#Declan Brannan

[stardust-pond]

Mercy Street | S2E4 Southern Mercy

↳ “You have not lived unless you've quarreled in Morse code.”

#mercy street #mercystreetedit #perioddramaedit #jedediah foster #emma green #charlotte jenkins #alice green #henry hopkins #anne hastings #jane green #josh radnar #AnnaSophia Robb #hannah james #luke macfarlane #tara summers #donna murphy #patina miller #lisette beaufort #emma and henry deep breathe into the unknown #declan brannan #mine

[broadwaybaggins]

Wild Rover No More

 A bit of a late offering for Saint Patrick’s Day.

After that blasted letter had arrived, that one piece of grubby paper that had torn her life in two, Bridget Brannan threw herself into her work.

It wasn’t hard--they were short-handed with Nurse Mary gone (Dragon Dix had yet to send along a replacement, which most of the hospital staff took as a good sign, a sign that their beloved Boston Baroness would be well and returned to them soon) and the wards at Mansion House were just about full to bursting in the wake of Antietam. There was always something to do, some way to keep busy, whether it was leading visitors through the hospital in the hopes that they might claim one of the wounded or distributing meals throughout the wards or taking inventory of the medical supplies for the umpteenth time. Bridget didn’t care. Even the most tedious and mundane tasks that the hospital had to offer, she now volunteered for quickly and without complaint. It was far better than being allowed to stop and think, and grieve for what she had lost, her last surviving boy gone in the most unimaginable way...

Idle hands were the Devil’s playground, so they said, and an idle mind meant unwelcome thoughts might come wandering in. So Bridget approached every task with a fervor, determined to keep occupied so that her Declan’s face would not be the only thing she saw every time she closed her eyes.

She was traversing the ward with Miss Green that particular afternoon, ladling up stew for the boys who could stomach it. Bridget had taken the young girl under her wing, as it were, since her move to Mansion House, and they found themselves working together more often than not these days. Bridget knew she must be a poor substitute for the girl’s mother--and for Miss Phinney, as well--but it gave her a sense of comfort to have the child near. She and Miss Hastings had been on somewhat shaky ground since the letter arrived, something she knew that she would have to atone for in the future, but for now that time seemed very far away. She looked up just as the Englishwoman breezed past her in a cloud of camphor and schemes, her saffron-colored skirts disappearing around a corner. She would speak to her another time, perhaps.

“Miss?”

It took Bridget a moment to realize that the tiny voice had spoken to her. It had been years since she had been addressed such, and at first she was certain that whoever it was must be speaking to Miss Green, or even Miss Hastings. But when she glanced around the ward, her eyes alighted on a single green eye staring pleadingly into her own, and her heart dropped.

Miss Hastings had not been the only one that Bridget Brannan had been avoiding.

He had been brought in on one of the wagons from Antietam, shaking with fever and barely alive. No one seemed to know his name at first, but a man brought in with him had identified him as the drummer boy of his regiment (the man had since succumbed to his own injuries). His first night at Mansion House they had been certain that they would lose him, but his fever had broken early and he lived to see another sunrise. There was some debate about his age--he swore up and down he was fourteen, but his features and voice betrayed him as closer to twelve. From the rumors Bridget had heard, this put him on the older side of some drummer boys that now found themselves in the thick of battle. He had refused to give his name at first, which suggested that he was a runaway, Only when another man from the regiment had given it did they learn the identity of their patient--Tommy Flynn from Boston. Boston, by way of Ireland.

The accent was easy to miss at first--Bridget had long been away from her home country and the dialects of the men quartered at Mansion House were many. Only on certain words were the drummer boy’s origins evident, and when Bridget had heard him speak for the first time, had heard that sweet little lilt as he asked Miss Green for a drink of water, all the color had drained from the matron’s face. Suddenly on that bed before her she did not see a wounded drummer boy, but her own child. Suddenly, her ghosts had come back to haunt her.

She had fled without offering an explanation.

Now, though, with Miss Hastings gone and Miss Green at the other end of the room, Bridget was alone. Her eyes swept over him, looking so small laying there on that little cot. A bandage covered his right eye--Doctor Foster had been able to save it, though whether it was in working order was yet unknown--but the two fingers on his right hand had been a total loss, and the shrapnel in his side was giving the doctor cause to worry. How such a small child had been so utterly wounded was beyond them--he refused to talk about the battle, only insisting that he had done his duty and only dropped his drum once he’d been shot. That stubborn streak, when she’d heard Foster laughing about it with Miss Green and the chaplain, had reminded Bridget so much of her boy she almost couldn’t breathe.

She shook the thought away before it could take root, focusing on the boy before her. He was still staring at her, although a bit bewildered now, no doubt wondering why she had not answered him right away. She narrowed her eyes as if she were about to scold, pointing a finger at him. “That’s Matron to you, boy, or Ma’am if ye cannot manage that.”

“Sorry.” He looked down.

“I’m only fooling. Is there something you need? Something I can get you?”

He shook his head, suddenly shy. “I...no. You just...you reminded me of somebody.”

“Who might that be?”

He shook his head. 

“Come on now, no need to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid!”

He spoke with such vehemence that he almost sat bolt upright in the bed, and immediately he let out a squeak of pain. Bridget was beside him in an instant, whispering soothing words to him, guiding him to lay back down and bringing a tin cup to his lips. “Easy now. Easy. That’s it. Be careful, now. Doctor Foster spent a long time putting you back together. Don’t want to be undoing all of his hard work now, do you?”

It was getting easier to speak to him now. The similarities to her son were still like a knife to the gut, but it meant that Bridget knew how to soothe him, how to talk to him. She smiled and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, his skin now paler than the sheet beneath him.

He gave a weak nod.

“Now, since you’re just lying here, why don’t you tell me who it was i reminded you of?”

“My gran,” he whispered, coughing weakly. Bridget’s body tensed, ready to spring into action again, but Tommy soon relaxed, sighing as he fell back against the sheets. “My gran back home.”

“Do you love your gran?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment, then, and not a comment on my age.” She smiled, hoping the boy would do the same. He did not. “Your gran back home in Boston?”

“No, in...” he paused, seeming to fold in on himself. “In Ireland.”

“Now, why did you say it like that? What’s wrong with Ireland?”

“Nothing. Some of the men don’t like it, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s their business then, not yours, so don’t you waste another minute worrying about it. I’m from Ireland, and I’m glad of it. And do you think any of those men are going to give me grief over it if they don’t agree?”

“No, ma’am.”

“That’s right. Because I’m proud of where I come from, and I don’t care who knows it. I am Irish, and I am proud.”

“Me too,” the boy said determinedly. A bit of the color had returned to his face, and he was fighting a smile. “Only...I don’t remember it much.”

“When did you leave?”

“I was really little. I don’t remember. Five, maybe.” It was not as long ago as Tommy seemed to think, and Bridget’s heart felt like it was being squeezed. “After Mam went to Heaven. We had to leave her over there. Da said we’d have a better life in America.”

His tone seemed to suggest that had not been the case. Bridget swiftly changed the subject. “What do you remember?”

Tommy thought for a moment, closing his good eye. “The rain. We don’t get rain like it in Boston, not the soft rain Ireland had. Just heavy rain that blows through and soaks everything. Snow, too. I don’t think it snowed much in Ireland. And...green. I remember green everywhere. I remember waking up and hearing the cows at our neighbor’s farm across the way. I remember the way the air used to smell in the mornings--at least, I think I do. And I remember my mam singing to me. She used to sing me to sleep.”

Bridget smiled, gazing at the boy with eyes that had grown suddenly misty. “All good mothers do.”

“I don’t remember the songs, though.”

“May I sing to you?” Bridget asked before she could stop herself. “My son used to love it when I sang the old songs to him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing them with you. It might give you a little piece of home.”

“Ain’t got no home now,” Tommy whispered, his good eye filling with tears. “I left it. I ran away. I ran away and now...”

She reached for his small hand, squeezing it in hers. “I know, Tommy. I know.”

And she opened her mouth and began to sing to him, the Gaelic as familiar to her as her own name, the ward filling with the sound of her boy’s favorite lullaby.

#this took way longer than I intended and sorry it's sad? #Mercy Street #Bridget Brannan #Mercy Street fic #Emma Green #Henry Hopkins #Jed Foster #Anne Hastings #Declan Brannan

[jomiddlemarch]

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!

Part 1: Henry and Emma

The news had spread through Mansion House on whispers, nods and side-long glances. Henry could not have imagined battle-worn men would be as taken with gossip as his variable flock but it made a certain sense, that they would be eager for something that reminded them of another time and place, that if not entirely wholesome, given the connection and the unspoken assumptions that went along with it, still had the form and function of world unmarred by the War’s brutal destruction. He felt the urge within himself for the former minor pleasures of domesticity and society’s occasional rigid structures. How much he would like to worry over the starch in his collar, whether he had arrived too early for tea, what it meant when a lovely young woman played with the lace at her throat or fumbled with the button on her gloves! The War had humbled them all, reducing all men to the same voice that called out in the night, the same aching flesh, anguished souls, or so it seemed to him and so it seemed he was just another who would find a way to tell someone what he had learned, waiting to see the change in the expression like the sun coming from behind a cloud.

 The boy in one bed told the man next to him. The orderlies mumbled to each other in the hall, even the nuns murmured between rosaries, schooling their faces to a uniform cameo. Henry told Emma because who else would he confide in? Who else meant everything, whose response to even the smallest alteration was worth a held breath, a searching gaze?

 “I hadn’t thought the War would be interrupted by so many weddings,” he said, watching her eyes that were such a dark blue. She was careful with him now, had been since his disastrous attempt at being a hero, earning his Union commission he had worn so lightly, and though her lips curved a little, she did not laugh aloud or pause in her mending.

 “So you’ve heard?” she asked. He should not be very surprised he was one of the last to know, nor that she may have been one of the first. She was very clever and very adept at concealing that when she needed to, or thought she did. He missed seeing her with Nurse Mary, who had made it clear such deception was neither required nor appreciated, who valued above all the genuine and praised it in those she held dearest.

 “Corporal Mahoney was crowing about it. I gather they’ve found a priest, a Father O’Brien, to officiate, so I shan’t be there unless they extend an invitation,” he said. He was relieved not to be asked for he could not have brought himself to say no to Miss Hastings and he could not perform the Catholic ceremony Lt. Brannan insisted on.

“Do you think she had given up hope?” Emma said quietly. He had expected some polite remark about how she believed all the staff would be guests at the wedding or how pleased the couple must be to have removed another impediment to their marriage. She spoke as if to her friend Mary, as he imagined she might when she called at the Fosters’ house on Duke St., Jed in his study with his brass microscope and the women talking in the sunny front parlor, Mary pouring out the tea liberally.

“Hope for what?

No one had known that Declan Brannan meant anything to Nurse Hastings until they heard Matron shouting for help from the medical supply closet, Anne in a dead faint on the dusty floor, the letter she’d read and dropped lost in the folds of her skirts. Matron herself had had cheeks hectic with color, as if she had a fever, and her eyes were very bright. Later that night, the word had gone round that her son had been injured, badly “but not mortal,” and was to be returned to Mansion House for care as it was closer to the site of the skirmish he’d fallen in. So few had survived Antietam, it was a stroke of luck Brannan had been attacked during a scouting party. He imagined Anne and Matron had both had their suspicions about the contents of the letter sent by the man’s commanding officer. Their hopes for Brannan’s survival had been faint but not in vain.

 The Emma he had met a few months ago could only have meant Anne’s hope of marrying her way out of nursing, out of a spinsterhood that could only lessen her in every way. But that was not the woman who sat before him, sewing the cuff on a Union officer’s coat, the woman who slept in a bed down the hall every night, close enough he thought he could feel her sleeping breath stir the air he must draw in and release, as if it were the only caress they might share now.

 “Hope that he would want her still, after his injury—that he wouldn’t shy away from her through self-doubt or self-loathing,” Emma explained. They had been speaking this way for weeks now, an exhausting exchange of remarks oblique and laden, interspersed with pauses more complex than any Latin epigram, glances more foreign than Hindustanee.

 “No. I don’t think she had. It wouldn’t be her way. And, to be fair, Declan Brannan’s not a man given to, how did you say it—self-doubt or self-loathing. Rather the opposite, though he’s such a way about him, I can’t say anyone minds him,” Henry replied.

 “I envy her.”

 He might retreat into a dumb confusion or his pastoral role. He might say nothing and let the moment pass away, lost, irredeemable. He might stand and beg to be excused, a pretense they would both understand. He might but he didn’t. He had found a restorative peace in conducting the weddings for Belinda and her George, the several other contraband couples who’d been crowned with wilted blossoms, the brief, tender service that was all that Mary and Jed had wanted, but he wanted a wedding of his own, a bride, joy beyond peace.

 “You needn’t, Emma. Dearest. Though we may face a greater challenge than Miss Hastings did in finding a minister. Father O’Brien would not suit either of us and I don’t think I could bear Reverend Burwell,” he said quickly, clearly, to have it said.

 “Oh!” Emma gasped and Henry felt fear and its companion, dread.

 “No?” he asked, holding his breath until it seemed she did, her arms around his neck, her body against his sudden, perfect, eternal.

 “Yes, Henry. You goose, you silly—yes,” she cried.

 “Not quite. Your goose, yours, silly and besotted and anything else you want to call me. As long as you call me yours,” he said. It took only a moment for her to form the word with that sweet, red mouth, one moment more for him to kiss it away.

 “Mine.”

#mercy street #st. patrick's day #declan brannan LIVES #alternate universe #anne/declan #emmry #phoster to come #anne hastings #declan brannan #luck of the irish #emma x henry #engagement

[treasureplanetsheep]

So Matron Brannan's son is a total Sytherin. Sorry, I don't make the rules. 🐍🐍🐍

#mercy street #declan brannan

[evrylilthing]

Irish names

GIRLS

Tiffany, Molly, Shannon, Shawn, Fiona, Casey, Caitlin, Kathleen, Aidan, Brielle, Kennedy, Reagan, Delaney, Corey, Cassidy, Sheila, Bridget, Ciana, Alaina, Colleen, Maureen, Ciara, Siobhan, Shea, Maeve, Teagan, Aileen, Alayna, Fallon/Fallyn/Falon, Alani, Ahana, Adara, Agate, Aghadreena, Aghamora, Aghavilla, Aghna, Aideen, Aileene, Ailey, Aili, Ailia, Ailin, Ailis, Ailisa, Ailise, Aine, Aislin, Aisling, Alaine/Alayne, Alana/Alanna/Allana, Alina, Alma, Alona, Alvy, Annabla, Aoife, Ardala, Arleen/Arlene/Arline, Assana, Athracht, Avonmora, Brea, Breanne, Breck, Bree, Breena, Brenda, Brendalynn, Brenna, Bria, Brianna/Briana/Bryanna, Bryna, Cacey, Cacia, Cadee, Cait, Caitie, Caitlan/Caitlyn, Callaghan/Callahan, Callee/Calli/Callie, Carlin, Catlee, Cattee, Chiara, Christi, Cleonie, Cody, Colene, Conchobara/Conchobarra/Conchobarre, Connelly, Corene, Cory, Crissy, Dana, Darcey/Darci/Darcy, Deidra/Diedre, Derval, Dervla, Dubhain, Dubheasa, Eavan, Eibhlhin, Eila, Eilena, Eithne, Elva, Elvinia, Eny, Erin, Etain, Etney, Farran/Farren, Fidelma, Fineena, Finola, Flanna, Flannery, Gliona, Gobinet/Gobnait, Grainne, Henley, Hiolair, Honor, Honoria, Ida, Inis, Irvette, Izett, Jana, Kady, Kaitlan/Kaitlin/Kaitlyn/Kaitlynn, Kallie, Keanna/Keana, Keara, Kearney, Keeley/Keely, Keiana, Keilah, Keira/Kera, Kelly/Kelley/Kellye, Kellsey/Kelsee/Kelsi, Kellyn, Keri/Kerri, Keriana/Kerianna, Kerianne, Kerilynn/Kerilyn, Kerra, Kiandra, Kiani/Kianni, Kianna, Kiona/Kionah, Laetitia, Lana, Lil, Luighseach, Mada, Maille, Maire, Mairead, Maiti, Margaret, Maude, Mayra, Meghan, Mide, Mollie, Monahan, Moncha, Mor, Moya, Muirgheal, Neala, Neve, Niamh, Noreen, Noreena, Oilbhe, Olive, Oma, Ona, Oona, Oonagh, Orna, Quinn, Renny, Riley, Rory, Sadbh, Seosaimhthin, Shaelan, Shanahan, Shanessa, Shauna, Sheridan, Sinead, Sineaid, Sunniva, Tara, Teagan, Tiryns, Torberta, Torrey/Torrie, Tosia, Trina, Trudie, Tyyne

BOYS

Ryan, Kevin, Sean, Connor, Riley, Quinn, Shannon, Haley, Nolan, Shawn, Declan, Shane, Keith, Aidan, Delaney, Griffin, Cassidy, Brody, Sun, Desmond, Keegan, Conner, Murphy, Shay/Shea, Rory, Tier, Cullen, Tag, Niall, Fallon, Flynn, Finnegan, Fay, Gael, Shayan, Agustin, Ahearn, Aiden, Aidrian, Ainmire, Amery, Amhlaoibh, Angus, Anlon, Ardal, Ardghal, Arlen, Artegal, Arthgallo, Auley, Baird, Barrington, Barry, Beamard, Beartlaidh, Berkeley, Blaine, Blair, Bohannon, Braddon, Braden, Bradon, Brady, Braeden, Bram, Brannan, Branson, Brayden, Breandan, Breen, Brenden, Brendan, Brennan, Brosnan, Cace, Cacey, Cain, Caley, Caly, Caolaidhe, Carey, Carlin, Carlus, Case, Cashel, Caspian, Cassian, Cavan, Cearnach, Channe, Cian, Cianan, Cillian, Cody, Coillcumhann, Colla, Collin, Colm, Conall, Conan, Conary, Conchobhar, Conn, Connell, Connelly, Conor, Conrad, Conroy, Corcoran, Corin, Cormac, Cory, Cowan, Cronan, Cuinn, Daegan, Dagen, Daire, Dallan, Darby, Darick, Darroch, Deegan, Dempsey, Dermod, Derry, Dilan, Dillon, Donahue, Donal, Donavan/Donavon/Donovan, Dorrin, Douglas, Doyle, Driscoll, Duane, Duante, Dylon, Eagan, Eamon, Egan/Egon, Evin, Ewan, Fachnan, Faiion, Farran, Farrell, Farren, Fiannon, Finian, Finn, Fionan, Fionn, Fionnbarr, Fiyn, Flainn, Flanagan, Flannagain, Flannery, Flinn, Floinn, Forba, Gairbith, Gallagher, Gannon, Garbhan, Garve, Gearoid, Geralt, Gil, Gofraidh, Gorman, Gothfraidh, Grady, Hagan, Harkin, Hayes, Henley, Hurley, Irving, Izod, Kagan, Kane, Kavan/Kaven, Keagan, Kealan, Keanan, Keandre, Keane, Keannen, Kearney, Keary, Keenan, Keene, Kegan, Keilah, Kier, Kieran, Kelan, Kelsey, Kenan, Kenny, Keon, Kerrigan, Kerry, Kevan, Kian, Kianni, Kienan, Kieran, Kierce, Kiernan, Kildare, Kiley, Killian, Kye, Kylan, Kylar, Kyler, Kyle, Kylen, Kyrell, Lacey, Lakeland, Laughlin, Lee, Lennon, Liam, Lochlann, Loughlin, Lughaidh, Lyam, Maher, Malone, Maloney, Malvin, Melvin, Melvyn, Mickey, Miles, Mitchell, Morgan, Morrisey, Murchadh, Murray, Murry, Myles, Naal, Nielan, Niell, Neven, Nevan, Noland, Nolen, Odell, Odhran, Oscar, Padraic, Paidi, Patrick, Payton/Peyton, Phelan, Pierce, Quaid, Quigley, Quinlan, Rayan, Regan, Reilley, Reilly, Rhyan, Rian, Rogan, Ronan, Rooney, Rourke, Rowan/Rowen/Rowin, Ruadhagan, Rye, Ryen, Rylan, Ryland, Ryleigh, Ryley, Ryon, Seanan, Shae, Shai, Shain, Shaine, Shamus, Shan, Shandon, Shanley, Shann, Shaughn, Shaun, Shaw, Shaylon, Shayne, Sheary, Sheridan, Shey, Suileabhan, Tait, Tate, Taveon, Tavin, Tavion, Tavis, Tavon, Teague, Teauge, Thacker, Thurstan, Torgeir, Torhte, Tormaigh, Torrey, Torsten, Tostig, Tuomo, Tyronne, Tyrus, Tyson, Tywysog, Ungus

#my writing #writers #name list #original character #characters

[cicadaemon-moved]

Hey question for the Mercy Street fandom, Matron Brannan makes a comment about Declan being her only living son, do we actually know how many kids she had or like popular fan thoughts on it?

#mercy street pbs #i need it for a fic

[mercurygray]

Note to self that Friday is Saint Patrick’s Day and thus an optimal time for me to write fics that involve Bridget or Declan Brannan, soulful trad music or the poetry of Thomas Moore.

[jomiddlemarch]

And rued the thirteen clocks that would not say, Part VIII

Oh, she was the prettiest young thing, was Miss Emma Green! It was nothing at all to understand why the chaplain broke his heart over her and why Nurse Mary had taken her under her calico wing, why Anne Hastings gave her a sidelong glance, more suspicion than anything else except for the rare times when the girl touched something in the brash Englishwoman and reminded her of Kentish hop-flowers and hedgerows and larks. Bridget had drunk Nan’s flask to the dregs, needing all the gin to make the pain of Declan’s death wait for her somewhere else, like a visitor she had placed in the parlor, and she’d been singing the old songs from the old country for the past hour, remembering what it had looked like when four scrubbed faces peered up at her from their bed, calling “Again, Mam, again!” as they jostled about until the littlest settled back on his pillow, Jacky who’d been taken by the cholera in ’51, who’d thought Declan and Michael and Pat had hung the stars. He’d gone first and she’d grieved hard but it hadn’t been like this. How this would be when she let it, when the gin went and the charming girl in front of her with her carpetbag and earnest brow. She hummed the last bar and looked at her hands, unsure when she’d gotten so old.

 “And what do you need, Miss Green, this time o’ night?” Her body was heavy on the bench and it was a labor to raise it up, her soul at her shoulders, grasping the muscle and bone. She let her eyes rest on the girl, waiting for her elaborate dancing words.

 “I would like a room.” The room had no corners, the floorboards beneath their feet ready to fly away like the enchanted carpet of the tale Declan had loved best; a day that was senseless, she insensible. There had been no politesse, only an unadorned request, a demand Emma made so that it would not occur to anyone to reject her.

 “You already have a room, in your very large, very comfortable house, Miss Green. With your family, as ‘tis proper,” she said. The words were not slurred and it seemed the gin made a poor warden, the grief sidling up to the closed door, turning the glass knob…

 “Here. I’d like a room here. Anything will do for me. This is where I belong. Matron, please,” Emma replied. There was no hint of a romantic motive in the girl; she was wearing the same dress she’d worked in the day through and she looked straight ahead, not trying to catch sight of the tall Chaplain walking through the wards, too tired to rest easy. Since they’d come back from Ayres’ farm, there’d been a coolness and now the girl’s dark blue eyes were like all the midnights Bridget would face, knowing she hadn’t lifted a finger to save her own boy, her only boy, her last love.

 “Seems I can arrange it. You’re in luck,” she said, noting the way that pretty mouth turned hard, how she bit her lower lip before she repeated it.

 “In luck. I suppose that’s so. I am very tired, Matron. Do you think you might show me?” Emma said. Bridget beckoned her to follow and they climbed the stairs.

 “You might take Nurse Mary’s old room. Cleaned it m’self and I could find you some fresh linens for the bed. Not as fine as you’re used to, for certain, but it’s what’s on offer,” she said. She could still see the sick woman in the bed, the way her dark hair had been wild around her and yet she never lost that intrinsic Yankee modesty, even when the wet nightdress clung to her breasts and belly, gaped at the neck, when she cried for her lovers, the dead and the living. Bridget had left the chipped jug on the bureau, where Mary had kept some little flower if she could, but all the other things that had been left behind had been parceled out—the books to Dr. Foster, the laundered handkerchiefs to Miss Jenkins for the contraband. Bridget had a few of her hairpins in a dish, though they were less taxed by her own greying mane than the heavy curls she’d braided and restrained until she could not.

 “Oh, Matron. This is…just what I wanted. I know I may have to give it up sometimes, if there are visitors, and sleep with the nuns, but I shan’t mind at all. It still has…something of her about it, hasn’t it?” Emma said softly, setting her carpetbag done as if it weighed her down though its sides were drawn. She hadn’t brought so much with her, but she’d have to make do.

 “It may. She’d a sweet spirit, Nurse Mary, and maybe it lingers. Those dearest to us…do,” Bridget said. Would her boys visit her at night? Would it be enough to have this girl here in their place? She’d never had a daughter.

 “Your ma will miss you,” she added. Emma wanted to keep her face impassive, Bridget saw that, just as she saw the pain and the anger that the pretty little miss hadn’t been able to conceal. “‘Tis hard to lose a child, any which way. You mind that,” she said and finally she sounded drunk and the girl’s eyes, such a beautiful blue, the Chaplain’s torment, showed she’d understood. She was woman enough not to say anything, only to nod and walk toward the bare bed.

#mercy street #mercy street pbs #season 2 AU #episode 5 #unknown soldier #matron brannan #emma green #I would like a room #mary phinney #grief #jane green #mothers #declan brannan #matron back-story #women together

[jomiddlemarch]

And rued the thirteen clocks that would not say, Part VII

It might say he was grievously wounded. It might and that was the foolish hope Anne allowed herself for a moment before she had to read the truth, the words spare, direct and incontrovertible. They did not seem words that could ever belong to Declan Brannan, that charming, lovely man with his charming, lovely, knowing hands and she found herself aware she could not read them to his mother. She still was unsure what the night had meant to him, if she had been only a ripe piece, a diversion in the face of the death he’d seen coming towards him, an unsuccessful ploy in securing a deferment that no one—not Anne herself, his mother, not even Declan, for all his glib talk, had truly done very much about. Had it been honor or fatalism that kept him from wheedling more effectively? She knew everything about him, the strength of his broad back, those hands, the sturdiness of his thighs between her own and those laughing eyes, and nothing at all. Why he had enlisted, how he’d found his way to his mother’s side before the battle, whether he preferred whiskey or gin. What song he sang to himself when he washed, when he was drunk, if he would say a prayer before dying as he had before he spent, a prayer and blessing on them both. She’d enjoyed him, enjoyed his attentions and his skill, enjoyed being praised for the silky skin of her belly, the prettiest pair of diddies the Lord had ever made, enjoyed the holy blessing he’d given them both for their immoral coupling. He was a change and a respite and he hadn’t made many demands of her, other than to let him unlace her stays. He’d coaxed her to her pleasure as Byron never bothered to do and the slap he gave to her bottom was paired with a proud grin, had made her be again the saucy girl she once was. He was boyish but unequivocally a man, with a man’s predilections and flaws, except that he’d come back to be Bridie Brannan’s boy just one more day. Anne had not seen him leave Mansion House. What she remembered was being woken by him and convinced not to mind the clock, acushla, the kiss he’d blown her as he finished securing the last button of his coat and she struggled to tie her garters, his apology that he couldn’t stay to help her with them. She had nothing to say to comfort his mother, who would shortly be transformed from a stone monument into something Anne knew was not for her to see. Grief was not that variable but it was particular, she’d learned that, and alcohol made a poor anesthetic. She took a deep breath and began.

 “Dear madam, it is with great sympathy I must report the death of your beloved son Lieutenant Declan Brannan, who fell heroically after leading his men into battle. Surely no words can assuage your grief…” she said, pausing as if she read and did not write, an exercise which was not unfamiliar. She often wondered if Byron could read at all, given how often and how successfully she had deployed the trick and there had been letters that arrived she knew she could not read to the soldier on the bed and expect him to survive it, that she had amended, elaborated on, and then conveniently lost or misplaced until it could be borne. Bridget was dry-eyed yet and listened.

 “…Yet I pray some solace may be found in the thanks of his fellow soldiers and of the republic he died to save,” Anne continued. The Bible or Tennyson or Longfellow to close? Nothing Papist, though it would have consoled—the commanding officer would never had written anything that smacked of Rome, no matter how much he had esteemed his lieutenant.

 “Annie. I know my son. Give me the truth. Only that. Please,” Bridget interrupted. She said it as if it were simple but they both knew it could never be. The truth—that one more man had died, the circumstances making no difference, that Declan would never walk through a door again, whistling or reeking of liquor, that neither of them had done anything to prevent it and that their sacrifice would be longer and harder than his but still less. Bridget could not be consoled, not by this letter, nor any words Anne might say, any praise or small memory Bridget could not have known; there would be only time and prayer, work and God’s grace. The last seemed in short supply, when it was wanted most.

 “Madam, I regret to inform you your son, Lieutenant Declan Brannan, has been killed in the line of duty,” Anne read. Bridget had been expecting it but it was blow to hear it, that was apparent. The older woman wrapped one arm around her waist, where once she’d carried him, and extended the other. Her tremor was fine but unmistakable.

 “I need your flask. Now,” she said. It wasn’t a demand, it was the cry of a soul in torment but Anne was taken aback and didn’t move. Bridget must have thought it a refusal.

 “I’m matron of this hospital, I see everything that happens here. For the love of all that is holy, Annie, give me that flask,” Bridget added and the bottle was in her hand before she had finished speaking. Anne felt relief to watch her tip it to her lips and swallow, the raw liquor the only immediate treatment available. The action created a distance between them, space enough to see Declan had had the same eyes, she saw now, the shape of the lid and the hazel so dark it was nearly gray. Bridget wiped her mouth, the way the meanest drunk would do, half-collapsed outside the pub, and ignored the tears that ran down her face. She spoke again.

 “Now leave,” Bridget said and Anne did the only thing she could and walked out of the room. Bridget would live and that was bad enough.

#mercy street #mercy street pbs #season 2 AU #episode 5 #unknown soldier #matron brannan #anne hastings #declan brannan #regret to inform you #grief #anne x declan #anne x byron #anne POV #the original was unnecessarily harsh and mocking #this would have been enough #mothers and sons #fewer stereotypes #angst

[jomiddlemarch]

When little fears grow great

Late. Anne was late and she had thought she understood the difference between the probable and the inevitable but here she was, staring out the window of her room and seeing nothing. Oh, there was sunlight falling across the roofs of the neighboring building and a blue blur she could convince herself was the harbor, but no answers. Or rather, there were answers but she didn’t like any of them. She sighed in bitter recognition; what she wanted was, as usual, not the primary concern. Far from it.

Anne was not in the habit of asking for advice, but there was no one left at Mansion House for her to talk to, save Mary’s little calico Plum, who was currently purring beside Anne’s ankles. Mary herself was away in Boston, still quite ill based on Anne’s reading of Jed’s brief letter back to the staff. Anne hoped for Mary’s sake that Jed’s determined optimism was not misplaced but she remembered how often, how brokenly Mary had called for Jed in her delirium—to have him by her side was a better tonic than anything Jed could make up from replete pharmacy stores. Mary would have listened without the evident judgment Anne knew she herself would not have been able to resist, and listening, she would have offered practical support along with her calm acceptance, acceptance Anne knew she had done little to deserve.

Jed Foster, a known maverick, an unacknowledged opium-eater, forthright about his own principles and governed by a sense of honor Anne could never entirely anticipate—Jed Foster would have been someone to talk to, though she could not imagine the circumstance that would have brought her to his office door. Perhaps a discussion of hospital administration, a drink shared over the recovery of a boy they’d neither of them expected to survive, some commiseration over another remnant of the McBurney period coming to light. He had experience with being trapped by his own choices, was more likely to sympathize than castigate her. And she’d seen how kind his dark eyes could be, even if he was unaware she’d noticed.

She would have turned to Bridget Brannan if the woman had not been near-destroyed by the death of her son. She could not go to her now and rely upon a response that would not colored with the silence that comes after all the tears have gone, the dazed look of a grievously injured patient who does not understand why their heart still beats. Bridget would ask her if it was Declan and Anne would have to say no. She couldn’t face hurting her again. Anne’s sister Jenny was too far away and her mother was dead. There was no one to consult, to advise.

“I begin to see why Mary spoke to you,” Anne said, looking down at the cat so quiet at her feet. “You’re not much of a conversationalist, it’s true, but you don’t interrupt and you don’t say anything foolish. No There, there or It’s for the bestor You’ve made your bed, dearie! Just that purr. It could mean anything at all.”

Plum only looked at her steadily. The sunlight had turned her sleek fur the deep gold of clover honey. Anne smoothed her own hands, callused but still shapely, across the tawny gold silk of her skirt. She had decided to wear her best dress, despite the risk of being made to loathe it by association; if that were to happen, she’d be dyeing it black and declaring herself the widow of a Private John Hastings, giving up nursing and settling down to take in washing or run a boarding house in Baltimore or Newark, some city large enough not to take any interest in another war widow, another child born never knowing their father.

She found Byron reading at his desk, an unimaginable situation several months ago, before Samuel had conducted his tutorials and McBurney had ranted and threatened and announced a dispatch to a Western post. There was a book open in front of him and he was making notes on a piece of foolscap; he was so engrossed she’d come in and shut the door behind her without attracting his attention.

“Byron—”

“Anne, my dove!”

“No. Let me speak,” she interrupted his exclamation but her flat tone must have conveyed her suppressed apprehension as he simply nodded. “I’ll say it plainly. We’ve run out of luck. I’m with child. Your child.”

She braced herself for his response—would it be an unmerited astonishment, his mouth gaping like a hooked trout, or a rejection? Would he question her diagnosis or the paternity? Would he gabble like a goose or narrow his eyes, seek to put her off with one of his elaborate effusions?

He got up and walked over to where she stood, looked her straight in the eye and, with a shocking degree of grace, got down on his knee.

“Nan, will you marry me?”

“I—I didn’t think you’d offer,” she said, waiting for him to become angry.

“Then I have not made you understand me properly,” Byron said. “You needn’t come out West—I shall get you a house here in Alexandria if you like or near my sister Agatha in Kings Point, I shan’t expect you to live with my mother.”

“You’re not angry,” she said. “About the baby, about any of it?”

“Nan, I have wanted you to be my wife for a good long time but you wanted to be the Head Nurse. I’m not angry though perhaps I may admit I’m sorry that you’ll never believe I would have done this without a goad,” Byron said, smiling up at her.

“I’ve got nothing, no family, no connections nor any fortune. Nothing that will aid in your advancement,” she said. She’d seen how he brushed his dress uniform, how gently his hand was stroking his father’s sword.

“‘She is herself a dowry,’” he said. “Will you say yes, Nan? I’m afraid my knees won’t last much longer—they aren’t what they used to be.”

“That’s Shakespeare,” Anne replied wonderingly, reaching a hand to help him rise. “The dowry part, not your bloody knees.”

“Yes, I know. Dunce that I am, I’ve picked up a little learning over the years,” Byron said. “It’s easier to remember beautiful things.”

“You’re not a dunce,” Anne said. “And you’re not going out West, not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Clayton McBurney ought to quake in his over-polished boots. I know I do when you speak so,” Byron said, laying a hand at her waist and leaning in to kiss her very softly. “It was yes, wasn’t it, Nan?”

“It was always going to be,” Anne admitted.

“I’ll speak to Reverend Hopkins right away,” Byron said.

“You do that. I’ll take care of Major McBurney,” Anne said. She was nearly giddy with relief, with the prospect of imposing her will on McBurney, and if she were honest, with the look in Byron’s grey eyes. “I mean to make him rue crossing Miss Hastings only slightly less than Mrs. Hale. And think how pleased Jed Foster will be when he comes back—I shall expect an entire silver tea service as a wedding gift!”

Byron only laughed. It was not a bad beginning to a marriage. Neither was Cordelia Anne Hale, with her father’s ginger curls and the Hastings mouth, opened wide in a raucous, demanding cry.

For @frances-barden​

#mercy street #mercy street pbs #anne hastings #byron hale #background phoster #end season 2 #prompt request #gift-fic #byron quotes Lear #he's allowed a moment of glory #plum appears #romance #angsty start #fluffy finish

[jomiddlemarch]

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!

Part 3: Sister Isabella and Matron Brannan

The nuns rejoiced, quietly, that she had found her faith again. Bridget knew it, knew she was remembered in their rosaries, and did not disabuse them. She wore her own rosary around her neck, under the layers of her bodice and shawl; the beads were visible, dark against her white throat, but protected as they wouldn’t be wound around her wrist, unremarkable to any who were not cognizant of their meaning. She took them out when the wards were subdued or when there seemed little chance she would be interrupted at her prayer. Mary had found her with them once and reached out a tentative hand to graze the curved belly of the carved wood as if it were the finest jewel, a baroque pearl or a ruby, saying “It’s a very beautiful ritual, isn’t it? Very…compelling.” She’d learned something during her illness, Bridget thought, something about pain and abandonment and what salvation was and though she spent less time at the hospital since her marriage, she was still in some way its anchor and compass. Certainly Jed Foster had altered since they were wed and Bridget had not been able to keep herself from patting Mary on the hand and praising her for it, noting “He’s finally become what he ought to be, eh? Make sure he gives you the credit you’re due, Mrs. Foster,” enjoying Mary’s response, a knowing smile that did not obscure the softness in her dark eyes. Bridget wondered who would be bettered by Anne’s marriage to Declan, her son or the woman she’d never imagined as a daughter.

 It was the most predictable prayer she made and the one she might admit to the Mother Superior if the other woman inquired, God’s blessing on the upcoming marriage. Little Sister Isabella, who’d once had an eye for the Major in his plume and brass buttons, was less easily answered. Was it the nun’s youth or her curiosity? Bridget imagined how her hazel eyes would widen if she told her the truth: that she thanked God for taking her son’s eye, making him lame and weak, ruining his right hand, saving him from another battle. She prayed Anne’s drinking would not become Declan’s, for he was always the worse for gin and had never learned to apologize properly. She addressed the Holy Mother, asking that Anne not be sent a child at all if she might die of it, unable to bear another loss herself, to see her son suffer as she had, even if Anne begged for a baby of her own. She prayed for forgiveness for not seeking the deferment her boy had asked for, as if his honor was worth more than his life, as if her own virtue was worth more than his life, his body unfamiliar since manhood except that she knew those eyes since they’d looked up at her from her breast and the way his hair curled at his nape. And she prayed for absolution for searching the inventory for some additive to Byron Hale’s chicory that would make him ill unto dying and remove any chance he would try to interfere in the wedding, a bottle she’d put back when she found the man in his cups, muttering to himself “She’s gone, s’too late, too late, might as well take the transfer to Hell.”

 She remembered Byron Hale in her prayers she told the little nun, for that he was a fine physician and had no helpmeet as had Dr. Foster, and her son and the woman who would be his bride, and winking, said she prayed for them all since they were shortly to lose the light of the Crimea herself and as she’d been telling them all since she arrived, however would they manage?

#mercy street #st. patrick's day #anne/declan #alternate universe #post-series #matron brannan #sister isabella #mary phinney #prayer #guilt #phoster off-screen

[jomiddlemarch]

Above this sceptred sway, Part II

Anne was so shocked to find Byron criticizing her, she had not recognized it at first. She had told him as they walked down the empty hall and she had thought it was good McBurney insisted on his own room being placed elsewhere, even if his reason had been incomprehensible; his rectitude was immense even if applied indiscriminately and she would not fancy being thrown out into the street if their sole destination had been observed. It was late and she had availed herself of the arm Byron offered, a gentlemanly gesture he made regularly that she often mocked. He was not a wise man and not always kind, but he was sturdily present and he usually gratified her belief in herself, however clumsily—she expected praise for her choice and commiseration for the difficult position she had found herself in before he gloried in the increasing rift between the two senior officers or returned to his anatomy lessons. He had paused when she took a breath and interrupted her,

 “You knew the whole time, Nan?” and she had not realized what he meant, had testily answered,

 “Yes, yes I did. As I was saying--”

 “But you knew how ill she was—you nursed her yourself. You talked about it enough, for God’s sake. You knew what he meant to do and you didn’t say anything?”

 She had seen then it would not be the night she wanted after the day she had loathed and felt that at the very least, they might conduct the conversation in the privacy of his room. Hers was cleaner and better appointed but she wanted to save it as a retreat if they argued and she could not bring herself sleep with him.

 “Not here, Byron. Come along,” she’d hissed and he’d responded to her tone before her words, habituated to her orders in a way she both loved and despised. Surely, Jed Foster would never react to a woman, any woman, even Mary Phinney, that way, no matter what it cost him.

 In the bedroom, she tried to explain the situation but it seemed Byron cared most about the aspects she felt were least important.

 “He said he was worried about the staff? And not himself?” he asked as he slipped off his coat and unbuttoned his vest, his hands reaching for her stays as she turned her back to him, her bodice and skirt already draped over the chair near his bureau.

 “Yes, he seemed concerned about the spread of the disease,” she replied, enjoying the breath she could take without the corset’s buckram frame letting her know this far and no further.

 “Absurd. Foster must have given him an earful,” Byron said, patting her pantaletted bottom softly enough that it wasn’t a slap before attending to his shirt’s buttons. He lifted his head in surprise when she went on, describing the chief’s subterfuge and her own struggle to confess to Foster.

 “He truly said, ‘the deed will be done?’ As if he wasn’t casting out a sick woman, I know she’s not your favorite Nan, but you must admit, the Baroness’s heart has always been in the right place—seems our new chief can hardly be said to possess a heart. And Foster set such store by her—when you told him, how did you wait so long to do it?”

“I waited until the time was right, that’s all. I have only ever had our best interests in mind, Byron, and I’ll thank you to remember that!” she exclaimed, sitting heavily on the bed before sliding under the covers. The linen was not fresh but it held a familiar scent, much like the man behind her who had said nothing in response to her final declaration. She thought it was done, that she would only have to try to forget Jed Foster’s stricken expression when she’d told him, the softly anguished cry Mary had made in the nights when Anne sat vigil beside her, how her lip trembled when the man whose name she called was no where to be seen, only the nurse who had never liked her and whichever of her ghosts broke free from her dreams to follow her into the fever. But Anne had not considered Byron’s own version of chivalry, his elevation of loyalty above all, and his original and persistent fondness for Mary Phinney, even without the hoped-for provision of spanferkel.

 It was morning when he returned to it, a sunny day that might have been lovely; it was impossible to truly notice from within the hospital which held onto gloom like a lover. A smartly dressed officer walked through the ward as Byron prated on about how unfair it was for him to be forced through an academic examination and she let her eye wander to the stranger, something about the angle of his strong jaw familiar but unplaceable, until she heard Byron again blaming McBurney. There were undoubtedly grave deficits in their new chief, ones she hoped to turn to her purpose though she was becoming increasingly uneasy about her ability to do so, given the man’s erratic rigidity, his bizarre requests and injunctions, but his insistence on the written examination was the least of his issues and she could not resist saying as much, still obscurely insulted by Byron’s earlier tone,

 “The major’s not to blame,” she said, hoping to quash him, watching his face but also looking for the figure of the unknown officer, his easy gait and furled cockade a welcome alternative to rumpled, complaining Byron.

 “Certainly he is! And you defend him-- after he so callously sent poor Miss Phinney…” Byron began, returning to his theme of the night before, one she found a voice within herself echoed. Byron was the only one to speak to her about her role; Jed Foster had refused to say a word to her other than “scalpel” or “suture” since he’d come back from the dock, alone, any goodwill he’d had towards her for the chance to say goodbye dissipated with the actuality of having to let Mary go. Now there was a little silence from Byron and his tone changed as he spoke again,

 “Oh, of course, of course. You hope to assume her position,” he said, as if he himself had not wanted Jed Foster’s promotion and connived unsuccessfully to get it. She hadn’t wished Mary gone as much as demoted, but she must work with the ingredients at hand, and she would be damned before she’d apologize for the ambition that might help them both.

 “I resent that implication!”

 “Still, Nan, you do stand to benefit from her misfortunes,” he replied. His tone was primarily self-satisfaction at his assessment of her motivations but she heard what was underneath, a righteous condemnation of her behavior that suggested her active collusion rather than the confused, powerless acquiescence she hated to recall. She was uncomfortable with the change in their relationship, accustomed to the superior position with Byron as supplicant, unwilling to accept she was in any way at his mercy.

 “Miss Phinney succumbed to an illness, not a coup d’etat. She was the Head Nurse, not I- there was nothing I could do against the chief, Byron. And now her position must be filled and I am most fortunately here to take up her mantle. You needn’t make any more of it than that,” she replied firmly. She had not thought that even Mary’s absence would continue to define her as somehow lesser than the Yankee widow; she had not thought she would ever see herself that way and yet regret had taken hold in her heart, regret that she would not risk sharing with Byron.

 “Oh,” he said. Not yes, not of course, not the eager Byron she’d had lapping at her feet since she arrived; he was speculative where he had been blind and she didn’t like it though she recognized she perhaps respected it.

 “Therefore, my own advancement hangs in the balance, as does yours. I remain fully composed, as Miss Phinney would wish me to be. Major McBurney has his job to do and we must see he can do it. We have ours, the roles we deserve, not just what Summers left us with,” Anne said. She’d raised a question he hoped he wouldn’t address—what they deserved. The look that dashing, unknown officer had given her, Mary’s title, the ring Byron had mentioned once, oh, such a long time ago and then never again, such little things really but they ought to be hers…Anne didn’t know what he might list except for his commission, not today.

 “What if I lose mine, eh?” he asked. It seemed a simple query but there were too many questions to be answered, layered like the muscles he couldn’t name, and she couldn’t decide what they meant, that it was Byron who made such a complex inquiry. She sniffed and let him parse it as he would; her neck had begun to twinge dreadfully and McBurney was demanding something, soon, and from her.

#mercy street #mercy street pbs #season 2 AU #episode 4 #southern mercy #anne hastings #byron hale #phoster #jed foster #clayton mcburney #guilt #mysterious declan brannan #anne x byron #byron is less of a doofus here #and anne has misgivings #angst

[jomiddlemarch]

For everyone missing Mercy Street tonight, I give you this.

Emma Green sounded like a lark, trilling merrily through the contraband camp, “Oh, Miss Jenkins! I’ve the most wonderful news!” Charlotte hadn’t expected to like the young woman, formerly the belle of Alexandria, so much but she had a winning way about her and didn’t shirk any task she was given. Charlotte was careful, of course, to save for Emma the most appealing chores, letting her see to the younger children in the schoolroom, but she’d found her gravely offering an elderly man a cup of water and changing the dressings on Lije’s back without a grimace.

 “Well, then, you’re bound to share it, Miss Green. We’ve a mighty need for some good news,” Charlotte said, continuing to sort linens and keeping an eye on old Saul’s labored breathing. Some cheer would go a long way but hard work went longer.

 “She’s coming back—Nurse Mary! She’s written, not very much but in her own hand, and she’s coming back to Alexandria she says. Oh, Dr. Foster must be that pleased with himself!” Emma exclaimed.

 “He would be, wouldn’t he?” Charlotte laughed. It was good news, the return of the Baroness who had brought her to Mansion House, who had welcomed her and assisted her, never once standing on any ceremony, not waiting to be asked to undertake the most menial work. And not letting Dr. Jedediah Foster forget his Christian duty based on his humble application to care for the contraband as he had the men and boys within the hospital’s walls.

 “He’s been in a pucker since she left and Heaven knows how he likes to be right,” Emma remarked. Charlotte smiled at the truth of it and the forthright way Emma expressed herself. She suspected Emma would not have said it quite that way in her family’s old, elegant hotel, but she liked her for it—the sentiment and the delivery.

 “You’ll have more you want to tell, I believe. If you’ve the time later, I think Lula and Keturah want to show you what they’ve learned,” Charlotte said. Emma smiled brightly, her old belle’s smile that must have broken hearts, and nodded. She’d be back and before the little ones said their prayers.

 Emma Green sounded like a thrush, the kind that liked the cozy green harbor of a tree in full leaf, Bridget Brannan thought. The girl, with her woman’s eyes, made a melody of her words, suiting them to the ward’s tenor.

 “Matron Brannan, I’ve the very best news—I can’t bear to keep it to myself,” Emma sang out and Bridget saw Anne Hastings’s ears prick up, the Englishwoman straightening nearly imperceptibly at the prospect of some choice gossip.

 “The best news—that’s been thin on the ground. You mean to tell me, don’t you?” Bridget said. She was a dear one, was Miss Emma, and she thanked God for her coming when Declan was taken with his brothers. She found it hard to spare a thought for Emma’s true mother, who’d not bothered to come seeking her girl. Bridget would have walked the Sahara to retrieve Declan or Martin or little Jack and Mrs. Green hadn’t crossed the blessed street!

 “Of course! I’d never keep this a secret—Nurse Mary is coming back to us. She’d written me herself, not a very long letter and I think, she’s still weaker than she wants us to know, but she never breaks a promise and she said, she said she’s coming back with Dr. Foster, very soon. Isn’t that splendid?” Emma cried. Her chaplain would fall in love with her all over again if he could see her now, Bridget thought, if he’d let himself.

“Aye, splendid and not before time. We’ve needed her steady hand round here, that way she has of finding whatever problems want to hide their faces and putting them to rights,” Bridget said. She didn’t say what she thought, how she wondered how exactly Mary was coming back with Jed Foster, who had post waiting for him from California, and whether Mary would be the Head Nurse again or something else, even more necessary.

 “When you write her, tell her we’re still keeping her in our prayers. She’ll like that, I expect,” Bridget said. It was good news, Mary well enough to travel back, when Bridget had feared the ship alone would kill the dear woman and Jed Foster with her. She ached for her boys, did Bridget Brannan, but it would do her good to have her girls back with her, even if she’d never say it aloud. Mary would know and would take her hand.

 Emma Green sounded like a dove. Her voice was low and deliciously sweet and it was all Henry Hopkins could do to keep from kissing her whenever she was near. They were growing closer again, wordlessly, a glance here and a lingering touch there, and she was more beautiful every time he saw her. The man’s face was receding, the man he’d murdered, and if he could not bear to consider their embrace while he was awake, Henry found his sleeping mind was ready to return to that moment, to the taste of Emma’s parted lips, the entrancing feeling of her pliant body against his, the carnal impulse she had seen and seeing, welcomed, adored.

 “Am I intruding?” she called out softly. He sat at his desk to try and compose this week’s sermon. Since Ayres’ farm, he’d been a poor minister to his flock, words coming to him slowly if at all. He knew his lessons had been poor things, barely enough to keep soul alive. He felt God’s grace with the ease of finding a text, the appearance of the next sentence like a ripe, ruddy fruit.

 “Never. You sound…joyful, Emma. Shall you tell me why?” he asked. Oh, she was beautiful! He felt his flesh yearning for hers, his spirit ready to fly—and he sat still in his chair, willing himself to the simplicity of the wood, his boots on the floorboards.

 “I’ve had a letter. From Mary, Nurse Mary. She writes—oh, Henry, she says she is coming back. She’s coming home with Dr. Foster!” Emma said, her cheeks rosy and her lips curved in a smile that teased and enticed in its innocent affection.

 “He will be so glad,” Henry said, imagining Jed Foster’s dark eyes bright again, his arm around Mary’s waist, ready to catch her if she stumbled. How he had suffered without her! Henry was happy—for his friend, for his friend Mary, a woman he had esteemed and admired and frankly delighted in, a fellow Abolitionist, a Yankee after his own heart, familiar with what winter held and why freedom mattered most of all. Henry was happiest to see Emma’s reaction to her letter, her friend and mentor returned, the sister she needed.

 “You think of him first?”

 “Only in that his need of her was greatest—and I understand that, as his minister and his friend. And as a man who knows what it is to love a woman…to the exclusion of anything, everything else,” Henry said, looking at her directly, watching how she dropped her lashes and collected herself before she spoke.

 “I see. It will be good for the boys…to have him less distracted, to know she is here whenever he could want her. And do you know, I think she must feel the same. For she mentioned him not at all in that first letter and now, he is the only one she writes of,” Emma replied, playing with the lace at her throat, where he had once fumbled buttons free, to stroke the delicate skin.

 “She wrote to you, Emma,” he pointed out. “She wished you to know she would rejoin us.”

 “Perhaps because she thought I am a terrible gossip and would run about announcing it to everyone…exactly as I have,” she said, beginning in jest and finishing with a doubtful tone. This was never Mary’s intention; he could hear her voice, quite crisp “Mr. Hopkins, you must set this right!” He stood and walked the step it took to get to Emma’s side, reached out his hand to take hers. It was slender, as he remembered, but it fit more perfectly than he had recalled.

 “You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve only given everyone some happiness, long overdue. Thank you for being our angel, spreading the good news,” he said. My angel he meant and thought perhaps she had heard it thus. She was quiet, the way a dove could be, waiting for the dawn.

#mercy street #mercy street pbs #emmry #come back #letter from Boston #phoster #emma green #charlotte jenkins #matron brannan #henry hopkins #anne hastings #sorry I couldn't air my episode right at 8 EST

[jomiddlemarch]

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!

Part 5. Anne and Declan

He’d lost so much she felt she couldn’t take anything more from him so she told him though she knew the risk, that he would turn his face away from her, push her gently from his side without any discussion, mutter, Go, just…go and be silent, holding his breath while she gathered her skirts and rose, walking as gracefully from the room as her namesake had walked to the block.

 “You’re not the only man I’ve loved, Declan.”

 There was the sound of the night in the hospital—men everywhere and somehow nowhere, the orderlies’ boots in the hall, a nun, always a nun praying, her habit making its own prayer against the floorboards and then Declan spoke.

 “Aye, well, you’re not the only woman I’ve loved either, Annie. Did you think it would trouble me?”

 “I wanted you to know the truth,” she said, loosening her hands in her lap.

 “I’m glad of it but that’s not the answer to my question, is it?” he said calmly, shifting in the bed. She leaned over and adjusted the pillow that had moved, moving his shoulders and straightening the blanket over him, smiling as he sighed with relief.

 “I was…afraid. I thought you ought to know who you were marrying. Do you want me to tell you more?” she said, thinking of Robert the first time he’d seen her and the last, how he’d caught at her hand, of William who’d promised to come back when he joined the Navy and never had, of how Byron had looked up at her drowsily from her breast and how he grinned at her every deception.

 “Not especially. You’re not planning to jilt me for any of them, are you?” he said easily and she choked on the laugh she couldn’t stop.

 “No! I’d never—all I want is to marry you, to be Mrs. Brannan,” she declared and he reached over to pat her hand with his, the one that was not crabbed and bandaged, ruined despite Jed Foster’s finest work. She had thanked God for Declan’s injuries, severe enough to keep him away from any other battle but still repairable, needing the skill and delicacy only Foster possessed with his Parisian training. Byron had not made a peep when she insisted Foster take Declan’s case. Even so, Declan had lost the eye and his right hand was hardly more than a stump; his leg had fared better but it was likely he’d be lame. He’d woken from the chloroform entirely himself, taking a full accounting of his injuries for a moment before remarking, “Seems I’ve kept my silver tongue at least and that counts for something for an Irishman!

 “We’re in agreement then, as all I want is to make you mine, wreck of a man that I am,” he said, grinning so roguishly she couldn’t keep her hand from brushing the hair off his forehead, stroking his cheek.

 “You’re not a wreck,” she said.

 “Did the other men believe your lies, love? For I shan’t and I don’t. But I suppose I’m enough of a man to know what I want, to be grateful for what I don’t deserve,” he replied, holding her hand in his, his touch reminding her of the night they’d spent together, how much delight he’d brought her and how he’d enjoyed her cries, how she’d pulled him to her, demanded he give her more like that oh never stop, the most amiable ravishment she could imagine. It would be weeks before they might consummate their marriage but they were both clever and greedy of any joy to be had.

 “You mustn’t say that. That I’m more than you deserve, you’re mistaken,” she said and he squeezed her hand. Tomorrow that might hurt, if the ring he gave her pressed into her palm. It was a pain she would welcome.

 “I know you were angry at Dr. Foster, that he couldn’t do better by me, but Annie, one eye is all I need to see,” he replied and looked at her intently with the one he had left, with its long, dark lashes and the chalcedony gleam of the iris. “Now, kiss me one last time as Miss Hastings and off to bed with you. Next time, I shall be kissing Mrs. Brannan and she’s the highest of standards.”

 She bent over and kissed him softly, deeply, tasting the tonic she’d given him, feeling the way he wanted her, the low sound he made that was part gasp, part moan, an ardent desire that left her dizzy because there was no part of her he knew and did not want, no aspect unknown and unknowable. She put a hand on the bed’s frame to steady herself as she drew back, watching him lick his lips and gaze at her appreciatively.

 “Mind you rest. You’ve a long day ahead of you,” she said.

 “I wish it were a long night ahead,” he said and she laughed.

 “Soon enough, Declan.”

#mercy street #day after st. patrick's day #anne/declan #I'm sort of sorry now this didn't come to pass #declan is a blast to write #and it's fun to write anne sassy but not always so shading to EVIL #romance #jed getting to be the best doctor #confessions #robert is anne's crimean lover in my headcanon #kisses

[jomiddlemarch]

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!

Part 4: Anne and Byron

“I suppose I must offer you my best wishes on the eve of your marriage. That’s what’s expected, isn’t it?” Byron said from the doorway.

 He was rumpled from a full day’s work and once she would have found it a disgrace, that he should come to her without making any effort to be presentable, but tonight, she only found it mildly endearing. He’d not said very much to her since her engagement to Declan had been formally announced, hadn’t tried to convince her to throw her wounded soldier over for him or suggest that she was making a grave mistake. She knew that if he had taken up with a widow visiting the hospital, she herself would have done both and added a healthy measure of bitter recrimination and likely shrieking, but then she had always intended to get her way and he had always been content to settle. She had lost Robert in the Crimea and despite their attachment, Byron had never proposed, never cared enough to secure her, and she did not mean to take a chance with Declan. When he had asked her, an uncommon mixture of charm and diffidence, she had nearly shouted her acceptance, clapping her hand over her mouth at her volume and immediacy and Declan had laughed aloud, thanking her “for not makin’ me wonder if you had any misgivings, acushla!” He had a way about him, Declan did, of taking any awkwardness away and leaving her blushing and basking like a young girl with the pleasure of her first beau’s attentions. She couldn’t say Byron had ever evoked anything like that in her.

 “You and I, we were never too concerned with convention, Byron,” she said mildly, making him look at her with surprise, a little relief and some poorly disguised longing.

 “No, we weren’t. Though I thought one day, one day convention would suit us both. That is, oh damn it, Anne, I always thought it would be you and I,” he replied, running a hand through his sandy hair, pinching the bridge of his nose. Once, she would have taken this as her signal to come to his side and stroke a hand along his arm and give him an order he’d be eager to follow, “To bed with you now, my dear Dr. Hale!”

 “Thought, but never said,” she retorted, a flash of her old venom, all the nights she worried about whether he would ever marry her, whether she would simply be cast aside, a sullied spinster whose value was only in the work she could do, each day less until death would be better than being useless and forgotten.

 “You must have known. You know everything,” he replied almost helplessly.

 “Not that. Not enough,” she said, suddenly very tired and very much wanting to hear Declan’s voice in her ear, some fond, lilting nonsense, his unshaven cheek tickling hers, her hand reaching to adjust the dressing Miss Green had nearly mastered to her satisfaction.

 “If I’d asked you, you would have said yes?” he asked. That he could ask the question and be unsure of her answer told her how little he had ever known her. She thought of how confident Declan was, how well he had understood her from the first and how Byron looked at her through those spectacles, like she was the most complex diagram in the anatomy text he could never memorize.

 “Yes, Byron. I would have said yes,” she said.

 “But now,” he began hesitantly. If McBurney had succeeded in sending him to Santa Monica, what would have become of him? There would have been no one to come to his rescue.

 “Now I am marrying Lt. Brannan. Tomorrow. And I will thank God on my knees for that tonight before I sleep and when I wake. Byron, you need to find your own way. And you need to say good-night,” she said firmly. This would be the last secret to keep from Declan, not because he would laugh, but because he would not, would say, “Ah, the poor bastard, Annie love, how sorry he must be!” She would keep this moment, the lamplight kind to Byron, to her, making them golden and full of regret, purer versions of the selves they had always been to each other and she knew Declan would not grudge her.

 “Good-night, Anne. Good-night, my only love,” he said and walked out before she needed to say a word.

#mercy street #st. patrick's day #anne/declan #anne/byron #angst #might-have-been #AU #romance #proposal