Night's Omen

This is a C.C.C.D.T. = CRASH COURSE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT THREAD. It is intended to be AU/NOT CANON.

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  The weather was absolute shit outside. She sat at the small table near the balcony window, chin in her hands, ignoring the doting as her mother fussed and draped a warm blanket across her shoulders. She didn't hear much those days, casually playing with the necklace he'd given her as she stared out into the dark rain.

  "That killer struck again, you know," her mother said matter-of-factly. "It's what those degenerates deserve, I say," she added. Her righteous voice did little to mask her fear, and she paused in the doorway. "Have a care, dear, lock your windows before bedtime."

  Alice watched as her mother's silhouette shrank down the dark hallway, candle light trailing beside her. She turned back to the window, fingers sliding up and down the fine gold chain. Really, how he'd been able to afford it, she wouldn't know - she didn't want to know, and she didn't dare ask. She'd told her mother that her friend Mary had given it to her; in truth, she knew her mother would lose her mind if she'd been told the truth. There was no way she'd be able to tell her that the boy she'd met in the market had given it to her, not without him being accused of theft.

  And impropriety.

  Alice sighed and stood slowly. The rain was really coming down, hard enough that it made her head hurt. She walked towards the large doors at her balcony and peered into the darkness. He liked the night, he'd said. She'd never asked about rain, though, and couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that he hadn't come anyways. He always came at night - sometimes he'd be on her balcony when her mother was in there yattering to her. She didn't know how they'd never seen him, but even she had overlooked him.

  He said it was a talent.

  She put her hands on the brass handles of the doors, thumb moving over the ornateness of the design. "Oh well," she said to herself. She didn't suppose she could expect him to come in the freezing rain; it was a little outside of her realm of belief. Perhaps Alice doubted him too much, but she didn't have a reason not to. She pulled the doors shut and returned to her chair, which she tucked in. She slid the blanket off of her shoulders and picked up the soft-bristle hairbrush her mother had given her for her eighteenth birthday. It was an extravagant thing for still being plain; her mother claimed that her father had picked it out.

  A shipping merchant could send his daughter gifts but could never hand-deliver them, it seemed.

  "You locked me out," came the soft, insulted tone from behind Alice. Simultaneously, a hand closed over the one that held the brush, taking it from her. It was a warm hand, despite the cold of the rain, and in the mirror before which Alice stood she was surprised to see the dark figure of him against the candles that she'd left lit - candles that did little to illuminate his form, making him appear black in the darkness, as though the light shrank from him.

  "I thought maybe you'd be staying in because of the rain," she offered honestly. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she tried not to show that she'd been startled. Alice was as calm and bored as it got when she needed to reflect it; it allowed her dignity when he would jump out and surprise her.

He'd have been lying if he said that he wasn't insulted that she'd actually locked him out, or that he wasn't thinking that she might have done it on purpose.  That didn't mean that he was just going to leave her, but he didn't like it.  At all.  She was his, and he worked hard to look after her and ensure that she was safe, so the idea that she might not want him around was both insulting and upsetting.  He'd believe her when she said that wasn't the case, partially because he wanted to, and he'd reconsider if she gave him reason to.  There was a reason he'd come, other than it being his usual pattern lately, anyway.

"The rain doesn't bother me," he told her instead, gesturing her towards her mirror once more, this time with the brush in hand himself.  He'd never been one of those incredibly vain men, and he actually found them to be ridiculous, but he liked the soft feel of her hand against his fingers.  He didn't mind running the brush and his fingers through it, especially because she'd let him.  "I wanted to see you."

If he was honest, he wanted to see her more often than he allowed himself, but she didn't need to know that she had such a hold on him.  That was a weakness, and not one that he'd hand her so easily.  He could see it, however, and he still found himself showing up.  Was it just because he needed an excuse, or was he really going to believe it when he said that Ripper was worrying him?  "The Ripper is growing bolder.  I wanted to be sure you were safe."

Her mother, as much as he didn't care for the woman, had a point in worrying.  The man was making horrors out of the women he laid his hand to, and it disturbed Jericho to think that the same might happen to Alice.  She was much too beautiful to fall beneath that man's hand.

Alice's fingers tightened against his hand when he mentioned the Ripper. "Please," she said, turning to look at him with an exasperated glance. "Can I go one full day without someone reminding me? He's keeping to the Whitechapel district anyways, the papers said," she said offhand, glancing back at her vanity. Her eyes browsed rows of expensive oils, perfumes and cosmetics - trinkets her father brought her. She selected a lavender oil and tabbed it lightly - very lightly - at her wrists, rubbing them together. He liked the lavender; like mint, but not quite.

  She managed a smile against his flat expression, the one he wore that always looked so melancholy. "I am glad you came," she said. She studied his dark eyes and smiled, trailing a finger along his jaw lightly. It frightened her, just a little, when he did not smile sometimes, but usually she had found if she trained one from herself, his would soon follow. What did he have to be so dark about, she wondered?

  "Mother's taking to smoking opium before she goes to bed, so you can stay as long as you like," she offered him. It was innocent, what she said, but it could have been taken by the wrong man the wrong way; Alice, of course, even in her headstrong behaviour, was still a lady. She wouldn't ever suggest someone 'stay the night' in that sense, though it wasn't like Jericho didn't just see into her mind, so she wouldn't have had to say much at all if that was what she was implying. She wasn't, though.