Who: Zipporah and Peter What: Peter confesses, Zipporah commits Where: Zipporah's flat in Whitechapel When: after this Rating: PG
Zipporah was studying at her small desk in the front room, reviewing her note of her auntie’s latest round of clients, their complaints, and the success of their remedies, occasionally thumbing through a well-worn family tome to double-check something or another (or, very rarely, provide additional insights in the margins.) It was hard work, bouncing between a few different languages, and when she heard the knock at the door, she got up stiffly (and gratefully) to answer it.
It was Peter, but the expression on his face made the happy greeting she’d started with stick in her throat. “Peter?” She asked, instead, reaching for his hand. “What’s happened? Come in, come in,” she said, a lump of worry forming in her stomach.
He looked ill -- very nearly worse than he had when he’d come to her after he’d been fighting. At least then, he’d been full of vinegar, giving out orders to the men who’d carried him and huffing and groaning and making a fuss. This Peter looked haunted and wrung out, the carefree look replaced by something defeated, and before he could answer, she wrapped her arms around him. “What’s happened?” She repeated, quietly.
After giving a knock at Zipporah’s door, he thought that maybe he shouldn’t be here. He was bringing trouble to her doorstep and she barely even knew him. But it was too late, she was opening the door and he stood there with defeat written all over him. He allowed her to take his hand and he took the steps inside.
The moment she wrapped her arms around him, he nearly sobbed and hid his face in the crook of her neck. He kept himself together, for the most part, but his body did shudder with the emotions that overtook him in the moment. “I’ve gotten myself into deep trouble,” he said, just letting her hold him. He’d been so long without the comforts of someone’s arms about him such as this, that he had forgotten how it felt. “I made a mess out of things and when it’s all over, I’m sure to hang.”
Zipporah felt a sudden shiver run through her as he said he’d hang, that it was a sure thing, and she bit her lip, holding him a little tighter.
A hand rested on the back of his neck, running over the knotted string she’d given him -- he was still wearing the red thread and tin hamsa, the necklace of protection she’d given him the last time -- and then she ran her fingers through his curls, tugging on them lightly.
“Sit,” she said, quietly. “Sit, and I’ll get you something to eat. You want for to talk about it?” She asked, looking up at him.
The red thread that Zipporah had given him, he never took off. He needed the protection, though he wasn’t sure a red thread would help. The only time it ever left his neck was when he was bathing and then it was immediately put back on when he was done. It was important to Zipporah, which had made it important to him and so he wore it.
He took a breath in and took a seat when she told him to. He ran a hand through his already messy hair and looked down at the floor, not making eye contact with her. “I don’t know if I should,” he said after a minute. “I don’t want to bring you harm, I don’t want what I’ve done to land on your doorstep.”
“Tch,” she clucked over her shoulder as she moved to the small kitchen and banged around in the icebox. “The way I see it, it is better to know than be caught unawares.” She leaned her head around the door frame, frowning a little at his lowered head. “Let me be the decider for to what I need protecting from, Peter.”
She emerged with a sandwich on a plate, and a healthy pour of whiskey, and she set the plate and glass down on the table by the chair. “Besides. Maybe I can help?” she added, and he looked so miserable that she sighed and settled in his lap.
“Eat,” she said, firmly. “I hope you like pickle.”
Peter wrapped his arms around Zipporah’s waist the moment she sat in his lap. Her soft warmth set against him in the most welcoming way and knowing she wanted to be here, to listen, meant a great deal to him. Yes, he had his sister to talk to, but it was different with Zipporah. “I like you,” he shot her a small smile, but he reached for the sandwich dutiful and took a bite.
“Before I was just Peter, the man you know now, I was Peter Foster of Black Pack,” he started his story from the beginning, telling her practically his whole life, how he had been close to Lucien, so close, in fact, that he had been for sure to be chosen as his beta to the pack. He told her how he’d felt when he’d not been chosen, how Damian had approached him and how he’d fallen for the man’s words in his time of woe.
He told Zipporah everything; his part in the plans against Lucien, how he’d used his sister’s letters, and then told her how he’d wanted out and how he and his family had been threatened, but how he had at least tried to warn Lucien. He told her how his sister had been held hostage for information, how there had been another attack on Lucien and how Damian had been killed and how the man gave his name to Lucien as he died. He then explained everything that had happened afterward and how he had made a deal to double cross the people that were behind everything.
During that time, he had finished his sandwich and was sipping on the whiskey, one arm still around her waist as he finished.
“So, you see, I should hang for treason, but for now I work for the Crown and try not to get myself killed while playing spy against the others.”
Zipporah had been doing her best to follow the convoluted tale -- it was at once deeply personal, a loss of friendship and a deep betrayal -- one Peter clearly regretted -- and wrapped up in a politics she couldn’t even begin to grasp the whole of, but she could catch enough of it to see the danger in what he was doing.
She kissed the worried wrinkles on his forehead as he finished, and looked at him evenly, her thumb brushing his cheek.
“It seems to me,” she said, trying to tackle one piece at a time, “that you were in danger from the moment you threw your lot in with the Damian fellow. Danger from him, danger for your family, danger of being caught. And now…” she frowned a little. “Now, you are still in the danger you have always been from the people who would make you do these things you no longer want to do, perhaps more, if they realize that you’ve told,” she allowed, “but this deal you have made. This step you have taken. It is a good thing, I think. You no longer have to worry about being caught -- that has happened, and you are still alive, and have a way of making amends, and your family is safer now than they were.”
She bit her lip. “I am sorry for to hear that Katherine was hurt,” she said, quietly. “How very hard that must have been for her, and you as well. Will she be quite alright?”
Peter nodded, looking up into her pretty face for a moment. “I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life,” he told her. “I’ve been selfish.” He’d only thought of himself and he knew that had been wrong, but he couldn’t fix all of that he didn’t think. He could only try to be the most unselfish that he could be, to not worry about his own life in order to protect the treaty and the crown.
“I’m not safe from the other side, now,” he then said. “If they find out, well, I’m screwed. I’ll have to be careful. You might want to step away from all of this, you could be put in danger just by knowing me,” he looked at her.
“I am glad you are thinking of being careful,” she said, quietly, before leaning over to kiss him. “And you are making the right decision now, and that’s what matters. And Peter…” she looked at him solemnly. “I will have you know that if anyone were to lay an unwanted hand on me, Ach would rip it off at the shoulder, and should anyone cross this threshold who desired to do me harm, they would not live to take another step. When I said this place was a fortress, I meant it.”
She rested her forehead against his. “I can give protections to your home, to Katherine’s home, to your family’s home, so that no-one with ill intent could cross the doorway, and you know you could come here, even when I am not around, and this place would protect you. Let me do what I am best at, Peter?”
Peter accepted the kiss, a range of emotions zipping through him that he couldn’t quite land on just one. He moved to down the rest of his whiskey and then set his glass aside so that he could wrap both arms around her while she spoke. “Good,” he said of Ach and how her place was a fortress. “I’d be happy that you never go anywhere without your brother,” he said. “Things can get real messy, real quick and I would hate to see you get hurt.” He tightened his arms around her. “And you do what you have to do, especially to where my sister lives.” He moved his arms so that he could cup her cheeks, his thumbs smoothing over her soft skin. “Are you sure you want me around? You have an out. You can tell me to leave and never come back if that’s what you want.”
“I will make especially certain her home is safe, and that I keep myself safe too,” Zipporah replied, and rolled her eyes a little. “Psh. You think I want you to go?” She said, trying to keep her voice light, and failing. “Because I don’t. I really, really don’t.”
She exhaled. “I am glad you are alive,” she said, her voice shaking a little. “I am very glad for that. I want you to stay that way.”
From what he said, it’d been a near thing, on a few different fronts, and the thought that he could’ve been taken away in chains and hung for treason was a sobering one. He’d clearly made his fair share of mistakes, choices he regretted, but she wasn’t judging the worth of the man from the choices he’d made nearly a decade before; instead, she was looking into the face of someone who wanted to make things right here and now, who was remorseful and frightened, who cared about his sister’s safety, his family’s safety, her safety (and that made her heart leap in her chest despite herself), and now he had a second chance -- a risky one, but one he was taking nonetheless.
Knowing that Zipporah didn’t want him to go had Peter feeling both relief and fear. Relief that she wanted him to stay and didn’t fear what might could come. Fear because the danger that could befall her. Was he being selfish in staying? Probably, but as Zipporah had pointed out, she had ways of protecting herself.
He pulled her down into a kiss, soft and gentle, before releasing her. “I’d like to stay alive, as well,” he said. “I’ve got reasons to do as much,” he smiled up into her eyes. “Can I stay tonight?” Just to lay and sleep next to her would be enough for him.
“Please,” Zipporah replied, placing a hand over his chest, where she knew the tin tag of the hamsa she’d made him rested, under his shirt, against his skin. She could feel his warmth, his beating heart, his aliveness through the fabric of the shirt as well, and that was a good thing -- good enough that she leaned over to kiss him again. “Please stay.”
She looked over at him. “Would you want to come over for dinner next week maybe, and meet my auntie?” She asked, quietly, her own heart pounding. It was a funny thing, to think nothing of taking a man to bed, but to be nervous about asking him to dinner.
She bit her lip and shrugged a little flippantly. “If it is too difficult, I understand, you have plenty going on. I just… it would be nice.”
Peter nodded, liking the feel of her hand on his chest, even if it were through his shirt. “Well, now, even if I wanted to I couldn’t leave since you’ve asked so nicely,” he chuckled, smiling at her. He breathed in her scent and he knew, then, that he would never forget it. Not that he had anyway, but in this sweet moment he knew it would be stuck with him forever. She was his.
The mention of meeting her Aunt had him raising eyebrows and feeling a slightly harder thump of his heart against his rib cage. “You want me to meet your Aunt?” He asked and then nodded his head. “Yes. Of course. I mean, it would be nice since you’ve already met my sister,” he grinned at her. “If that’s what you want, I’ll be here.”
She grinned back, her stomach doing flip-flops, and kissed his nose. “Yes. That’s what I want,” she said.