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White Rose	By : CeeCee Category: X-men Comics > FemSlash - Female/Female Views: 10605 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men fandom. Marvel Entertainment owns these characters. I make no money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 17
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- 19
Emma. I'm so sorry. I've failed you. 
　 
Cold fear speared through Emma's chest as she woke with a start, propelling herself up from the pillows. "Christian!" She's heard him plain as day in her head before she'd fully left the fog of dreams. 
　 
Beside her, Ororo stirred. Her slender, taloned hand reached out, patting blindly for Emma as she yawned. "What's wrong, sweetling?" She smelled the hard tang of Emma's fear, and that woke her fully, as well. "Was it a nightmare?" 
　 
"No! If it only were. It was Chris, I heard him! I heard my brother, Ororo, he's in trouble! I felt his despair, and it's so much worse this time!" 
　 
"You heard him?" 
　 
"He called out to me again. I have to see him!" 
　 
"Emma. Emma, stop," Ororo advised as Emma threw back the covers and sprang from bed, still naked. Emma rummaged through the wardrobe and found drawers and a soft, plain linen shift. "Emma, listen to me." 
　 
"There's no time!" Emma jerked on the undergarments and yanked open a drawer, finding stockings, which she struggled to hop into, not even bothering to roll them over her foot properly. "He needs me!" Her voice rose in pitch, girlishly high with fresh hysteria. 
　 
"Emma, it's the middle of the night," Ororo hissed. She sat up in bed and shook out her wings, freeing one from a cramp. 
　 
"He called out to me, you don't understand! I have to go to him!" 
　 
"In the dark? And then, do what?" Ororo tried to push logic and reason into her manner, but it was difficult when Emma was so overwrought. 
　 
"I'll figure that out when I get there!" 
　 
"EMMA!" Ororo's tone was sharp, and she was up out of bed in an instant. She gripped Emma's wrist, stopping her attempts to dress herself. Her blue eyes - strangely, eerily beautiful, no longer the cloudy slate that they had been when they first met, but a clear, true sky blue - were stern, but kind. "Stop this. You're an intelligent girl. Think, for a moment. He spoke to you?" 
　 
Emma's eyes were limpid with anguish, and she nodded. 
　 
"Did you get anything else from him? Any impressions? A location? Is he with your father?" Ororo pressed. "That would help, dear." 
　 
"Ororo... I don't know, I..." Insight dawned on her face, and she shook herself free of Ororo's grasp, before she darted into the corridor. 
　 
"Emma!" Ororo huffed, annoyed that her reasoning wasn't finding fertile ground. "Honestly..." she muttered as she followed her. She was surprised to find Emma running back to Ororo's bedchamber. Ororo preferred spending nights in Emma's room, by now. It smelled like her, and the morning light streamed in through the windows so perfectly, casting Emma's skin and hair in gold. Ororo knew that her days were numbered, growing fewer all the time. Her roses mocked her every time she stepped out into the garden. Fewer new buds appeared to replace the wilted blooms. 
　 
She followed Emma into her chamber and found her searching her vanity, and froze when she saw what Emma found, brandishing it at her in triumph. 
　 
"Take me to Chris," Emma told the traveling mirror clutched in her grip. "Show him to me. Please." Her heart pounded as the mirror's silver surface clouded and swirled. Emma saw traces of images, barely made out Chris's face, before it faded to black. Emma's heart lodged itself in her throat, and she tasted bile. "Chris! CHRISTIAN! No! Show him to me! Take me to him!" She shook the mirror, dashing the side of it with her palm, and her voice grew wobbly. "Show me my brother!"
"Emma. Don't. You're not focused. Here." Ororo padded over to her and gently took Emma by the shoulders. "It's all right. Let me. Give it to me." Emma shook her head, eyes tearing up, but Ororo was insistent. “It’s all right. We will find him, Emma.”
“I have to, Ororo, I’m going to lose him, you don’t understand! He’s all I have! Chris and Papa, they’re all… I have.” Her eyes held so much desperation, and she trembled.
Ororo softly shushed her and pulled her close. Her fur was soft and sleep-warmed, and her arms were so strong, steadying Emma. “We will find him. Together. I promise you this. But I won’t let you run off into the night half-cocked and unprepared.” Emma withdrew and swiped at her damp cheeks with her palm. “Lie down.”
“But-!”
“Lie down, dear.” She nodded to her bed, and Emma hesitated. Her mouth tilted mulishly, and Ororo knew she was in for a fight before they even went out the door.
“You said we would find him! I can’t just go back to-”
“Emma. Enough.” And Ororo spread her wings, flapping them in a grand, sweeping flourish, making the air in the room stir Emma’s hair. “I will not let you down. I will not fail you, Emma. But I want you to lie down and rest. You’ll only see him once you’ve calmed yourself.” Emma stubbornly, gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, and Ororo felt a frisson of amusement at her expression, knowing the sort of mutinous thoughts rolling proudly through that pretty blonde head.
Instead of hovering over her imperiously, Ororo knelt before Emma on the floor. Emma’s brow furrowed in surprise. “Think about him. Hear his voice in your mind again, dear. Go back. To those moments before you woke up. You’re a talented girl, Emma. Use that canny mind.” Ororo took Emma’s hands, which still clutched the mirror, and hers felt so warm. “Think back. Hear him, and we will find him.”
The mirror pulsed in Emma’s hand, quivering and growing warm. Emma closed her eyes and breathed deeply, quietly. She concentrated, going back to her dreams, opening the door in her mind and recapturing the moment she heard Christian and tasted his despair. 
Despite Ororo’s admonition to Emma to calm herself, her own pulse was rapid and uneven, resulting from being awoken so suddenly and feeling Emma’s terror. She stared down into the mirror while Emma focused on it, reestablishing her link to her brother. The mirror’s surface continued to swirl, but this time, there were more distinct forms and depth to the images. Colors and textures, light and shadows, all of it was revealed to them as Emma slowly repeated Christian’s lament.
“I’m so sorry. I’ve failed you,” she murmured, and another fat tear rolled down her cheek, wetting her shift. “Bars. I see… bars. A hard looking bed. Like a cot. Sconces. In the corridor.”
“I see them too, Emma. Look.” And Ororo squeezed her hands, prompting Emma to open her eyes and gaze into the mirror.
“It’s different from the other cell,” Emma told her. Christian sat in a chair, posture unnaturally straight. His arms were pulled behind him, and Emma realized they were bound. His face was bruised and bloody, but his blue eye were defiant. Emma saw bodies moving around him, clad in opulent clothing. Gentleman’s togs. 
　 
One of them struck him across the temple, a cruel, backhanded clout. Chris reeled, sagging, but he looked up, and the spirit in his eyes remained unextinguished. Steady. Emma covered her mouth and stifled a sob.
“You’ve received the finest hospitality we could offer,” Emma intoned in an unearthly, gruff tone. Her voice sounded deeper, with uncharacteristic inflections. Her eyes glowed with eerie silver light as she channeled the words of the men in the cell with Christian, one by one. Ororo shrank back, discomfited, but the words continued to come. “The least you can do to repay it is to bring your sister here. Save us the trouble of bringing her to your trial.”
Ororo’s wings bristled, and she emitted a low, hard growl. No one was going to bring Emma anywhere, if she had any say in the matter.
“You won’t get her. You’ll never get my sister.”
“Oh, we will. If she cares anything for you, she will come. Your sister is a fine young woman, and I feel no joy about revealing to her that her only brother is a murderer.”
“I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Yet there are two dead men.”
“Men.” Christian spat. “Curs, more like it. The world became a brighter place once they were snatched out of it, Shaw.”
Shaw.
That name gave Ororo chills. He wanted Emma. Pursued her. Ororo knew that he tried to squeeze a betrothal out of Winston, knowing he had no dowry to offer and that his farm would benefit from the windfall guaranteed by Emma marrying for Shaw’s wealth and position.
“She’ll want to tell you goodbye. We will reunite you, out of kindness. You, and your father. Take heart, Christian. Emma will be in the best hands once you and your father meet your maker.”
Emma’s body wavered where she sat. Her face was a rictus of horror, eyes still glowing, and she screamed, convulsing and releasing her grip on the mirror. Ororo managed to catch it before it could shatter on the floor. She set it down and caught Emma, shaking her by her shoulders.
“Emma! EMMA! Break free! Let him go! LET GO!” Emma continued to convulse, and her skin grew clammy and pale.
“She’ll want to tell you goodbye!” her voice sounded hysterical. “WHEN YOU MEET YOUR MAKER! TELL YOU GOODBYE!”
“EMMA!”
Ororo wrestled her down, back onto the covers, struggling to hold her still. She clasped Emma’s wrists down when she tried to pummel Ororo, eyes still aglow. She screamed again. “NO! CHRIS, NO! DON’T LEAVE ME! DON’T GO! DON’T GO”
“Sweetheart, no! Come back to me, do you hear me? Let go! Let go of them!”
Emma bucked and arched off the bed, but Ororo held onto her. “Focus on me,” she hissed. “Stay with me, Emma! Do you understand me? Listen to me. Stay right here with me.”
Neither of them saw the looks of horror on Shaw’s face, or Christian’s, as Emma’s cries spanned the psychic divide, traveling through her channel with Christian. The mirror’s images slowly faded, and the hectic glow left Emma’s eyes.
Emma sobbed, and Ororo folded her into her arms. She held her for as long as she needed, a tangible presence and source of endless strength. 
“He’s still alive. They will still have a trial.”
“He has no one to speak for him, Ororo. What about witnesses?”
“Jean-Paul,” she reminded her. “They would have to call him forward…”
“You don’t know Shaw. He will twist things. He’s an evil, horrible man,” Emma told her. “You know what he’s done to Chris, before. Just for the sake of a gambling debt.” Emma remembered that night, when Chris shared those memories with her. She shuddered at the dim echoes of Chris’ pain and humiliation, of how it felt to be violated.
Ororo urged Emma back into bed, letting her “piggyback” with her emotions, projecting soothing feelings for Emma to sync herself with. She kept the door firmly closed on her thoughts, because that was a risk she wasn’t willing to take, letting Emma know the full truth of her purpose in the castle. “Rest, darling. We will approach this with clearer heads in the morning.” Emma sighed and drifted off. Her arms jerked slightly, reaching for Ororo as she withdrew, but Ororo tucked them back beneath the covers and kissed her brow.
“I love you so much,” she whispered, voice clogged with emotion. “And, I fear I’ve ruined things.”
So, it came to this.
Ororo wandered outside to her garden once she closed Emma safely in her chamber. She walked among the statues and flowered shrubs and contemplated her roses.
“You knew it would one day come to this?” she asked the shadows. She knew the fairy could hear her, even if Ororo could not see her. She knew she was always watching and waiting to witness the results of her handiwork, hoping for Ororo to fail. 
“If I tell her, she will leave me,” Ororo mused. “If I don’t tell her about my part in her brother’s imprisonment, then he will die. I’ve made my own bed, haven’t I?”
Her roses had no answers for her, except for the silent, almost imperceptible shedding of delicate, dessicated petals.
“So be it,” she decided.
Even if she died a beast, there was no need to die a coward.
 
*
Jean-Paul peeled the large, brown spud with the knife, digging out the eyes and bad spots while the rest of the kitchen staff bustled around him, hauling in dirty dishes and tankards, stirring soups, and plucking fowls. He accidentally knicked his thumb and sucked on it to soothe the tiny wound.
“Don’t bleed into the mash,” Jeanne-Marie warned him as she hurried by with a bottle of wine for the fussy table in the back.
“What’s this I hear about bleeding? There will be no bleeding in my kitchen!” the head chef yelled from his butchering table. “Unless it’s from this fellow, here,” he amended, nodding to the huge haunch of beef in front of him. Jeanne-Marie snickered and pulled a face before she disappeared through the swinging doors.
At least work was predictable. If left to his own devices at home, Jean-Paul would spend his days fretting about Christian. He’d managed to sneak him in a partial loaf of day-old bread, calling in a favor from one of the dish boys whose cousin worked as a guard. Even that effort was a calculated risk; Jean-Paul was still a suspect, and as such, an accessory to murder. Jeanne-Marie managed to cover for him with their boss, who gave Jean-Paul a jaundiced look when he finally returned to the kitchen after his absence, paler, thinner, moving more gingerly than he normally did. But he slowly recovered, and Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie could at least eat and continue to live under their meager, leaky roof.
Christian looked worse than he had when he was first arrested, skin mottled with bruises and eyes hollow, ringed with shadows. He was gaunt and haggard, jaw unshaven. They heard no word from Winston, but Jean-Paul knew he was alive, and being kept in no finer accommodations, certainly. Jeanne-Marie relayed this to her brother when she made a brief, furtive visit to him, but they would only let her speak to him through the bars, and she wasn’t allowed to touch him. She was a tearful mess when she returned home, and Jean-Paul felt like his heart had been ripped from his chest.
Since his return, Jean-Paul had heard nothing else from his mysterious benefactor. He owed it - her - his life thousands of times over, but he had her to blame, too, for Christian’s predicament. Christian would have died; Jean-Paul had to remind himself of this, but self-blame left a bitter tang in his mouth at his failure to protect his lover. 
Jean-Paul still thought of Emma, too, hidden away in the castle on the hill. How was she faring, he wondered. Was she in peril? Was she suffering under the beast’s strange sense of hospitality, or flourishing for it? His memories of that night were scattered; he didn’t remember the path to the beast’s home, woozy from blood loss and feverish, seething pain. The creature’s voice, deep, husky and feminine, still haunted his dreams.
His only consolation was that Emma was far away from Sebastian Shaw, and from her horrid sisters. Cordelia came to the inn one afternoon and asked to speak to Jean-Paul. Her visit was brief and chilly. She wore rich clothing and her face was painted with cosmetics, hardly the habit of a woman mourning the impending sentencing of her father and brother, and Jean-Paul wanted to puke.
She sized him up when he met her out back, still dressed in his dirty apron and sweating from the heat of the kitchen. “What’s the matter? Have you spoken with Christian?”
“Of course not. I went to see Father,” she told him. “He’s not well. His mind is broken. The warden has mentioned that he might admit father to the sanitarium.”
Jean-Paul recoiled. “They would give him over to the mad house? You would allow them to lock him up in that den of horrors?” Few poor souls survived the experience. It was cold, cramped and harsh. Patients there were often restrained and tortured, separated permanently from loved ones, starved and neglected. They were punished for the crime of being insane, not cured. Mania was often assumed to be the reward for a sinful life. Winston was better off in the prison; his chances were certainly no worse there.
“Well, we can’t take care of him at home,” Cordelia snapped, as though he were simple. “He was raving. Losing Emma has upset him so. It’s such a shame.”
“Losing her,” Jean-Paul spat. “Is that what you truly think?”
Cordelia scowled at him, diminishing her beauty. “I have to go. I merely came to see if the guards ever gave you any of Chris’ belongings.”
Jean-Paul felt rage creeping up the back of his skull. “What.”
“Like his pocketwatch,” she suggested.
“Get the hell out of here,” he growled, balling his fist up and advancing upon her. She backed up, nearly stumbling over her skirts. “Never show your face here again, unless it's with word of your brother’s safety and well-being! Don’t show up here hoping to scavenge from me and to show me how little regard you have for the man that I love. You, who should be anxious for his return to your family! Go fuck yourself, Cordelia Frost!”
She turned on her heel and ran before he’d even finished his warning.
 
He should have known that things wouldn’t have stopped there. Fate was never that kind.
Jean-Paul had just dropped the last peeled potato into the pot when he heard a commotion in the kitchen. Several pairs of thudding, heavily booted feet entered the cooking area, and he felt a rough hand on his shoulder.
“Jean-Paul Beaubier?”
“Yes?” Jean-Paul turned to face him, and he paled when he was the constable’s uniform and the parchment with it’s broken, blue wax seal.
“You are hereby under arrest. You are a suspect in the murder of Jason Wyngarde, as an accessory.”
“What? On whose authority?”
“It doesn’t matter. Come along peacefully, now.” The constable’s fellow officers wielded billy clubs; one of them rested his hand on the small pistol tucked into his holster. Jean-Paul’s blood ran cold. He allowed it, this rough treatment, as the grabbed him and hauled him out of the kitchen, jerking his arms behind him. Shame flooded him as his friends, coworkers, and twin sister watched him be taken away.
“Jean-Paul! JEAN-PAUL!” 
*
Ororo returned home, landing neatly on the balcony adjoining her wing and gently walking inside. She strode down the corridor, listening for Emma. It was oddly quiet, and that unsettled her. She reached out with her thoughts. Emma? Where are you, little rose? What would you like for breakfast? She clutched the jar in her hand, filled with fresh bars of honeycomb that she found after reaching her decision. She mulled her development for hours as night gave way to day, and she took herself for a brief jaunt to clear her head among the clouds.
“Emma?” she said aloud.
“Mistress! MISTRESS!” Dani and Rahne’s paws skittered over the marble floor, followed quickly by Manuel. Ororo smelled their panic before they even spoke. “She’s gone! Emma’s gone again!”
Ororo’s stomach lurched with sudden nausea, and she dropped the jar, shattering it. The honeycomb mingled with shards of glass on the fine marble. Her heart pounded and skipped, and she felt the fairy laughing in the back of her mind, pleased that her curse was coming to full fruition. “When?”
“We’re not sure, Mistress,” Rahne told her. “It hasn’t been long. Her scent’s not cold.”
“Jenny came to her to help pick out a dress. That’s when we found out she was gone,” Dani explained, looking mournful. “I’m so sorry, Mistress.”
“No. You’re not to blame. Emma’s stubborn. You couldn’t have stopped her from leaving if you’d tried. Not even Santo could have,” Ororo pointed out miserably. “All right, then.”
“What are you going to do, Wind-Rider?” Manuel asked. She reached down and stroked his long ears, a rare gesture of affection from her.
“What any decent woman would. I’m going to turn myself in to the authorities for murder.”
 
*
Emma glanced at the mirror as she forded the shallow river on the back of the pure white horse. It was discomfiting that it couldn’t speak to her like the rest of the creatures under Ororo’s roof, but Emma had grown so accustomed to the exceptional that the mundane mystified her, now, and fell short of her expectations. The air was growing warmer as she traveled, and she almost regretted the heavy cloak. Emma wore one of her old dresses, more practical for travel, and it wouldn’t upset her if her skirts snagged on protruding branches on the way. The mirror gleamed and glowed as she grew closer to town, to Christian, and she saw him in its surface, still huddled on his hard cot, his bruises gruesomely purple and wounds freshly scabbed. But he was alive.
She continued down the path, and she was relieved that she didn’t encounter the wolves again, or any other predators that would take advantage of her solitude. Emma’s stomach twisted and growled with hunger, and she regretted not packing provisions. She rode through the familiar clearing, noticing it was filled with wildflowers from the recent rains. She was too fretful to appreciate their beauty.
It felt strange to gaze upon the familiar buildings as she reached the town. She’d been away from them for so long. The vendor’s stalls looked smaller and less impressive; she noticed that the apothecary shop’s roof was in need of patching and that many of its boards were rotted, and the window out front was cracked. As Emma rode, she recognized Celeste at her old stall. She looked well-fed and as toothless as ever when she spied Emma and called out to her.
“Aye, and there she is, pretty as a rose! Where have you been hiding yourself, child?”
“Celeste!” Emma approached her, dismounting from her horse and wandering over to her, hands tight on the bridle. “Have you heard anything from my sisters? Have they been into town?”
“Once in a while, I see them drop by. Adrienne bought herself a bolt of silk, but it wasn’t as nice as what she had on. Your sisters have been turning heads lately, let me tell you. She’s been keeping close company with that Donald fellow, I might add.”
Emma shivered in revulsion.
“You’re looking well,” Celeste remarked. “Fancy a treat, dearie?”
“Perhaps just a bite. Whatever this will get me.” She dug into her small belt pouch and produced a silver coin. Celeste smiled broadly before taking it. 
“That’ll get you more than a bite.” She handed over a tin of biscuits, lifting the lid. Emma reached in and grabbed two. “Enjoy them. They’re nice and buttery. Let’s fatten you up a bit.”
“Thank you. Celeste, has there been any word on Father?”
Celeste’s smile dropped. She set down the tin behind her and glanced around, then leaned over the edge of the stall, beckoning Emma to come closer so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice.
“Oh, sweetie, it’s dire. Truly. Word around this place is that they’re planning to put your father in the bin.”
“What?” Emma’s chest squeezed.
“The sanitarium,” she clarified, even though it was unnecessary. “They’re going to pronounce your father unfit to give testimony at your brother’s trial.”
“But… but Father… he knows Chris didn’t do it! They can’t dismiss his testimony!”
“Don’t get yourself in a dither, child!”
“They can’t lock him away! Adrienne, or Cordelia or I would have to give our permission and sign for it! They can’t take away his rights!”
“Oh, child…” Celeste’s old, rheumy eyes grew wet. “Don’t you see? Your sisters have given their permission. They’ve signed the admission order already. I overheard them the other day when I went to the Trident for a spot of wine. Adrienne was with Donald, boasting that Winston…”
She stopped, trying to muster some control over her emotions.
“Boasting about what, Celeste?” Emma felt like she swallowed a stone.
“That your father isn’t their problem, anymore. And, neither is your brother. Oh, child, I’m so sorry.”
*
 
Ororo allowed herself a short bath out in the lake, and she summoned gusting winds to dry her hair and fur before she went back inside. 
“Would you like me to braid your hair, Mistress?”
“Please, Marie.” She sat at the vanity, and the tiny monkey hopped up alongside her and began to brush her long tangles of hair.
“It’s been a long time since you’ve let me, Wind-Rider.”
“Once in a while, it’s good to look one’s best.” Ororo didn’t wince when she worked out the snarls. “I’d like to make a certain impression, darling.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will, mademoiselle,” she sighed. Within minutes, Ororo’s hair hung in a neat, snug plait down her back. Then she stood before the armoire and selected a dress of opulent, simple black velvet, one of the first that she’d worn in years. She cut the openings she needed in the back of it to allow for her wings. Santo lumbered forward, with a pair of short women’s boots clutched in his maw. She thanked him and put them on, satisfied with how they fit. 
“Jewels?” Jenny suggested.
“Mother’s ruby,” she said. 
“A splendid choice.”
“I want to feel her close to me, today.”
Jenny fetched her the ruby brooch from the jewelry chest. Ororo pinned it deftly to her bodice, touching the glittering stone for luck.
“Do you think you can bring her home, Mistress?” Jenny asked. Her voice sounded doubtful at best.
“It’s either that, or I won’t return at all. You’ll know why. Time is of the essence.”
Because throughout the night, the white rose petals had continued to fall. There were scant few left.
*
 
Christian woke from his stupor, unsure of what time it was; the light streaming in through his cell’s bars told it him it was likely afternoon. He heard a loud scuffle of feet and the clanging of metal, or a key sliding into a lock. “Who’s there?” he called out.
“CHRISTIAN!”
“Quiet, you!”
“Jean-Paul?!” Christian stirred from his cot, rolling with difficulty to sit up. “Jean?! JEAN-PAUL!”
“CHRIS!” His voice sounded haggard but relieved to hear him, but the loud, striking sound told Christian that the guards weren’t pleased with their attempt at a reunion.
“Here, then. Have at ‘im. There’s yer lover boy,” the guard teased as they approached Christian’s cell. “Mr. Shaw decided to grant you a favor, Frost. You’ll get the chance to reacquaint yerselves before yer strung up after the trial. Isn’t that nice?” Christian barely felt himself stand and propel himself toward the door, but when the guard opened it, he lunged inside and shoved Christian back, cuffing him across the jaw. “Stay down, you bastard!” Christian reeled, slumped over and bleeding from his cut lip. His previous wound opened up, never having the chance to heal, but he didn’t care. Jean-Paul looked anguished and similarly battered, and his prison clothing was torn. But his eyes filled with tears at the sight of him, before the other guard kicked him inside the cell, sending him sprawling. Christian gathered him close with a small, choked cry. That was Jean-Paul; he wasn’t hallucinating him, his scent, his soft, disheveled hair or his broken sobs, or how warm and solid he felt against him when he pulled him into his arms.
“Jean-Paul,” he sobbed. “Not you. You shouldn’t be here…”
“Neither should you,” he told him. His fingers dug into Christian’s back, and he felt Christian’s hot tears land on his neck. “It was Shaw. He ordered this.”
“I know, I know!”
“Enjoy yourselves, boys,” the guard jeered. “Trial’s in two hours.”
Christian’s heart sank. The cold pall of impending doom made him sweat and shiver, but he clung to Jean-Paul. Every moment with him just grew a thousand times more precious.
“I’ve missed you,” Jean-Paul croaked. “Missed you. Worried for you.”
“I feared I would never see you again. I’m so sorry. So sorry. It’s all my fault. Never should have gambled against Shaw… you shouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t. Don’t think about that now.”
“Don’t think about it?” Chris scoffed. “You’re here because of me! Jeanne-Marie will be left alone! You could die along with me, Jean!”
“You’d leave me behind to live a life without you?” Jean-Paul’s laugh was muffled and slightly hysterical. “That’s no life at all, you idiot. You’re my life, Chris.”
“No, no, don’t…”
“You are. You are, you stupid bastard. I love you.”
Christian stopped arguing and just held him on the cold floor of the cell. After a while, they composed themselves and talked, sharing quiet, more pleasant memories and listening to each other’s heartbeats.
 
*
The crowd gathered outside the courthouse, chattering and grumbling as the constable posted the sign outside announcing the case and listing the accused. His hammer rapped sharply against the nail as he posted it, and he told them, “Step lively, now. There’s not room enough for all of you. If you have to wait outside, then so be it.”
“Let me through! LET ME THROUGH!” Emma called out as she tried to force her way past the onlookers, some of whom glared at her balefully and tried to shove her back.
“Don’t be impertinent! Quit yer shovin’, miss!”
“That’s my brother! I have to be there for him!”
The constable overheard and held up his hand for the crowd to calm down. He beckoned to her, wading through the crowd. “You’re kin to him, dear?”
“I’m Emma Grace Frost,” she shouted to him, “and my brother stands wrongfully accused today!” The crowd murmured loudly and stared at her, the lovely girl in peasant’s garb who looked like she shirked her chores to attend the trial. Her fierce blue eyes bore into the constable’s as she approached, and her posture was proud as she climbed the steps.
“We’ll see, miss. We’ll see.”
“My brother is innocent. I mean to see that he is released from your custody, sir.”
“That’s up to the jury and the judge, Miss Frost.” He waved her inside, and he escorted her to the front of the courtroom. Emma sat down, nodding to the other visitors along the bench. They eyed her curiously, but she ignored them while the rest of the seats filled. She regretted the biscuits Celeste sold her; her stomach felt knotted and sour.
She felt him before she saw him enter the chamber. Emma’s eyes widened, and she tensed in her seat. Christian. His thoughts were resigned. As though he had completely given up. Her first taste of his emotions made her feel faint with their proximity and intensity. So much sadness. Worse, he thought he’d been abandoned. Emma’s eyes burned. “I’m here, big brother,” Emma whispered. “It’s all right.” She exhaled slowly and centered herself before she did a psychic sweep of the room. She recognized the thoughts of some of the vendors she knew, as well as their neighbors from nearby farms, and some of her father’s friends, fellow merchants whose ships managed not to meet with disaster. None of them helped Winston to get back on his feet, despite favorable, profitable dealings with them, but Emma didn’t have the energy to feel resentment toward them. They’d made do, hadn’t they? They managed a farm on not much more than a prayer. 
Then, Emma felt the presence of her sisters, out on the steps. They were sharp and haughty with the constable.
“Let us through. Don’t make us wander around out here among the riff-raff.” That was Cordelia. Emma sighed in exasperation. She hardly sounded like she was concerned about the outcome of the trial.
“Don’t compound this unpleasantness. Let us in, you ignoramus.” Adrienne was in rare form. Her thoughts were bitter and hard, and Emma found that she truly hadn’t missed her sisters, even though they were her only family, and would continue to be if Christian’s name wasn’t cleared of the crime. That future was bleak, indeed.
“Emma should be here instead,” Adrienne muttered, loudly enough for Emma to hear as she came down the aisle.
“Quiet,” Cordelia chided. “Don’t make them think you don’t care. People are listening.” Cordelia nodded and smiled coolly as they swept past. Both of them wore day gowns made of fine linens, richly embroidered and trimmed in ribbons. 
“Oh, I’m sure they’ve realized that you don’t, by now,” Emma purred as they approached. “Good afternoon, sisters. Have you missed me?”
Bitterness formed a hard pit in Emma’s stomach, and she tasted bile when she looked at them. Their smiles faded, and confusion shone in their eyes.
“Emma Grace,” Cordelia murmured. “What… how are you…?”
“You’ve managed to join us,” Adrienne mused. Her tone was hard and smug. “How nice.”
“Move,” Cordelia told the visitors who flanked Emma on the bench. “We are family. Let us sit with our sister.”
“We haven’t seen her in so long,” Adrienne added. She waited for them to get up, and they were disgruntled, but they moved along. Emma sat, fuming, and Adrienne slid into the narrow space. She hovered over Emma and opened her arms. “What? No hug for your beloved sister?”
Emma’s face was pale with anger, except for two spots of color in her cheeks. But she stood, calmly, and allowed the embrace.

I know what you did to Father.

Emma transmitted those thoughts with force, and Adrienne gasped. Her sister released her hastily and backed up. Cordelia just stared. Then, she told her, “How kind of you to be here for Christian, dear.”
“Nothing could keep me from it.”
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White Rose