A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.

[very_sharpe]

[May 21: Truth Plot]

Thomas is rather shaken.

After his morning shower, he dressed and set out for a day of errands, feeling rather good. He has things that he's working on, progress he's making. He notices a few people staring as he goes about his day, but pays it little mind at first.

He recalls a message that appeared on his phone a few days ago: The Truth will set you free.

Thomas doubts that, sincerely, as being here has helped him to escape several rather painful truths tied to his old life. He wants so badly to create a fresh start here. But he really cannot help but notice people are... really staring. Whispering if he stands still too long. What is going on? He checks himself in a shop window, but can't see anything out of place.

It gets bad enough that Thomas nearly has a panic attack and finds a wall to lean into, attempting to ground himself a bit. He needs a moment to breathe, that's all. He's heard someone whisper, Murderer. How could they possibly...?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he swears he hears Lucille laughing.

Comments

[very_sharpe]

"I-- yes." Thomas has the decency to look contrite. He even blushes a bit. "I think tea would be nice."

And it will give him a moment to collect his thoughts. As Edith goes to the kitchen, Thomas tries to think of where to begin.

"Our parents were wretched, you know. Our father a brute, our mother cold. Our father was forever disappointed in me, too weak and too soft to be a son of his. He took me hunting to try to make something of me. Once he forgot me, I found my way home but fell ill. Lucille couldn't stand it."

He looks down at his hands, fidgeting again. "He died not long after that."

[ghostsarereal]

From the kitchen, as she readies water to boil, Edith gravitates towards the doorway so she can look back at Thomas as he speaks. Some of this, she knows already, Lucille having mentioned their parents before. The details, though, are new, and it's hard to keep busy when he's saying things like this, even though she thinks maybe she should. The tea will be made faster that way, for one, and they probably could both use it, and it might take some of the pressure off.

"I take it that wasn't an accident," she replies softly, of the last thing he's said, and though there are few kind thoughts she can spare for Lucille, there's no judgment in her voice. They can't help the family that they were born into, either of them.

Briefly, then, she thinks of her own father, and what he'd said to Thomas the first day they met. Even then, barely knowing him herself, it had seemed harsh. Now, she can barely imagine how awful that must have been to hear.

[very_sharpe]

"I never knew, but I suspect not," he admits. "And you know what happened to our mother. I was twelve, then."

Thomas frowns, keeping his eyes ahead. If he keeps looking at Edith, he isn't sure he'll be able to get through this.

"Lucille was the only person, other than our nurse, to ever show me kindness, to care for me. And then we were separated. I did well enough, but I know she didn't go anywhere kind. When we were finally together again, all she could talk about was staying together. Staying together in the house that was finally ours. It was a decrepit mess by then, the money all gone thanks to our father."

Edith knows that part, but he finds himself recounting it to keep the momentum going.

"I wanted to leave, but I couldn't leave her. And she wouldn't leave the house."

[ghostsarereal]

"And you needed money," Edith says, though by now, after everything, she supposes that part speaks for itself. It's why she'd worked as well as Eunice McMichael for Thomas' new bride; they both came from money that would have been given willingly. She'd been different, though. For whatever reason — and though she knows there may not always be an explanation for such things, it's still been difficult to reconcile — she was the one to break the pattern, albeit barely. That she walked away as relatively unscathed as she did, with only a slight limp to show for everything she went through now, is nothing short of incredible.

However it could possibly have happened, she has Thomas to thank for that.

She steps away from the doorway, back to fixing the tea, but still glances over her shoulder when she speaks again. "I know what she was like, Thomas. And the hold she had on you."

[very_sharpe]

"It wasn't like that with you," he says. Then he winces. "To Lucille, yes, that's precisely what you were. Like-- like the others." He feels a stab of guilt. "But I chose you because-- because I wanted you."

His face warms faintly at the confession.

"You were... so full of life. And didn't care a moment for my title," he laughs, though it's strained. "I felt like you actually saw me, as a person. Not as a stepping stone or something to show off or-- I don't know. But after meeting you, you were all I could think about. I tangled you up in this scheme because I had no idea how else to approach you. And Lucille would never have allowed it if she... knew."

Obviously she found out. How dare he love his wife. That wasn't what they were supposed to be fore. Perhaps it's why Lucille had been so careful, and so determined, in choosing all the others.

[ghostsarereal]

"Of course she wouldn't have," Edith replies. "That's why... everything turned out the way it did, isn't it?" She can't quite bring herself to refer outright to Lucille killing Thomas, if only because she doesn't know how he might take to it, but there's no doubt in her mind that that's why it happened. Really, once she'd learned the truth, it had made sense of too many things, the whole situation suddenly clear. She'd never managed to hear it from Thomas, though — he'd died before that could be possible — and she gets the sense that he might need to say it. A part of her can't help but think they should have talked about this sooner. She would never have known how to bring it up, though. She might well have never wanted to.

Now, it isn't easy, but it was never going to be, and at least it's becoming easier.

"You had feelings for me, and she couldn't stand that."

[very_sharpe]

"No, she couldn't. Nor could she stand that I wanted a life with you. A real life, far away from Allerdale. That-- that is when she killed me."

He lifts his hand to touch the faint scar underneath his eye. He has others on his chest - the wounds that killed him.

"I didn't think she would ever hurt me," he murmurs. He hadn't realized that in Lucille's mind, if she couldn't have him then no one would. A chill slithers down his back.

"I'm so sorry, Edith. I should have left with you from the depot. I should never have taken you back to Allerdale."

[ghostsarereal]

Edith can't disagree with him on that front, nor would she try to just for the sake of saying something reassuring. There are reassurances enough that she can offer without saying something untrue. She's brought him here, after all, in spite of knowing that the message on his back is true and everything that's happened between them. If anything, she thinks — she hopes — that that might say as much if not more than anything she could give voice to. Words are the tools of her chosen trade, and something she doesn't often struggle with, but it's hard now to know quite how to respond.

"You don't have to keep apologizing," she settles on, fingers tapping against her kitchen counter as she waits for the water to reach a boil. "I made it out, Thomas. You saved me. That means something."

[very_sharpe]

"It is difficult not to," he admits, but he'll try. He wants to say he saved her too late, that he should have done it days, weeks, months before. But Edith knew he felt that way, perhaps it wasn't worth repeating again.

"Lucille protected me," he murmurs. "And I couldn't just leave her, until I met you. Then that was all I wanted. And... I never got the chance to thank you for that."

[ghostsarereal]

The kettle reaching a boil, Edith turns the stove off, pouring water over the teabags in the two cups she's set on the counter. There's something almost startlingly ordinary about it, just going through the motions of something she's done all the time while having a conversation like this, but it's calming, too, steadying, something to keep her focused. What she went through before she got here, she can't pretend that it was easy, that it doesn't haunt her still. Neither can she hold it against Thomas, knowing what she knows now and with the way everything turned out.

"Now you have," she says, making her way back over to the couch and placing both cups on the table. "And now you're here, away from her and that old house."

[very_sharpe]

"Thank God for that," he murmurs. Thomas looks down at his hands, then takes one of the cups of tea. It gives him something warm to hold.

"You're the only steady thought in my mind since I've been here," he admits. There's something on the tip of his tongue, a question. He takes a deep breath and lets it go, trying to calm himself.

"Do you think-- Could you ever love me again, Edith? Knowing who I am? Who I was?" He finally lifts his gaze to look at her, and there's something hopeful and something frightened in his eyes. "I have no right to even ask it of you. I am grateful beyond measure for your kindness, your friendship."

[ghostsarereal]

Perhaps the question shouldn't be so unexpected. Perhaps she should have seen this coming, the two of them being alone here, the subject at hand so fraught. They've been dancing around it for months, or at least it feels that way now that they've addressed it so directly. That was never going to be able to last forever, and there were always going to be other things that came up in conjunction with it. Edith can't pretend she hasn't spent a great deal of time thinking about it, too, trying to parse how she feels and what everything that's happened means, where they go from here when their situation is such an unorthodox one.

He'd had a hand in killing all those other women, and in almost killing her, too. Maybe it should be just as simple as that. It never has been, though, and everything he's said today has only ensured that stays the case.

"I don't think I ever stopped," she says, thoughtful, as much to herself as to him. "I don't know that we ever get that much say in the matter." It's not like it's as simple as choosing to flip a switch, loving someone one day and deciding not to the next. It's complicated and messy and involuntary and nothing at all like she'd once imagined. Then again, nothing really turned out like she thought it would. She never expected she would wind up in a place like this, either, and the only thing there's been to do is adjust.

[very_sharpe]

Thomas looks up, feeling a flutter in him he thought he would need to hide away again. "I suppose we don't," he answers, a bit breathless. "But one can choose whether or not to act on those feelings."

Perhaps he ought not have said that, but he would never want her to feel-- to feel obliged. He cares for her - loves her - enough that he wants her to be happy, whatever that means. He can hope, of course.

"I'd forgotten what hope felt like before meeting you, Edith."

[ghostsarereal]

"I suppose one can," Edith says softly, as if only just realizing that herself. It only stands to reason, of course — it works the same way anything else does — but it's strange to consider, too, in terms as simple as that. In all the time they've both been here, trying to parse what they are to each other has never seemed to her to be anything other than painfully complicated, but maybe that isn't the case. Maybe, at least, it doesn't have to be.

As tempting as it might be, though, if she is going to act on it, this doesn't seem like the time. Emotions are running too high. She understands what's written on his back about as well as she thinks anyone could, but the circumstances that brought him here still aren't lost to her, and she doesn't think it would be right, doing something now, prompted in part by all of that. Whatever she's made her peace with, the dead — the women who weren't as lucky as her — deserve better than that.

Looking over at him, she asks, "But you remember now?"

[very_sharpe]

"Yes. I hope to make a better life here, to be the person I could have been if not for-- for what I did. What I allowed to happen."

Thomas wants badly to have a life, a real one, out from beneath the specter of his past, away from Lucille's smothering presence. He has a chance here, he has to believe he can make something of it. A simple, quiet life doesn't seem like a bad future.

[ghostsarereal]

"You can," Edith says, clear certainty in her voice. "You are." As startled as she'd been to see him when he showed up here, she had known from the start that this could only be a good opportunity for him, a chance to get away from the life he had before. If it's been such an adjustment for her, she can only imagine that the same is true for him, too, but it's still a fresh start, and she'd warrant a much needed one. "As far as I can tell, that's what you've done since you got here."

[very_sharpe]

"Making a good go of it anyway." He offers her a small, hopeful smile. "Thank you, Edith. I know I've said it a hundred times already but... your kindness means the world to me. It has since we met."

[ghostsarereal]

She'd like to say that she's only doing what anyone else would, but Edith knows that isn't strictly the case. The people who've been in Thomas' own life are proof enough of that. Instead, she just smiles, small and understanding. "If it helps, I don't plan on doing otherwise any time soon."