The relief that Arthur felt once he was on a Dover-bound boat somehow didn't run as deep as he had anticipated. He'd left in such a rush that he hadn't had time to send word to his family, so he was forced to find his own way to the house once he'd landed.

When he arrived, it was late evening; he could hear the faint roar of London traffic, beneath a sky painted inky blue and too shrouded in smog to show any stars.

"Hello?" he called into the house. No answer. There was a black and white cat asleep on the sitting room window sill, but no people appeared present. "Anyone home?"

Silence.

Eventually, he heard the click-click of the dog's nails on the wood floors as he ambled stiffly out. Giving the dog a pat for the astronomical effort—and to congratulate him for being able to tell that someone had come in, being as he was mostly blind and deaf these days.

"Well, hello to you anyway," he said, carrying his bag up to his room. "Hey!" When he walked in, he was sure someone had changed something—someone had been in his room. Immediately irked, he began to examine all his possessions, but he couldn't find a thing out of place. So why did he have the feeling something had been altered? Brushing it off with annoyance as the addling of his mind from too much travel, he went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

In the night, the front door opened and he heard a gusty sigh. Someone rattled the hat rack, and Mairead shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing her lower back, eyes squeezed shut. Arthur once again marveled that her hairband didn't snap right off the mass of red waves wrested into a bun through—surely—black magic. It took her a moment to see him, reading an old newspaper at the table, but when she did, she stopped dead, some mild shock on her freckled face.

"Gwydion. What in God's name are you doing here?" Arthur made a wide gesture with one hand over the paper, clean kitchen table, and his cup of tea.

"Reading the paper, obviously."

"In the house, dum-dum. Last I looked you'd gone tearing off to Paris without so much as a by your leave." She pulled a pot of soup out of the fridge, took a look in it, and put it on the stove to warm up.

"I'm back," Arthur said, folding the paper. "It was…time to come home."

"Fuck, why?" she asked, pouring herself a measure of whisky. "If I could run off to Paris and stay with a friend, you'd never see me again."

"What, mum's that bad?" Arthur snorted.

"Not mum, work." Mairead took a drink and rubbed her eyes.

"Where is she, anyway?" Arthur asked. "I've been here for hours and I haven't seen anyone."

"Dearest mummy is up north visiting Angus and bride, so you'll have to wait a few days for your welcome home hugs and kisses. You're not getting them from me." Mairead fished a wooden spoon out of a cramped drawer to stir the soup.

"If you kiss me, I'll burn your copy of Finnegan's Wake."

"Touch my books and I'll beat you senseless," Mairead replied at once, jabbing the spoon threateningly at him. Only because she was his sister did Arthur know there was a lot more bark than bite behind that tone—but he also didn't doubt that she would enact a bloody revenge on him if he actually did damage anything of hers. "Don't think because you're supposedly 'a man' now I can't still kick your arse from here to kingdom come."

"I'd like to see you try!" Arthur remembered a heartbeat later he shouldn't ever goad his older siblings unless he was prepared for them to take the challenge, no matter how asinine. Mairead lunged in his direction and he leaped out of his chair like a rabbit, but rather than making a real go for him, she just laughed and he scowled.

"Luckily for you, you'll have to annoy me an awful lot for me to bother with that," she sighed, pouring herself a cup of tea and leaving the soup to heat on the stove. She took a seat at the table as Arthur recomposed himself. She sighed again, curling her fingers stiffly around the mug. The room was quiet for a few minutes. "Things'll be better in Dublin," she murmured, unprompted. "I can't wait to get out of here. Seamus and I are going to make a real go of it, Arthur. It'll be good. We've been apart too long."

"Yeah?" Arthur shifted in his seat, reaching out for his own lukewarm cup of black tea. "So er…when's he sending for you? Got a date, then?"

"Soon," she said, with a frown. "I've told him if he doesn't write before May, I'm coming anyway. What was all the point in being married if we're never see each other?" She huffed. "I thought when he came here…well, I suppose it was asking a lot, to leave his home."

"Isn't that what he's doing to you?"

"It's different," she said. "Seamus loves Ireland. I won't look in the rear-view mirror when I leave London." She got up and went to take the soup off the stove. "Do you want some?"

"Just a bit," Arthur said. "I had something earlier."

"I hope you didn't bloody touch that ham," she said sharply. "That's for my casserole for the church festival this weekend."

"I didn't," Arthur lied. "Your stupid casserole is safe."

"Mairead! Have you seen the price of butter today? This is robbery!" Daffyd came into view, ruffling his dark curls. "Oi. Gwyn. You're home."

"It does seem that way."

"Welcome back."

"Thank you, Daffyd." He cast a pointed look at Mairead, who just took down a third bowl.

"Tommy's coming over, that alright?" Daffyd said. Mairead peered into the pot.

"Yeah, alright. Go get the bread, will you? Put it on the table." Arthur closed his eyes and sank into the house, into his family, into England. Here, where everything made sense, and the only fear he had was of his life being dull and unfulfilling—which, really, was easy to ignore, with enough tasks to do and rum to drink. He wrapped the familiarity around him like a blanket, tugged all his belongings into his safety ship, and closed his eyes to all the rest.

Francis and Emma made baguettes on Tuesday morning, and croissants in the afternoon, and sourdough loaves in the evening.

"Do you want to go out for a drink?" Francis asked her as they were closing up shop.

"It's been a while," she agreed. "Sure. Lars can heat up leftovers for dinner. Did I tell you about the cat that sneaked into our house yesterday?"

"No," Francis said. "Go ahead, I want to hear it." And so Emma talked, and Francis encouraged her, and they locked up the bakery and wandered down the streets towards St. Germain-de-Pres.

"Do you want to go to that one bar with the dog out front?" Emma asked. "There's supposed to be live jazz tonight!" She smiled at him, and he managed a little one in return, nodding in agreement.

"That sounds perfect," he said.

The music was lovely, but too lively for Francis' mood, and after a couple drinks, he nudged Emma and leaned over to ask the question close to her ear. "Do you want to go outside?"

She agreed, and they relocate to a corner of the available seating outside, sitting close together against the early spring chill. Emma lit a cigarette, and Francis remembered he'd forgotten to buy more on the way to work that morning.

"So what's on your mind?" she asked.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Of course," she chuckled, blowing out some smoke. "God, these are awful. You've been troubled as long as I've known you, Francis. So what is it?" He sighed gustily, considered asking for one of her cigarettes, and finished the rest of his cognac.

"It's everything," he said.

"Gee Francis, that's a lot of problems," Emma said with a comical frown. "I don't think I can help with everything." Francis shook his head and drummed his fingers on the table.

"I'm just…not happy." This time, Emma allowed him his silence before he continued. "I feel so distant from everything else around me, like I live in a bubble, and no one else can get in, and I can't get out. I feel…not so much like I'm screaming, but like I'm watching myself drown, and instead of running for help, I'm just standing there, watching it happen."

"Jeez, Francis." Emma's eyes widened. "Have you…talked to anyone about this? Maybe a doctor can help."

"Help with what?" Francis asked, his mouth twisted in something wry. "I don't have a broken bone, or a sore throat. I just can't, for the life of me, seem to find anything that makes me happy for more than an afternoon."

"That's…" Emma frowned, her brow furrowing. "That's…not good?"

"I know." Francis leaned back in his seat, putting an elbow over the back of it. "I just can't think of what to do anymore, Emma. I kept telling myself if I stayed positive it would get better. In Paris, it would be better. With a job I like, it would be better. With my own home, it would be better. I have all those things now, and still…" He sighed with a wind to stir the dust in Verdun. "I don't know what to do."

"What if you went h—" He was already shaking his head. "Okay. Well…I think you had the right idea, trying to stay positive," she said.

"Sometimes I feel like takes all the energy I have just to get out of bed and get dressed," he said.

"Francis, I…I don't know what to say," she confessed.

"I don't know that you need to say anything," Francis replied with a slight shrug, looking away. "Just…I wanted to…tell someone, I guess."

"I can listen," Emma offered. "That much I can do. Is there…do you need help with anything?"

Francis shrugged again. "No…" he trailed off, distracted by some thought or flight of fancy.

"Are you still living alone?" she asked. "Do you want a cigarette?"

"No, thank you." He let out a gusty sigh, and looked out to the street. "I am, but…" Emma bit her lip, to not try to fill the silence with more words. "There was someone. For a little while."

"Oh?"

"Yes…an old friend," he said. "But…I don't think she was happy either, and we argued quite a bit, and…she went home last week. France isn't for her, I guess. My life isn't." He reached out for his glass, only to grab it and remember it was empty. "I changed my mind, I will have a cigarette," he murmured.

"Oh, Francis, I'm sorry," Emma said, as she dug the cigarette pack out of her purse and pulled one out for him. "Why don't you…why don't you go after her! Maybe she's made a mistake!" She lit his cigarette and he took a long draw.

"I don't know," he mused, studying the figures passing by the bar. "What if this is one of those decisions she has to make on her own? I tried to make her stay before and it just made things worse."

"Mm. Maybe she needs space then," Emma mused. "Women are like that sometimes, you know. We do need our own space." Francis nodded.

"I'll just have to hope then." He exhaled loudly, and tilted his head back to look up at the starry sky. "Did you say if Lars had been able to get in on that shipping deal?" he asked.

"Oh! Yes, I don't know how he managed, but he has…"

"Expect you'll be asking Mr. Solomons for that job back now," Mr. Kirkland grunted as he cranked a bolt. "Daffyd does good work for him, so he ought at least consider taking you back."

Arthur sighed quietly, leaning back against the workbench. Yes, he supposed he ought to be going to ask for his job back. He'd been back almost twenty-four hours now, which meant it was his father's opinion that he was already late in getting it done. The truth was, Arthur would have sooner clocked into a shift in purgatory than gone back there. It wasn't that the brewery was bad work—it was most like…what was it like?

It was like he was accepting the future his father saw for him. In taking back his punch-card and his apron from Mr. Solomons, he was acknowledging that his father had been right, that there was nothing more meaningful or more interesting in his future—no school, no adventure, no grand romances. And deep in in his core, Arthur knew he rebelled so hard against that acceptance because he feared it was inevitable—that his father was right, and it was just a matter of time before Arthur was worn down enough to see it too.

"Arthur? Pay attention son," came the vaguely irritated voice. "Pass me the flat-tip." Arthur, startled from his thoughts, grabbed the screwdriver without thinking and forked it over.

"Well I was thinking," he began with a kind of hesitance he employed towards no one besides Mr. Kirkland, "that I might talk to the paper." He knew that he couldn't tell his father he had no plans to resume work at the brewery without presenting an acceptable alternative plan.

"The paper?" The mistrust was immediately audible in Mr. Kirkland's voice. "And what are you going to do there?" He could hear the guns cocking.

"Write, dad." What else did his father imagine he'd do there?

"Christ, Arthur. I thought going to France was about getting all these airy-fairy thoughts out of your head." The first burst of gunfire sprayed over Arthur's trench. Mr. Kirkland emerged from under the hood of the car, hands stained with oil, and cast a stone-faced look of disapproval at his youngest. "We talked about this before you left. Turning your nose up at good work isn't going to get you anywhere!" The crack of artillery blasted through the garage and Arthur flattened himself into the mud to avoid the shrapnel. Then it was time to return fire.

"I'm not turning my nose up!" Arthur snapped, stiffening defensively. His eyes flicked to his father's meaty fist, closed around the screwdriver, and he thought of his own slender frame, and wondered why he wasn't more like his father, and if life would be easier if he was. "I'm just…" His gun was jammed, and the damn Jerries were going to—

"Too good for working at the brewery, is that it? Too good for your brother's job?"

"I just want to do something more with my life than the same stupid, mindless job day in and day out!" Arthur shouted. His father's jaw was so tight he thought the muscles might snap, the bone shatter. A direct hit, no survivors.

"Right, because you're meant for something more," his father scoffed, trembling in his anger. "Like the right king of fucking Britain, Arthur's got some kind of destiny the rest of us can only dream of. You better wake up, son. You keep on like this, you'll be king of a street corner." He spat on the garage floor. "You're lucky your mother has a soft spot for you. If it were up to me, you'd be packing your bags tonight. You want to waste your life away and sit around with your thumb up your arse, you can do that on your own." He slammed the door to the house so hard the wall rattled, and Arthur cursed himself. His nose was filled with the smell of smoke and the acrid tang of gunpowder.

Certainly, his father made him want to put his fist through a wall, but he shouldn't have said what he did—he didn't even mean to, it had just slipped out. Of course he was grateful for the work his father had put in to support all of them, but couldn't he see that that life just wasn't for Arthur?

A cold fear washed over him and he wondered if he had been wrong—if perhaps, he was not so different from his father. What if Mr. Kirkland too, had once wanted more from life? Once dreamed of a greater future? What if he had felt this as well, and been driven to his current mindset by the trials of life?

No, Arthur thought savagely. There had never been anything in his father that dreamed.

Filled with an equal measure of frustration with himself and his father, Arthur left the garage. Unwilling to hang around the house with his father in a temper, he went for a walk to the library. It was a fair distance away—he had to take a bus—but sitting among the books always made him feel better.

As he browsed along the shelves, his eyes passed over a title on the Arthurian legends, and he pause. He took it from the shelf, and flipped errantly through the pages.

Was it true? Did he have his head in the clouds? Had all his dreaming and reading of epic tales convinced him that there was more to life than there was? No mystical lady lying in wait in a lake was going to bestow a sword upon him, and no fair maiden was ever going to give him a token (not, he thought with biting chagrin, that he would really want her to). No magic, no heavenly clash between good and evil, no threads of fate.

Gwydion, Mairead had called him as a child. Of the trees. Because he had loved to climb trees and play in the garden. Additionally, because she had been reading a book on such legends, that claimed King Arthur had gone first by the name Gwydion before his Christian baptism. Maybe sharing a name with such a grand character had done him no favors. Maybe he had allowed himself to think that he too, was owed a great destiny, a place in the history books.

But then, what was he to do? Accept his mundane life and take up his brewery apron once again? Find a milquetoast girl he could stand to be around for more than few hours at a time, and get married? And what then? Have a child? Grow old and only in his most private moments, remember that he had ever wanted anything else?

I'd rather die, he thought, shelving the book. A life that inspired such revulsion in him was no life at all. Learning to eek out moments of happiness in a life of drudgery wasn't living—it was desperation. For once, he checked out nothing, and went straight back home.

Mrs. Kirkland was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, with Edith Piaf playing on the radio. A sharp stick twisted into Arthur's chest, but he grimaced and mastered himself to ignore it.

"Your father is ready to have you keelhauled," his mother informed him as he approached. She looked up with such disappointment on her face that Arthur hung his head. "And I understand where he's coming from. What's gotten into you, Arthur?" Mrs. Kirkland had only ever called him by his name. "That was a terrible thing to say to your father. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's time for you to move on."

"Mum…" Arthur looked around the kitchen floor. "I didn't mean to say it, I really didn't. But—he doesn't understand!"

"I don't understand either, Arthur," she replied. "What is it that's so bad about taking the job back? Isn't that why you came home?" Arthur almost gaped at her, shocked to think his mother knew him so little as to think he would come home for a stupid job making beer.

"Mum, I just…" He sighed leaned against the counter with a deep frown. "I just think I would go crazy if I clocked into work tomorrow and knew I was looking my whole life in the face."

"Daffyd doesn't mind the job," she said.

"Daffyd is a different person than I am," he said.

"Your father thinks you're being stuck-up," she informed him.

"I know."

"I don't want to see you without a job," she said. "You need to support yourself, Arthur. And someday, your family."

"What if I don't have a family?" he asked suddenly, looking up at her. Mrs. Kirkland gave him a sympathetic look that he didn't understand until she spoke.

"You will someday. You'll find a girl who appreciates your gifts, and is willing to overlook how you always misplace things, and burn the eggs," she said with a smile, reaching out to squeeze his arm. "That's what marriage is about—accepting each other's flaws." Arthur slumped, an obscure feeling of disappointment twinging in his gut, and then straightened up, and looked away.

"I just don't know if that life is for me, mum."

"Well…what else is it you think you would do?" He could hear the struggle in her voice to understand something beyond the prescribed path of life.

"I don't know. Write a book," he said, flushing slightly and fixing his gaze elsewhere. What a dumb child he sounded like! He could hear the pity in the way his mother scraped another strip of skin off a potato.

"It's nice to have dreams, Arthur," she said. "And you were always a dreamer. Filled with big stories, and colorful characters." She smiled, and for the first time, Arthur looked at his mother and realized she was old. She had turned fifty-eight last fall, and the spaces around her eyes were spiderwebbed with wrinkles. There were a few brown spots on her hands, and streaks of gray in her hair. "You have such a beautiful imagination. But it used to get in the way of your schoolwork when you were very young, do you remember? Do you remember the spelling bee?"

Arthur groaned. Yes—the spelling bee he'd taken part in when he was seven, entered because all his teachers seemed to think he was a sure-fire win. He read far above his classmates' levels, and devoured everything they gave him—even books from their own personal libraries. He wrote as formally as a child twice his age, and enjoyed his work. But when he had gotten on stage, and been given the word, he had been so intently thinking about a story in his mind that he'd been eliminated for taking too long to respond. He hadn't even realized they had given him the word until he was being ushered off-stage.

"Well…I don't want that to happen to you here," Mrs. Kirkland said, her tone growing gentler, her expression turning to a concerned frown. "Your imagination is lovely, Arthur. But sometimes you need to focus more on real life."

"I know, mum," Arthur said softly, still looking away. "I promise I am thinking about my future. If I wasn't thinking about it at all, I would just take the damn job."

"Don't curse," she said.

"Sorry, mummy. But I just don't think it's a bad thing to try to strive for more," he insisted.

"Maybe not, but you insulted your father awfully, and I want you to apologize," she said, her tone growing sterner. Arthur suppressed a groan.

"Mum, he's been hounding me about my job since I decided to go to France and—"

"Your father is trying to look out for you." The first hint of sharpness entered her tone. "He doesn't want to see you in the poorhouse either, Arthur. We both want to see you with a nice home and a good job and a loving family." Arthur sighed.

"If I promise to get a job, will you both relax? I really don't want to be homeless either."

"Well, good. Now cut up these potatoes," she said. With yet another sigh, Arthur rolled up his sleeves and reached for a knife.

Mairead was harassing the mailman. It was a weekly affair, no matter how many times Mrs. Kirkland told her to give the poor man some space.

"Blimey, she's going to drive the man off his route," Arthur said, leaning back in his chair to look out the window to the mailbox.

"If she doesn't drive him off a cliff first," Daffyd said.

"Pity the sod," Arthur said, settling back down and reaching for another piece of bacon.

"Arthur, don't be rude," Mrs. Kirkland said, getting to her feet. She went to the door to holler at her only daughter. "Mairead! Leave the man to his work and come back to the table!"

She returned reluctantly, and scowled at her two brothers, smirking nastily.

"Pity! The poor lass returns empty-handed!" Arthur exclaimed. "Whatever shall she do?"

"Sit at the window at midnight, calling on the fairies for news," Daffyd replied. "Seamus, oh, Seamus!" He pitched his voice to a falsetto, which quickly became real after a momentary scuffle under the table.

"Don't kick your brother!" Mrs. Kirkland ordered. "Honestly, you lot act like you're still ten years old!"

"At least I'm not out torturing the poor mailman," Arthur said.

"Hush, Arthur!"

"Yes, hush Arthur, the adults are talking," Mairead sneered.

"Mairead!"

Mr. Kirkland abruptly got to his feet, folded the paper, and exited the scene. Mrs. Kirkland gave Arthur a pointed look. Arthur averted his eyes to his plate, dragging his bacon through the split yolk of his fried egg.

Apologies were the worst. Not only did they involve admitting you might have been wrong, but they were so awkward, and what if you were rejected? Then you had just debased yourself for nothing. Francis has it easy, Arthur thought sourly. Can't argue with a dead parent. He felt his own wretchedness sharply immediately afterwards, with the memory of Francis' confession not yet six months gone in his head, of how he had tortured himself with information about the concentration camps after learning his father had died there. It was this sense of his own imperiled morality that drove him to swallow the rest of his eggs, dump his plate in the sink with a clatter, and shuffle off to find his father with the paper in the living room, where the din from the table was more distant.

"Hey, dad." He was greeted by the flap of a newspaper page being turned. "I, er…" Couldn't the man even look at him while he was trying to do this? "Look, I didn't mean to—imply anything about you n' mum the other day. There's nothing wrong with what you and Daffyd do. It's just…not for me." The paper crinkled, but maintained an iron curtain between them. "Don't you see, dad?" he pleaded. "I just…I want—I need to test myself. I need…I need to try." God knew his success was no certainty. But Arthur didn't see as how he could live with himself without even trying to achieve something he deemed worthwhile in his own right, for fear he would fail.

And more and more, he felt the teeth of a trap digging into his leg, and no matter how frantically he thrashed, he could not free himself. He was tearing up his flesh and spilling his blood trying to free himself, and he knew if he stayed too long, he would chew off his own foot to get away. It was just a matter of time. But how could dad, with all his stoic, impassive acceptance of all that life threw at him, understand that? The man had lost a leg and Arthur had never seen him do more than briefly grimace when it Arthur supposed it pained him, or grunt a regret that he couldn't do this or that so quickly anymore, if asked to perform a task.

The iron curtain was unwavering, and Arthur fought the sudden urge to swat it out of his father's hands.

"Dad. Dad. I'm trying to…apologize."

"Well don't bother," his father replied. "It's not my life you're in charge of. You've got to live with your own decisions." Arthur scrutinized the paper, trying to determine if his father was picking a fight. Mr. Kirkland lowered the paper. "I think you're making a stupid decision," he informed Arthur bluntly. "But you're far too old for me or mum to stop you. Just don't expect anyone else to come pull you out of the gutter if it goes sideways."

"I'm not expecting anything," he said.

"Good. Then do what you want." The paper went back up, and Arthur glared up at the ceiling before taking his leave.

When he went to bed that night, he was considering the conversation again. What he'd said had certainly been true when he left for Paris. He supposed a lot of it still was.

The Arthurian legends were still swirling around in his mind, and as he lay awake in the dark room, his thoughts turned to Guinevere. King Arthur had had many grand adventures, but he had never really had Guinevere—her heart had belonged to Lancelot from the start. Did that ever make the king lonely? Surely he must have seen—must have known, on some level—that Guinevere was not in love with him. He had the love of his knights, of course, but was it the same? Did he feel that he was lacking something, living a married life with someone who would never love him as a husband?

It was impossible to think of Arthur and Guinevere and marriage without his thoughts dragging Francis in from the sidelines. He had tried to hard not to think of Francis since he had left Paris, but that night a hole was blown straight through his defenses, and his chest ached with a physical pain. Francis' name bubbled up to his lips and he whispered it aloud to the blackened room.

Was Francis thinking of him? When Arthur left, had his chest hurt the way Arthur's did now? Did he ever think of Arthur returning? Or worse—had he moved on already? No, no—Arthur refused to believe it. There was no way Francis could have moved past their tryst that quickly. Surely he must also be nursing wounds from their final skirmishes, trying to marshal his men for reconstruction efforts. He had to be.

His throat felt tight, but he forced it back. He had left Francis behind, and all thoughts of him—that all belonged a world away in Paris, to a life he had chosen to walk away from. Not even a life—an impossible dream. A fantasy. Just like his books. If mum and dad only knew the extent of Arthur's childish daydreaming!

It was all their fault anyway, he thought viciously. If they had never sent him away, he never would have met Francis in the first place! Arthur rarely met people who genuinely stirred his interest, and so it was easy to lie to himself, to everyone else—but when Francis burst back into his life like the blast of a trumpet, with his warm voice and soft eyes and his heart that bore scars so similar to Arthur's—how could he deny himself the truth? There was no use in pretending he didn't crave Francis, everything about him—his company and his touch, his smell and the sound of his laughter and the warmth of his embrace—it was like he had soused himself in a heady wine, and all he could think of was having more.

He rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow. The ache in his breast felt like it was threatening to split his chest in two, and for half a moment, he waited for the feeling of Francis' soothing hand on his back.

Once in Paris he'd had a nightmare (about the war, of course), and he had left the bed to go have a drink of water in the kitchen. Francis found him half an hour later, sitting at the kitchen table, watching the street lights outside the window. Arthur remembered how Francis, still half-asleep, had leaned over the back of the chair to wind his arms around Arthur and murmur in his ear for him to come back to bed. He'd gone back to sleep with Francis nestled cozily in the curve of his body, an arm thrown over Francis' waist, considering the marvel of Francis noticing he was gone, and coming to get him.

It could never be—Arthur knew that to be true. If his dream about working for the newspaper was far-fetched, any thoughts he had about having a life with Francis were plainly delusional. There was no future for them, there couldn't be. Francis was taking himself on a path to self-destruction, and if Arthur went with, there was nothing but ruin coming for him. The war might have doomed Francis—or maybe that was just fate, and would have happened whether or not the world decided to implode on itself—but that didn't mean Arthur had to go down too.

This night, and only this night, he allowed himself to wallow in the agony of having to make the only choice available to him. And then, he would move on.

Alas, things were rarely so simple, as much as Arthur liked to think he could change reality through the sheer force of his will. He slept badly that night and was in a foul mood all the next day, snapping and snarling at anyone who spoke to him. He left the house for a few hours only to make his parents believe he was doing something useful (and because he couldn't bear listening to any of their voices anymore), but wound up at the bar before five p.m. Knowing he couldn't go home tipsy, he simply stayed until he knew the family would have eaten already, and then went home. He argued with mum, who was predictably not thrilled by his coming home drunk and missing dinner without giving a word.

Nevertheless, he got out of bed a few hours later after some tossing and turning to go down and continue. If he was going to drink, he might as well commit, right? So he sat down at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey he'd found in the pantry, incinerating a few more feelings with every burning swallow.

"Bit late for this, isn't it?" He lifted his head to see his sister in the kitchen entryway, arms crossed.

"Fuck off," he slurred.

"Clever." Contrary to his demands, Mairead came closer, and took the seat opposite him. She also had the gall to help herself to some of his stolen whiskey. "Dad know you're siphoning his whiskey?"

"Fuck off," Arthur complained.

"Come on Gwyn, even I can see this isn't a regular sousing. Nobody gets up in the middle of the night to drink because their head's empty. What's going on with you?"

"Fuck all." Arthur slouched in his chair, leaning his back against the wall rather than the seat back.

"Right, I see." Mairead inhaled a first glass and poured herself another. "You're waiting for the keen listening ears of dad or Angus." Arthur scowled at her, but was startled by the lack of fighting light or harshly teasing glint in her eyes. Something that might have been concern made him look away, and take another drink from his glass.

"Fuck are you doing up anyway?"

"Promised Seamus I'd call after work," she said. "But he was out. Thought I'd try him again before bed."

"S' almost midnight."

"I was reading," she said. She paused. "Couldn't sleep." She clinked her nails against her whiskey glass. "Sometimes seems like we're never going to actually be married, you know? Just playing around like it's going to work out." Light from the one small lamp Arthur had put on lit up the wedding band around her finger. He grunted sympathetically and they were quiet. "So, your turn," she said at last. "Tell me what's going on in that head of yours."

"Don't want to."

"Yeah, but you should."

"Fuck off."

"You'll explode if you try to pack it all away like a Molotov cocktail."

"Works pretty well for you."

"Ah, fuck off. I just told you what I was doing," she said. "Anyway, nobody wants to hear me bitch and moan about my husband." Arthur slouched further in his seat, gripping his glass with white knuckles. The words were just on the edges of his lips, burning and pressing against his mouth.

"I'm just fucked Mairead, okay? I'm just fucked, and I know it."

"Yeah? Why's that?" Arthur groaned loudly and ran a hand back through his hair.

"Can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Just can't."

"I used to carry you home on my back from school when you got in fights and you can't tell me?" she said. "Would've done better to get myself a dog, like I said to mam."

"It's not that simple!" Arthur shouted, slamming his glass down against the table, sloshing whiskey over his hand. "Fuck!" Mairead sighed and passed him a napkin.

"Gwydion—Arthur—look, if you killed a man, just out with it. Whatever you did I'm sure it's not as bad as you think it is."

"Yeah?" Arthur asked poisonously, drawing the word out and squinting over at her in a rage. "You think so? You know why I stayed so long in Paris? I was busy getting buggered by a hot Frenchman. And still I have to stop myself from going back to him."

Mairead blinked at him.

"You're—?"

"Yes, I'm a fucking queer," he snarled, knocking back the rest of his whiskey in one go before grabbing the bottle and chugging a good portion from that too. "Jesus Christ, I told you I couldn't say anything."

"Well then." Again the chink chink chink of her nails against the glass, and no words. Arthur's gut burned like a fire in his body, and he fought the urge to hurl the bottle against the wall. "I mean, you didn't kill anyone, then?"

"No," he replied dully, simmering with fury in his seat. Directed at whom, or what, he couldn't say.

"Well then."

"Oh, fuck off! Go confess to a priest if you need to cleanse your soul after hearing about my transgressions."

"I haven't said a thing!"

"You don't have to!" Mairead sighed heavily while Arthur poured himself more whiskey.

"I mean, it's not ideal."

"You're telling me?"

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure?"

"Okay, okay, it was a stupid question."

"No shit."

More silence, and Arthur groaned again, bumping his head back against the wall.

"Fuck, Mairead. No matter what I do, I'm buggered. If I stay here, I'll have to marry some girl and pretend I'm something I'm not for the rest of my life. If I go back, I can't keep lying, and whether it's legal or not, you know people will be ugly. And I don't…" He hung his head, drawing his feet up onto the chair. "I don't know if I want to accept that kind of life. And don't fucking tell me I'm going to hell," he added, lifting his head.

"I wasn't going to," she said, throwing her hands up. She rubbed her chin and frowned. "Do you…do you love this man?"

"I don't know," he replied in a pained voice, tipping his head back again. "Fuck. Just tell me if you're disgusted, don't pretend."

"I mean, I didn't see it coming," she admitted. "But…"

"But?"

"Well…it just seems to me there are worse things you could do than be in love with a man," she said. Arthur sat up straighter, and put his feet back on the floor.

"But what about the Church?" Mairead tilted her head from side to side.

"I know what they say. But like I said…I mean, you're not hurting anyone." Arthur just stared. "It used to be illegal to be a Protestant," she pointed out in the silence.

"Yeah…"

"So…" She shifted in her seat, looking down at her drink. "Maybe we don't always get things right the first time."

"So you don't…"

"You're still my little brother," she said, lifting her head to look at him. Her eyes were green, like his, but a darker, more intense hue. "I don't know what I think just yet, but I'm sure as fuck not going to kick you to the street about it."

"No?" Arthur's voice cracked, and a great tremor went through him.

"Just seems like we have bigger concerns than whether or not you want to marry a broad." Then Arthur was rubbing at his eyes and not saying anything, and Mairead helped herself to the whiskey bottle. "So then, we're back to the question of whether or not you mean to stay in London." Arthur sniffled, and reached for his whiskey glass.

"I haven't decided."

"Well you left for a reason," she said. "You think you've solved that issue?" Arthur looked down into his glass with a small shake of his head. "Because—well, you know how I felt. About Seamus." Arthur hadn't been there for Mairead's wartime wedding, and he'd never really thought much about it before. But he supposed marrying someone who was probably about to go off and die required some kind of steel. And love.

"So what? You think I should go back?"

"I think you should do what you want," she said. "Don't wait until you're forty to realize you knew what you wanted all along." Arthur heaved a sigh, and looked over.

"Shit. We're out of whiskey."

"Who's 'we'? I was never here," Mairead said, finishing her glass and setting it down. "But dad might give you a good bollocking when he finds you've drunk all his whiskey."

"Hey! You did too!" Mairead smirked and shrugged as she got to her feet, carefully rising and drying her whiskey glass to put it back on the shelf. "Bring it here," she said, reaching her hand back without turning, curling and uncurling her fingers. After a puzzled pause, Arthur staggered to his feet and passed her his glass to be cleaned. He hovered nearby while she did it, and when she turned to go, presumably to bed, he caught her in a clumsy hug. Mairead hesitated, surprised, but then gave him a loose embrace in return. Arthur was just a bit taller, but could rest his forehead on her shoulder still, and he did.

"You get to bed, Gwyn," she said, patting his back and peeling him off her. "You're fucking plastered."

"Don't tell mummy," he pleaded.

"Hm, we'll see," she said. "I might need something from you in the next few days."

"Mairead!" She laughed quietly.

"Get to bed, you twit. It's almost one. And you're going to wake everyone up." Arthur at last obeyed, and stumbled upstairs to his room, collapsing on the bed. He fought to pull the covers out from under himself for a few minutes before he gave up and just grabbed his pillow. He felt warm from head to toe as he closed his eyes, but it wasn't the whiskey, despite the considerable amount he had put away. No, it was the two thoughts that chased each other 'round and 'round in his head until he fell asleep:

Mairead still loves me and I'm going back to Paris.