?” Null replied, her voice barely escaping her lips. Her mind not fully awake just yet. Her eyes only half open. Her hair, so disheveled that her face is obscured behind it.

“I’m going to be introducing you to someone. Or rather, I’m going to tell you where you can introduce yourself.” Carter answers. Null shovels down a full pancake, and follows it with a large gulp of water before replying.

“I love new people. But we talkin bout a friend or baddie?” She asks before taking more large bites of her food.

“Hmm, you know I’m still not entirely sure. What would you consider someone that sees that I am truthful, but does not agree with my goals?” Carter asks, curious for Null’s opinion on Roz’s sensibilities.

“I’d call ‘em spineless. My pa woulda called ‘em lily-livered. My ma would always say, that if they know the word of the lord, but don’t follow it, that they’s just scared of it.” Null answers. Carter Chuckles.

“But are they friend or foe?” Carter asks.

“Do it matter? Who gon’ want a coward as a friend?” Null asks indignantly.

“What if the coward is useful? Dedicated? Driven, even. Could you call someone a coward when they face insurmountable odds and still push forward?” Carter asks, struggling to think of Roz as a coward when she fought against the Herald willingly.

“Course you can. Coward ain’t all about fighting. Rats fight too. But they fight when they wanna. Not cause it’s what’s right.” Null answers before finishing off the last bite of her food. “If ya’ll know what’s good, and what’s bad, and you don’ fight for what’s good, then yer a coward. Plain as that.”

“Interesting view.” Carter says, not fully agreeing with it. But understanding it. He knew the perception lacked nuance. And part of him felt like he should impart his own wisdom on Null on the subject. But at the same time, he is not her father. He is not in charge of leading her to believe anything other than what she chooses.

“That’s why I came witcha. I could tell you was the good guy the minute I saw that rabbit thing. You told the truth. I walked up to ya. Eryone else ran. Cuz I ain’t a coward.” Null expanded.

“Not everything is so black and white.” Carter argued.

“Not erything nah. But good and bad? Black ‘n white as they come.” Null retorted.

“Well, beliefs aside. You are going to meet this person this evening, with any luck at least. I would like to give them a final chance to pick the right side in the coming battle. She has helped me enough that she is deserving of that much at the very least.” Carter explained.

“Ooh OOH! If she says no can I kill ‘er?” Null asks, sitting on the edge of her seat, asking excitedly.

“I’d prefer you didn’t. But, if they attack you, you have my permission to defend yourself with any level of force you deem necessary.” Carter answered.

“Heck yer no fun sometimes! Fine, I’ll hol’ back. Where’m I meetin’ ‘er anyways?”

“A club, called the Raven.”

[Luminesa]

Co-Write With Oblivion2 and Lumi

Bolt From the Clear Blue Sky

Charlotte - Day
March 18th, 1957, 12 PM
Charlotte’s Apartment, Near South Loop

Rozalin and Anselm left for the morning to go run a few more errands. Never quite sure of her research, and also wanting to say hello to Georgie, Roz had dragged Anselm off with her to go to the library.

“In Kilbourn?!”

“Georgie is over there, maybe he can help.”

“You want an excuse to go kiss him behind a bookshelf don’t you?” Charlotte snickered, causing her best friend to blush heavily.

“It’s RESEARCH.”

“Mhm. Two sleuths kissing behind the murder mystery section?”

Roz almost got too red to respond, and Anselm just pat her shoulder. “I think she’s got you beat.”

“I’ll be back!” Rozalin huffed, and whirled around with an impish smirk as she walked out the door.

Charlotte looked at the bigger man, and grinned at him. “Ans, make sure she doesn’t leave lipstick on an Agatha Christie book.”

Rozalin gave a muffled groan as she walked out the door, and Anselm just chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

They both went out the door, and Charlotte checked around the kitchen to make sure it was clean. Mr. Rochefort had not yet called her about a favor yet, she was grateful. The morning had been quiet, after the argument over the bodies and the things related to The Veil. Now she sat down for a second cup of coffee, and she stared out the kitchen window, thinking over what was to come soon.

Three hard knocks on Charlotte’s door would interrupt her thought process. Whoever it was knocked in much the same way a cop in a hurry would, or a no nonsense made man out on official business. Either way, this seemed like no friendly knock. Checking her peephole would he no good either; there was a tall, lean man on the other side, his hat turned down to block his facial features from view.

“Charlotte Schultz.” The man on the other side said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Ms. Schultz are you home?”

The hairs on her neck rose with the way the knock hit her door. At first, she almost figured that Anselm might have forgotten something, or he had come with bad news. Something happening to Rozalin or Evie. Yet then the voice called, and whoever it was knew her name. He did not sound like Carter, who had a lighter voice. A federal agent maybe? She took a deep breath, and she looked around her house. Just in case he was someone dangerous, she grabbed her Colt Python from a drawer and hid it under her jacket. Carefully, with the gun’s barrel facing downward. She then slowly moved to the door, and she opened it. “…Hello?”

“Ms. Schultz, I need you to open the door. I need to speak with you about a Mr. Francis McArthur. It’s important.” The deep voiced man explained.

She looked over the man as she opened the door. His height was similar to hers, but his face was down and his coat was heavy. A little heavy for March. “…And who is asking?” she inquired, her voice steady but uncertain about the sudden visit. Any official-sounding person who wanted business with Frank made her worry enough, but this person had come directly to her.

The man turned up his face, revealing Frank’s own. A wide grin split his features and he had clearly shaved this morning as there wasn’t a hint of stubble anywhere on those hardy features.

“Why, I am.” Frank said in his own normal tones, that midwestern accent with a hint of Scot’s brogue to it. “I came to tell you that he’d be stopping by. Trouble at the border cleared up and he wanted you to know all about it.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened as Frank lifted his face to look at her. Mischief glinted in his eyes as he revealed his little surprise. She blinked for a second, and a gasp escaped her throat. After processing the moment, she pulled him into the doorway and embraced him tightly. “Frank! You tricked me!” She laughed as she pulled the door closed behind him and kissed him. She held him around his waist as usual, feeling for the scar on his hip as she smirked up at him. “What possessed you to tease me like that, hm? And how did you get back here?”

Frank brushed his nose along Charlotte’s, smiling as he explained, “Director Hawthorne came and visited a few days ago, said she needed a certain Canadian to tie together a small team of informants and help them work with a certain Senior Agent Fant.” His eyes danced as he paused to let those words sink in. “We’re to be made official this time for the Knight Case. As for why I’d surprise you…”

He kisses her softly before slipping a box in shimmery blue wrapping paper and a more mundane Tupperware container out of his jacket and out for her to take. “Because you’re always surprising me, and you’re the first person I’ve come to see here in the city so… It seemed fitting. None of the gang know I’m here yet, and Ruth had to go deal with a city official before we head down to the field office and get all the paperwork done up official.”

“Anselm and Rozalin just headed out to go run some business. They’ll be back soon enough, and I’ll let them know you’re here,” she murmured, before she saw the box and the Tupperware. “Ah?” The first that Frank had gotten for her. “Well! I’m excited to open these, dear…”

She took the boxes and walked to the side, making sure to put away her gun before she moved around and got excited too much. As if she had not gotten excited before. Having removed the pistol and putting back into the drawer, she walked to the table and turned to open the blue box first. “What’s this?” she murmured, as she carefully opened the packaging.

She would see inside the box a wrapped up blanket revealed itself. It appeared hand woven and was made of a cream coloured fabric. Stripes of green, red, yellow and indigo lined the face of it. “That.” Frank said with a small smile, “Is a Hudson’s Bay Company 8 Point Blanket. That means it’s about a king sized blanket. They’re made in a wool mill in England and have been since the 1700’s for the HBC. They’re uh… About as uniquely Canadian as you can get. You won’t have a cold morning under one of those any place short of the himalayas. That,” He gestures to the Tupperware, “Is some baking my sister made for you. Nanaimo bars, we call em. They’re better experienced than explained.”

The huge, warm blanket unfolded a little in her arms as she pulled it out from the box, and her eyes lit with surprise. It really was warm. She held it close, and she seemed to take a moment before she turned to Mona’s cooking. Her eyes closed, and she thought back to visiting Frank in Claresholm. Back to holding him close under the blankets, feeling his heartbeat against her chest. Of course, here he was in front of her. She opened her eyes and gave a bright smile.

“It’s wonderful, dear,” she breathed, as she turned back to look at him. Folding it gently for the moment, she turned to the Tupperware and looked inside.

The little bars gleamed with silky chocolate on the top, and when she lifted one, she felt the crumbly base and the sheen of the custard. Charlotte smiled sweetly. Her mother had been a good baker, something neither she nor her father had been. Homemade baking had always impressed her, and this time was no different. She ate one, and the chocolate, custard, and a hint of crunch and coconut filled her mouth. “Mm!” she gasped a little at how pleasantly sweet it was. She blinked a couple of times, and then as she swallowed it she grabbed another one.

“Well now I need to learn how to bake. That’s delightful,” she answered as she ate another one, and then a third. “I need to let Roz and Anselm try some of these when they come back. But ahhh…I probably won’t leave much.” She winked at him and carefully wiped the chocolate from her hands, before she held the blanket and unfolded it entirely. She then walked back over to Frank and wrapped it over both of them.

“I know Chicago is not as pleasant as Claresholm…and this Carter Knight business is awful…but I could hold the two of us here like this all day.”

“I’d like that babe.” He says softly, pressing an equally soft kiss against her lips and nestling in against her. “Unfortunately I have a bevy of things to get done today. Ruth needs me to sign some paperwork, and then I gotta get my new gun and apartment sorted out and all that… It’ll eat up a lot of the morning and afternoon. Then I think Ruth wanted to round up Fant and the three of us head down to the Raven to try to get you all on board officially too.”

He glanced at the clock on the wall, making some mental calculations, “As it stands, I can give you an hour before I have to get going, so I’m all yours until then.”


“An hour is enough,” she whispered, as she pulled him closer, letting him lay his head against her shoulder. In a way, it was not quite ever enough. Yet she knew that plenty could still be accomplished in an hour. She held him close under the blanket and kissed the back of his neck. Having him back in Chicago felt like a sweet dream, though Claresholm had been the ultimate dream. Walking through the snow with him, and seeing the way the mountain sunlight fell over his shoulders. She found his shoulder-blade under the jacket and kissed it, as she massaged his neck.

“My love…I realized something when we were together in Claresholm. When you and I stood out in the fields surrounded by pure white…I felt as if we had always meant to find ourselves there. And I felt as if I had loved you forever.”

Frank smiled at that. Charlotte was so much more of a romantic than he could ever be, or rather than he had words to express. It made Frank feel like he was the only man in the entirety of the world and that was worth almost all the aggravation and pain Chicago had caused him these months.

“I should have told you I loved you when you left Claresholm.” Frank admitted softly, “I didn’t really understand it after I left Chicago, but it was like being short a limb or not being able to breathe in deep. And then you were and all was well in the world again- I could breathe and see and taste the world as it was meant to be. Then you left and… Well to say it was all ashes is overly dramatic, but some days it felt that way.”

He took her hands and squeezed them gently, “I love you, Charlotte. You make me crazy, and I don’t think I want to be any other way… So thank you for keeping your promise and showing me what it’s all like.”

Frank had never quite needed to say the words, as she already knew that they existed in his heart. Yet they still tasted sweet on his lips, and her eyes filled with a glimmer they had not felt since her own mother had died. Since she had fought with her father over tending to her mother’s body, and he had still wrapped her in his arms to let her know that the world would not shatter on her shoulders. Now she was grown, holding Frank in her kitchen, and the way the words fell so sweetly brought her to a moment when she had finally felt vulnerable.

She cupped his cheek, trying to remember how to speak and how to think once again. He was excellent at removing her abilities with words, and at the right times. She then held both of his cheeks, and tears fell down her own. “…My dear…” she whispered, her throat full of tears and affection, “I’ve loved you for so long now. I always knew, when you first came to see me…I knew even before then. For five months…lightning has sung me to sleep, and it sounds like you, and it always will. I look at the snow and…I can feel you wrapped around me. I…I’ve been afraid for so long…that nobody would ever fall in love with a woman as wrathful and reckless as myself. And you’re everything good I wish I could be.”

She kissed him, a deep kiss in which her tears finally fell. She hardly understood the words she had spoken, but she felt them. She would confess his feelings, as if confessing her own. When she did pull away, she laid her head against his chest again and cried softly. “…It feels like ages. My wounds have almost healed, but I would wear them all over again for you.”

He gently turned her face up towards him, brushing her tears away with his free hand. “Well the good news is, you don’t have to. Nor am I going to make you. I know what it’s like to have to do things that hurt for the sake of surviving. But when this whole thing is over, me and you are gonna leave this city behind us. For a week, a month, a year, or forever, it makes no matter to me. But I’m taking you away so I can tell you all the things I’ve only just learned how to say.”

He pauses and smiles, “Like I love you.”

Her heart beat fast in her chest, feeling a rush of need in the moment. She dreamed of such things, of following him wherever he wanted to go. Yet even here in this moment, she could have listened to him say anything and she would be happy.

For a second, she pulled away from the thick and warm blanket, and she took her jacket and laid it on the kitchen chair. She had worn a lighter blouse today, given the weather permitted her to not dress in two or three layers. When she walked back to him, she took the blouse off, but not for the immediate suspicion Frank might have had. She held the blanket back over them again, and guided his hand toward the scars. One over her upper shoulder blade, the other lower on her back.

“You taught me to turn my wrath into something holy. I finally understood what it meant…to rage and to turn my passion into protection. To bring down judgment for the sake of a love. And I wear that judgment with pride. And I’ve walked out of countless nights just to give all of this to you.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you where you got these.” Frank said lowly, trying not to look at her bare flesh and instead keeping his eyes on hers. “I’ve been meaning for some time, but for some reason I always found myself distracted by you when you’re like this.”

“I’ve had some thoughts on maybe how you came by them but… I’d like to hear you tell the story.”

She kissed his neck again, and leaned close against him. Part of her checked the vents for whether or not Rue’s birds might listen, but she had already found a way around that anyway. Not to mention that she hardly cared. Let Rue listen. Let Carter listen. Nobody would take this away from her.

“I knew about you before we even met,” she murmured into his neck, “I knew you were an informer, that you had been burned by the Outfit. But you had also saved Rosie…and so I made a gamble. An impossible bet, my love. And so I made sure that a group of men who were after you…would come toward me.”

She closed her eyes, as if she was picturing the evening it happened. The scents of gunpowder and smoke, the screams around her, Anselm calling her name. “Anselm and I paid-off the hitmen to make sure they never touched you. And I had already made certain that I would be the only one to touch you. But before that…those men who hired the hitmen, they came to The Raven.”

A hand slid down Frank’s neck, and her fingers laid over his spine. “Three of them, and two friends. We took them down, and that scumbag Nails got me in the back with a knife. I had my M1911 send him to God, and I was glad to be the Angel of Death. Anything to make sure that you, my dear, came to my arms.” Her whisper was soft, sweet, and almost devout, like wine poured in a goblet. She pulled him more tightly against her, and she gave a deep breath. “And I’ll be perfectly happy if all three of them are in Hell, telling the Devil that it was me who accused and sent them to him.”

“I’d had a feeling that the murders near the Raven had something to do with you.” Frank admits after a moment’s thought. “Though it seemed more likely to be a dispute regarding your father, and that you had been chosen as a target to get to him. Wouldn’t for the life of me have suspected you did any of that to keep heat off my back. Guess I’m not as subtle as I’d hoped.”

He offers Charlotte a sweet smile, “Well, I suppose I’ll never manage to even things out between us then. I owe you my life and my heart at the very least, would you like my soul too?” His eyes twinkle with amusement, “It’s a ratty old thing, but it’s what I’ve got.”

“I was surprised that Anselm never pulled me away from walking this path. And I believe he tried, out of worry for me. But since we’ve talked…him telling me to go to Canada to see you was the last click that told me all of this was meant to be in the end.”

She leaned down and kissed the scar on his collarbone, above his heart. Would you like my soul too? A silly question perhaps to anyone else, but Charlotte closed her eyes and held him as if she could feel his soul next to hers. How he had managed to make her feel more like a lover and more like a mystic at the same time, she was not sure. She never would be sure.

“Well, if I’m really the Angel of Death, then that will always be mine I suppose,” she whispered into his chest, “and mine will always be yours.”

“You don’t make for a very frightening angel of death.” Frank says irreverently, poking at her side with a finger. “Why, I could probably kill you in a dozen different ways with that spoon over there.” He points vaguely at a utensil on Charlotte’s counter. “Besides… What would I do with your soul other than watch it animate you? No, you keep it. Everything will be all the brighter for it. Your heart though? That I’d like to take with me everywhere I go.”

Charlotte’s sweet, affectionate grin gained a bit of a devilish glint, when Frank said she was not very frightening. Her eyes twinkled, and she pressed his back against the wall, tilting his chin down toward her in the process. “You’ll always have that as well, Frank, my love. But if you don’t believe I can be frightening, then I suppose I have to spend the rest of this hour seeing how much your bones can take,” she whispered with a smirk.

“My bones, or your legs?” Frank fired back, determined to burn for all he was worth. And burn he would.

Charlotte chuckled, and she grabbed his hands and pinned him further. “You can try, but the house always wins, my love,” she fired back. She pulled him into a kiss, with her fingers interlocking with his. The fire in her chest, in her eyes, and in her scars sang the rest. Sweet, dangerous love, the fireplace that called Frank home.