Chapter Text
The rain is heavier now, swirling the hill into a mass of mud; Anne slips as she runs, but doesn’t fall. She told George to wait with the horses but she can hear his footsteps.
“Go back,” she shoots at him. “Watch the animals.”
“But, ma’am-”
“Are you disobeying me?”
He gulps. “No, ma’am.”
“Good.”
She doesn’t stay turned around to see if he’s gone back. In all honesty, she doesn’t care much what he does, because even through the rain she can see pale skin and pale hair and a pale blouse and she’s scared, so, so scared, that she’s too late.
She makes it down the hill, legs splattered with mud and shoes caked in it.
“Ann!”
Her wife is huddled up by a tree, her sleeves pulled down to her hands, a smudge of blood on one cuff. Anne drops to her knees beside the body and prays, God, she prays, that there is life in the blue eyes she tips the chin up to see.
“Ann?” She gently touches her neck, feeling for a pulse. It beats steadily into her fingertips. “God, Ann, wake up.”
A tear falls from beneath the closed eyelids, joining the stains across her cheeks, and Ann turns her head away.
“Ann, it’s just me.” Anne keeps her voice soft, cradling Ann’s jaw in her hand. “Adney, please.”
At the nickname, Ann crumples. All of her seems to slump and she starts to cry properly, her shoulders heaving as she does her best to pull in air. She falls towards Anne, into the waiting embrace, her head landing on the leather-clad shoulder, and Anne holds her, holds her the way the king holds the sceptre as he takes the holy oil.
“I’m sorry,” Ann whispers. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Anne murmurs. “I’m not angry.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats nonsensically. “Please don’t be angry. I-”
“Hush now, darling.” Anne runs her hand up and down Ann’s spine. Her touch is feather-light. She’s so scared that this isn’t real, that the rain has done something to her, that something has happened to the true Ann and she’s sitting here comforting a hallucination.
But then Ann twists in her hold, burying her head in Anne’s chest, and her fingers twist in the lapel of her greatcoat, and Anne knows that hallucinations are never this warm. She shushes Ann’s hair, whispers ‘I love you’s and ‘I’m here’s into the top of her head, as if the meaningless words can do anything in the face of what’s happening. It’s true, she does love her, and it’s true, she’s here, and she doesn’t want to let Ann go ever again, but she can see Mrs Priestley’s face in her head. Eliza used to adore Anne, thinking her funny and eccentric and intelligent, but now she hates her, thinks she’s ruined precious little Ann Walker, and perhaps she has, because if she’d never pursued Ann then maybe - well, definitely - they wouldn’t be here now. Ann would be well and safe and there would be no blood and no knife-
She’s surprised to feel her own breath hitch as she starts to weep, closing her eyes to keep back an army of tears that easily wins the war. Ann shifts against her, lifting her head. Anne cries harder at the sight of her, beautiful and broken and bloodstained. This is her fault.
“Anne?”
She swallows. “Hm?”
“Please don’t cry. I’m sorry, I truly am. I didn’t realise - I thought it was what you wanted - I-”
“I know. I read your letter.” Anne feels for it in her pocket. “I must say I’m surprised you wrote to Mariana.”
“You love her so much,” Ann replies simply. Anne aches. “I thought you might like to take up your union with her.”
“How do you think I feel about you, hm?”
Ann blinks.
“I told you, this morning, that I loved you. We are married. We took the sacrament together. What more do you want?” She tries to keep her voice gentle, but there’s an edge to it. Ann flinches.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters. Anne tilts her head.
“What are you sorry for?”
The blonde falters. “I - well - I suppose - I - for making you angry?” She suggests.
“I don’t think I’m angry. Do you?” Anne smiles. “I think you’re making empty apologies for a crime that was never committed.”
“But-”
“And, therefore, I think the best course of action is for us to return home, run a hot bath, and have some crumpets sent up from the kitchen, and then you can go to sleep because you look exhausted, Adney.”
Ann fidgets with her hands in her lap, picking at the skin around a nail. Anne catches up the fingers in her own and, at the lack of resistance, carefully turns her hands over and pushes up her cuffs. There’s a cut on one of her fingers, clotted with dried blood, and a couple of scratches that have just broken the skin, but nothing else.
“Ann.” Anne cups her wife’s jaw with her own shaking hand. “Look at me.”
Blue eyes meet brown ones, both filled with tears.
“I don’t want to hear them anymore,” Ann forces out.
“I know. I know, sweetheart.” Anne tips their foreheads together and thinks she has never known a sweeter heart than Ann Walker’s. “You don’t deserve to feel any of this.”
“Please don’t put me away.”
Anne pulls her close. “I would never. You belong at Shibden, not at some stupid institution where you don’t even know yourself.”
George is waiting awkwardly at the top of the hill with the horses, his back turned to them, and he politely doesn’t remark on either of their states. He bows, adjusting a saddle.
“Are we going back to Shibden, ma’am?”
“As swiftly as possible, please, George,” Anne replies. “You’ll have to ride with me, Miss Walker. Behind or in front?”
Ann flushes and Anne smirks.
“I’ll go in front,” she suggests, and cups her hand for Ann’s foot. The rain slows their journey a little, but Ann’s front is warm against her back and her hands are tight around Anne’s middle. George rides ahead, checking the track as he goes. Anne urges her horse a little faster, hoping they can get back before the senior Listers notice their absence. Marian isn’t the best liar. She can feel Ann picking at her fingers again.
The front door is open when they arrive back and Marian is sitting reading on the bench in the porch, shivering in the breeze and biting her lip anxiously. Surprising. Or not so, since Ann could steal every heart in the world one way or another.
“Anne!” She jumps to her feet, chucking the book to the floor - Anne winces - and grabs a blanket from beside her. “Miss Walker! She found you!”
“Y-yes.” Ann takes the blanket gratefully and wraps it around her shoulders. Anne sheds her damp layers and tosses Ann’s pelisse onto the hook as well. Somebody will deal with it later. She squeezes Ann’s hand.
“Why don’t you go on upstairs, Ann, dear?” She suggests. “I’ll order a hot bath from the kitchen, and you can relax. I’ll cancel my meeting.”
“Oh - please don’t withhold working on my account.” Ann shivers through her reply. “I’ll be fine by myself.”
“Of course I’m cancelling,” Anne answers firmly. “All well with the seniors, Marian?”
Her sister nods. “I just told them Miss Walker was feeling under the weather and you had gone out to see if Dr Belcombe was still staying in town.”
“Well done.”
She pushes Ann gently up the stairs, informs Eugenie of the immediate need for hot water, and then strides upstairs herself.
Ann bathes by herself, the door locked even to Anne, and so she is forced to pace up and down the bedroom, fidgeting with her skirts. She changes into dry clothes and lays out a fresh set for Ann. She paces. She searches out some bandages for her finger. She reads, burns, and replies to Mariana’s letter. She paces up and down. She folds Ann’s note away in her travelling chest as a reminder. She makes the bed. She paces, up and down, up and down, up and down, ignoring Marian’s three requests for her to ‘stop thumping around like an irritable elephant’.
“Anne?”
She whips around. Ann is standing in the doorway of the connecting bathroom wearing Anne’s purple damask dressing gown. She looks fragile and Anne has a sudden urge to take her in her arms and run away, away from busybody relatives and big empty houses and voices and muddy hills, to a house with a fire and two rooms where they are safe and they are happy and they are alone. She smiles bravely.
“There you are. Feeling better?”
“A little.”
“I see you’ve made good use of my robe.”
Ann tries for a smile. “I couldn’t find mine.”
“Oh, Adney.” Anne takes her face in her hands. “Won’t you tell me next time? Please? I can’t lose you.”
“I thought-”
“I know what you thought.” She brushes away a lock of damp hair, soft as velvet against her fingers. “I know. But, please, won’t you just tell me? I know it is harder by yourself, I know I can help you. It is the nature of a human to want another in some form. Please.”
“I’ll tell you,” Ann promises. Anne slumps with relief, clasping her hands.
“Thank you. God, thank you a thousand times, Ann, truly.” She presses a chaste kiss to her wife’s lips; Ann sags against her. “Are you hungry? Would you like some breakfast?”
“I just want to sleep, to be honest.” Ann bites her lip. “Will you - will you stay?”
“Of course.”
They settle under the covers, Anne’s arm over Ann’s waist, blonde and brown hair tangled together, Anne’s lips drifting across the top of Ann’s head. Ann burrows into her neck and falls asleep at last.
“Best of wives,” Anne whispers into the air, and closes her own eyes. "Sleep well."