Work Text:
"Where's Rupert?"
The question hangs heavily in the kitchen, and Taggie swallows the lump in her throat. But it grows quickly again when Caitlin holds her tighter, gripping at the shoulders of the jumper Rupert had loaned her.
"Daddy?"
Her father clears his throat, his chest heaving with each ragged breath as the wind howls outside.
"He's with Monica. I need to… I need to phone."
"Is she all right?" But the lump Taggie's throat is growing bigger by the second, and she has to squeeze her words around it, her voice cracking while waiting for the answer.
But she knows. Of course she knows. Because Caitlin is sobbing quietly into her shoulder, her fingers trembling against the cable knit.
"Tree came down," Declan says shortly, and disappears into the hallway. She hears him lift the phone from its cradle, then he taps the hookswitch once, twice, and then repeatedly before slamming the phone down. "Fuck's sake!"
He reappears in the kitchen, head held in shaking hands.
"Can we get her to the hospital? I can come and help if you need an extra pair of hands or…Rupert's got a tractor, can you tow the car?"
But when her father lowers his hands and shakes his head, candlelight catching the tears brimming along his eyelids, the confirmation of catastrophe hits Taggie like a punch to the gut.
"We'll have to wait till it clears," her father says, his voice strained. "She wouldn't want…nobody else needs to get hurt."
"Rupert."
The word is enough, and her father disappears. The car starts up soon after, headlights swinging around the drive, briefly throwing the kitchen into a warm amber glow, before the darkness sets in once more.
"My god," her mother breathes, and she lowers herself into a chair, pulling her blanket tightly around her shoulders.
It's not right. It's not even close to fair. In amongst all the antagonism between the Corinium and Venturer factions, one thing had always been clear, over and above everything else.
Everybody liked Monica.
She was kind — and had especially been so to Taggie. She had always sung her praises, sent opportunities her way, and when labels had needed writing for her lunches and buffet tables, she had sat in the kitchen while Taggie cooked and done it herself, never once casting a sideways glance while translating Taggie's infantile attempts at spelling.
It doesn't seem real, that the weather — British weather — can claim someone as steadfast as Monica has always been.
They'd been told there was nothing to worry about.
The wait is interminable. She makes Caitlin a cup of hot cocoa and cleans her cuts and grazes. All the while, her sister remains silent, but it's clear for all to see that the shock is still coursing through her. Her glazed eyes, the tremor in each of her limbs, and the uneven rise and fall of her chest.
"What's taking them so long?" her mother mutters, and rises from her chair to crane her neck as she looks out of the kitchen window, desperate to see any hint of a headlight.
"They'll be going slowly I'm sure," Taggie says. But even though she's the one who says it, it doesn't ease her own anxieties, which tie themselves into vast complicated knots in the pit of her stomach.
She watches the clock incessantly, each second ticking by after an eternity of waiting. When ten minutes have passed, she refills the kettle and puts it on the hob.
If she makes a fresh pot of tea they'll have to be home soon.
The kettle takes an age to boil, and the whistle pierces through the kitchen like a scream. Caitlin flinches, and Taggie quickly removes the kettle from the hob, the whistle dying down and eventually falling silent. She counts the tea bags slowly, one for each of them and one for the pot. She pours the water even more slowly, her eyes flicking towards the window every few moments in utter helpless and hopeless desperation.
When she puts the lid on the pot and sets it on the kitchen table, she thinks they must be on their way home. So she waits.
And she waits.
And she waits.
The backdoor crashes open, caught in the wind. Taggie's head snaps up, and she wonders whether she'd been sleeping. The candle has reduced to a short stub now, and in the low light she can see her father forcing the door shut, his whole body pressed against it.
She can see Rupert too, and she jumps out of her chair, while her mother rushes forward to her father.
"God I was so worried about you," her mother says. But while her mother and father exchange their own quiet shellshocked words, Taggie hangs back. There's something wrong with Rupert. The way he's standing, his shoulders seem all wrong — slumped forward in a way that she's never seen before.
"Are you hurt?" she breathes, stepping forward to get a better look at him. He shakes his head minutely but doesn't say anything. "Sit down," Taggie says, taking him by the elbow and trying to steer him to a chair.
"We shouldn't have left her," he breathes. "We shouldn't have left her there, like that. It's wrong."
"There's nothing you can do for her now." Her father breaks away from her mother and comes to Rupert instead, taking Rupert's face in his hands. "Listen to me," he says. "You did everything you could for her, and she wouldn't want you to get hurt. You know that. She wouldn't want anyone to be hurt for her sake." He releases Rupert, steps back and collapses into a chair. He buries his head in his forearms atop the table, and Taggie hears a distinct but muffled sniff.
She takes Rupert by the hand, but it's slick, and she quickly withdraws, raising her hand in the candlelight to inspect it. Even in the distorted, flickering glow, she knows what it is. Crimson smeared across her palm. She swallows her horror, and tries to focus on Rupert.
"Sit down," she breathes. "Please."
She guides him into a chair with her clean hand, and now that he's facing away from the sink, she turns the tap on so a slow trickle of water comes out, not loud enough to be heard above the storm raging outside. She cleans her hands, then runs bowl of warm soapy water, and takes it over to the table with a cloth. He barely registers it when she starts cleaning his hands. When Taggie moves to peel his waxed jacket off of him, he leans forward just enough to let her, and she hangs it up.
The light is growing dimmer now, and so Taggie lights a fresh candle, the flame dancing merrily on the wick as though it's Christmas or some other happy occasion. But with visibility improved, Taggie can see the state of Rupert's jumper, scarlet smears poisoning the soft grey wool, twigs and leaves and all sort of debris littered across it.
The blanket she'd been wrapped in has long since been abandoned, so she brings it over to him.
"Can I take this?" she asks quietly, pulling at his jumper. "Let's get you warmed up."
He nods, and Taggie crouches down to find the ribbed hem of his jumper, then carefully lifts it up over his head, before extracting his arms from the sleeves. She puts it on the back of the empty chair behind him, and wraps the blanket around his shoulders. As she does, he pulls her close to him, encircling her in his arms, his head resting against her stomach.
He's shaking.
She can feel his breath through her borrowed jumper and her nighty. It comes out in short, shallow, restrained puffs, and when his hold on her tightens, his shoulders drop, and she knows the floodgates have opened.
Whatever he has seen, whatever he has endured while he waited with Monica in fiercest storm any of them have ever known, it's something that Taggie knows will alter him forever.
All she can do is hold him.
"Sweetheart, why don't you try and get some rest?" Her father has steeled himself, moving away from her mother and towards Caitlin. "If I light a fire in the living room, will you have a lie down on the sofa?"
It takes Caitlin a few seconds to register the question, but eventually she nods, and allows herself to be taken through to the living room, her blanket trailing on the tiles behind her.
"Rupert," her mother says softly. "D'you want something stronger than a tea? I can do you a hot whiskey if you like?"
He doesn't answer, and Taggie meets her mother's eyes, shaking her head. She nods, and departs from the kitchen, presumably to help settle Caitlin in the living room.
Taggie stays put, one arm around Rupert's shoulders, rubbing his back gently. Her other hand is cradling his head, her fingers twined in his soft hair, which he has allowed to grow longer since his resignation. The soles of her feet are like ice blocks, the deep-rooted cold of the kitchen tiles permeating her woollen socks and taking over.
She reaches behind her, pulling out the next chair, which is tucked under the table, and she brings it close, sinking down into it without breaking contact with Rupert. She kisses the top of his head, her own tears prickling at her eyes, and it's only now that she can see there's blood on his face too.
She wonders if he tried to get her out. Her eyes land on his jumper, cast aside, tree bark still clinging to it, and now she wonders whether he tried to move the tree.
A strangled sob escapes him, and all Taggie can do is kiss his forehead and wipe his tears away. His eyes are screwed tightly shut. Maybe what happened to Monica is all he can see, scarred into the insides of his eyelids.
"Look at me," she says. "Please." She tilts his chin up gently, and the candlelight shows faint red marks across his cheek and brow, perhaps from whipping branches or wayward debris caught in the wind. Those marks will be gone by morning, it's the rest of him she's worried about. It takes him a moment to pull himself together, but he does as he's told and opens his eyes.
"You're here with me," she tells him. "And we'll wait for the storm to pass, and when it does, when it's safe, we will make sure that she's properly taken care of, by the right people."
"She shouldn't be out there," he says. "All on her own." His voice cracks and he covers his face with his hands, shoulders racking as his grief takes over.
It's horrible. Because he's right. It must have been awful to walk away from her, to leave her there without anyone to get her out of that car, to take her away to somewhere she can be at peace, with dignity. But her father was right. The Monica she knows, knew, would never have wanted anyone to be hurt, not when she is so far beyond their help now.
"I know she'll be very grateful that you stayed. That you tried to help." Taggie looks up to the ceiling, trying to blink away her tears, but they just spill hotly down her cheeks, dripping from her chin and disappearing into her jumper. "But she will be ever so relieved that you got back here without being hurt."
It's true. She knows it's true. That if Monica is looking down, she'll be cursing herself for getting into the car in the first place, but urging them all to stay put. To stay safe.
But just because it's true, it doesn't make any of this terrible terrible thing any easier.
He's sipping halfheartedly at a cup of tea. His hands are shaking, his face stained with tear tracks. But he's calmed a little now, shifting past shock and sliding into resignation.
While he drinks his tea, Taggie tackles his jumper, hoping to get the blood out before he tries to put it back on. She's brushed off the debris and is now tackling the stains with cold water and salt, her hands growing tighter and stiffer each time she submerges the jumper into the icy depths of the sink.
Eventually, the jumper looks clean enough. She's going by candlelight so she can't be sure, but she's given the whole thing a good going over just in case. She carefully wrings it out, trying not to twist it or stretch it out of shape, and then heads into the living room, hanging it up in front of the fire.
It should be dry by the morning.
She looks over to Caitlin, one pale corner of her face visible, the rest shielded under the blanket. She's fast asleep, and when Taggie turns to look at her parents, her mother is sleeping too, curled up against her father's side.
"D'you want anything Daddy? A hot whiskey?"
"A cup of tea wouldn't go amiss Tag. We'll have to go out again in the morning, before anyone else finds her. Should lay off the booze."
Taggie nods, and goes back to the kitchen. The pot's still warm from when she made Rupert's tea, so she pours a fresh one for her father and takes it into him.
"I'll shut the door," she says on her way out. "Keep the heat in."
Her father nods, and she closes the door gently behind her.
Rupert needs to sleep. Especially if he'll be taking the car out again in a few hours. But she doesn't know whether she'll be able to convince him.
"Will you come up to bed?"
She realises too late the way it sounds. There's a flash in her memory of last new year, when he had made some similar comment to her, and she had laughed.
Funny how things change.
"Please," she says. "You need to sleep."
He gazes at the candle. This one too has now dwindled to a two-inch stub, the black wick bent double in the heart of the flame.
"Sleep where?" he asks in a quiet, raspy voice.
"Wherever you like," Taggie tells him. It doesn't really matter after all, as long as he gets his head down.
"I don't want to be alone, Tag," he says, but he won't look at her. She steps in front of him, crouching down so she can meet his eye.
"You don't have to. Of course you don't have to be alone. I'd never make you."
He nods slowly, and she takes his mug from him, setting it down on the table. Then, she turns to his boots, unlacing them and pulling them from his feet. Realising that there are plenty of mirrors in the hallway where he could catch sight of himself, she gently cleans his face, without explanation, to remove the red smears from his skin.
His lack of questioning suggests he knows what she's up to.
"Come on," she says, when she's finished, and she holds out her hand. He takes it, of course, and she snuffs out the candle, then guides him towards the stairs.
Her room is cold, so she keeps his jumper on as she climbs into bed. He opts to remove his trousers and t-shirt, folding them and placing them on the chair in the corner of her room. All of his bravado has been knocked out of him. In any other circumstance, he'd have something to say about stripping down to his boxers. But tonight there's nothing. Nothing that can be said, nothing that's worth saying.
"Come on," she says, as he tries to settle next to her. "Don't stay all the way over there."
He doesn't need telling twice. He rolls over, wrapping one arm around her, his hand slipping under her jumper and gripping a fistful of her nighty. He finds a comfortable place on her chest to rest his head, and it's a comforting weight, one that makes her feel like they might not all be blown clean away by this storm after all.
The dogs are tucked up along her other side, having hidden under the blankets throughout the night. They're a welcome addition, two little hot water bottles who have helped to keep the blankets warm.
She lets her fingers slide into Rupert's hair, and ever so gently she massages his scalp in a repetitive, soothing motion. It only takes about ten minutes for his breathing to steady out, for the tension to fall out of his muscles, and for his grip on her nightdress to slacken.
As she lays awake staring at the ceiling, Rupert fast asleep with her, the wind still howling outside, all she can think is that it wasn't supposed to be like this.
None of it was ever supposed to be like this.
The dawn is cold, pale, and golden. She thinks the sky has a damned cheek looking like this, so innocent after its offences last night. She's laying on her side now, tucked neatly against Rupert's still sleeping form.
A glance at her clock tells her it's nearly six - it can only have been four hours or so since they came up here. But there's work to do, if she wants to help.
And she does.
She extricates herself from Rupert, and he stirs, but settles when she strokes his hair and gently shushes him. She sticks her feet into her slippers, and after a quick detour to the bathroom, she goes downstairs.
The light in the hallway is on, which is good — the power must have been restored. She flicks the switch, and the lights go out, leaving her with the soft, ever-encroaching glow of the morning creeping in through the windows.
She looks in on the living room, the fire now reduced to thin lines of deep orange embers. Her father is snoring, and she's about to leave when she hears a voice.
"Tag?" It's Caitlin.
"Yeah it's me," she whispers. "It's still early, go back to sleep."
"No." She pushes her blankets to one side and gets up. Taggie stands back in the hallway, allowing her to pass before closing the door on her parents. She pulls Caitlin into a hug and the pair of them stand there for a few minutes, processing the reality of the night's events.
One singular thought haunts Taggie.
She's still out there. All alone.
When she releases Caitlin, she checks the phone, but no matter how many times she taps the hookswitch, there's still no dial tone.
"Nothing?" Caitlin asks, and Taggie shakes her head. "What are you doing up?"
"I thought I'd get some porridge started," she replies. "I don't think people will want much else. D'you want to help me?"
Caitlin nods, and follows Taggie into the kitchen, her socks padding on the floor.
"Here," Taggie says, stepping out of her slippers and kicking them towards Caitlin. "Put those on."
Caitlin doesn't argue, and slips her feet into the slippers while Taggie takes out one of her larger pans and sets it on the hob as quietly as she can. She fills the kettle too, and removes the whistle, then adjusts the knobs on the Aga. Caitlin acts as fetcher, bringing oats and milk, then returning them once Taggie is done. She also empties out the teapot, throwing the now cold teabags in the bin, and starts counting fresh ones back in.
"Shall I check the phone again?" Caitlin asks.
"I expect it'll be a while." Taggie replies, stirring the porridge slowly. She's kept the heat low so it won't dry out even if the others sleep for a few more hours. She soon hands over stirring duties to Caitlin, who takes intermittent sips of her tea while staring into the pale oats as they start to thicken. Taggie, meanwhile, peels and chops some apples, throws them into a pan with a little sugar and water, and starts to stew them on the other ring. She adds a little cinnamon for good measure, then puts the lid on and leaves it be.
As the sky outside brightens, it feels like they've stepped into a bizarre parallel world. None of last night's events could possibly have been real. But when she glances over at Caitlin, her face grazed and bruised, she knows that the storm was no nightmare.
Caitlin joins her at the window.
"D'you think the birds will be all right?"
Taggie blinks at the question. "Yeah, I'm sure."
Caitlin nods, but doesn't say anything.
"We can feed them, if you like. We can take the apple skins and some oats. They can have the same as us for breakfast." She smiles briefly, and Caitlin nods, going to the cupboard and taking out the bag of oats. Taggie gives the stewing apples and the porridge one last cautionary stir before she gathers up the apple peel and cores into a tea towel, shoves her feet into the nearest shoes — which just so happen to be Rupert's boots, and the pair of them head outside.
It's a cool morning. The breeze is gentle, and already they can hear birds chirping away.
"D'you hear?" Taggie asks, pausing so Caitlin can hear the chorus. "They're all right."
She wonders if they're calling out for other birds. Ones who didn't make it back to nest, if the nests are still even in tact. But the thought is too troublesome and she shoves it to one side, if not for her sake, then for Caitlin's. Caitlin, who needs to see that there's more to today than the consequences and echoes of last night's terror, that there's hope, and life, and some things do go back to normal, even if everything else doesn't.
She needs to know there are still good things in the world.
They walk across the garden to the boundaries of the bluebell wood, and start tossing oats and apple scraps around. The autumn leaves crunch underfoot, and when they're all out of things to share, they turn around and are about to head back indoors when Caitlin speaks.
"She was going to divorce him," she says. "Tony."
A frown tugs at Taggie's eyebrows. "How d'you know?"
"They had this big argument. Tag it was awful… It's why she got in the car, she wasn't herself." Caitlin is fiddling with the scrunched up paper of the oats bag.
Taggie tries to process the information, but it's too much. "Had she been drinking?"
Caitlin shakes her head emphatically. "No nothing like that," she says hurriedly. "But I think she was…in shock, maybe? I don't know…"
Taggie sighs. She tightens her grip on the tea towel in her hand, and tries to block out the sound of the birds so she can think clearly.
"I don't know what to do. The police will ask, won't they?"
Taggie bites her lip. She tries to think about what Monica would want, now that she's not here to speak for herself. Tony must have gone so far past the line if she was no longer willing to look the other way. And if she wasn't herself as Caitlin said, it must have been something really awful.
Perhaps something that she wouldn't want everyone to know.
"I think…maybe you tell the police that they argued, and that she was upset by it. You don't need to tell them what it was about unless you think you really must. But if you do, it'll come out at the inquest, and end up in the papers. And it will be the last thing people ever know about her. So if you can give her some dignity with…discretion, if you think it would help her, then do."
"And what if I think the truth would help her? If people knew about Tony?"
"People already know about Tony," Taggie says, off-handedly. "He's shameless."
Caitlin mutters something, but when Taggie presses her she clams up, and Taggie lets it go.
"You can tell me anything," she says, as they trudge back to the house. "You don't have to bear any burdens on your own. But just be as kind to Monica as you can. It's the last thing you can do for her."
When they arrive back in the kitchen, Taggie dishes up some porridge for her and Caitlin, and they sit at the table, quietly eating, until their father comes in.
"Phone's still out," he says quietly from the doorway. He heads towards Caitlin, giving her a brief hug from behind and kissing the top of her head.
"Where's Rupe?" he asks Taggie.
"Sleeping," she says. "I'll go up to him in a bit. There's porridge, on the stove."
Her father nods, and helps himself, while Taggie pours him a mug of tea and sets it at an empty place at the table.
"I'll…" he glances at Caitlin. "I'll head out soon."
Taggie nods. "Someone needs to…" she trails off, but there's no point trying to be evasive. Caitlin's no idiot. Just because they don't say what needs to happen, it doesn't mean she's not wholly aware of it. "Someone needs to go to the Falconry."
Her father nods. "Ask Rupert which he'd rather, when you go up."
Taggie agrees, and finishes up the last of her porridge. She slips into the living room, where her mother is still sleeping soundly, and checks Rupert's jumper, which has dried off rather well in front of the fire. She takes it off the rack, slips out into the hallway again, then heads upstairs.
Rupert is still asleep, but Gertrude and Claudius have rearranged themselves, snuggling into Taggie's vacated spot up against his chest. She leans over them, planting a soft kiss on Rupert's forehead, then gives his arm a gentle shake.
He stirs, and then his eyes flutter open.
"Angel," he breathes. For a moment, his eyes are full of contentment, but then the memories of last night must come flooding back, reality seeping in through the cracks. "Oh god." He sits up, head in his hands, and Taggie hates that there's nothing she can do to make it better.
"Daddy's up," she tells him, feeling it's better to get it over and done with. "Someone needs to go to the police station and someone else needs to go to the Falconry. He wants to know which one you'd rather. He'll do the other."
Rupert sighs, his eyes meeting hers and freezing. His hands are clasped in a prayer position in front of his mouth and it's only after several breaths that he says, "I should go to Tony. I've known them both the longest."
Taggie nods. She hates that he has to do it, hates that after everything he endured last night he has to go and break the hearts of others, that he must take on the duties of the worst messenger they will ever meet.
"It's going to devastate him," he says. "Monica's so much kinder than he deserves, I can't…I can't imagine the hole that will leave. The children."
Taggie swallows, her eyes prickling once again. Rupert looks up at her, then climbs out of bed, coming over to her and wrapping her in his arms. They stay there quietly, knowing all they can do is help each other try to cope, one breath at a time.
"Thank you for taking care of me last night," he whispers. "Well, taking care of me always," he adds, after a moment's reflection. "I don't know what I'd without you, Tag."
You don't have to. Is what she wants to say.
But it's not the right time.
It's never the right time.