A/N: Smut...and then angst. Set during "Age of Reason" and "Peg of Old." Specifically, the first scene is set after Richard gets home from the scene where he, Jimmy, and Manny make a deal with Luciano and Lansky. This scene is also known as the only time Richard curses in the show.

Adrenaline and anger were still coursing through his veins when he opened his door and saw Clara sprawled across his bed, sound asleep. It was a hot, sticky night for June, even by Atlantic City standards. He longed for the cool, crisp nights of Wisconsin summers, but not nearly as much as he longed for the feel of her legs sliding against his. After hanging up his jacket and hat, he put his mask on top of the desk, undressed, and walked over to the foot of the bed.

Clara was wearing a lacy pale blue one-piece... thing (she wore them, he liked them, he had no idea what they were called) that barely covered anything. In the heat, she had kicked off the sheets, which were crumpled at her feet. It was hot, she was obviously tired; he should let her sleep, he thought. He started to smooth the sheets over her but instead rested his hand on her ankle. The touch caused her to stir.

"You're home," she said groggily, and a small burst of pleasure shot through him at the implication that they were home together. "What time is it?"

"Late," he scratched out and let his fingers slowly move up her leg, using his other arm to brace against the footboard. Fucking Charlie Luciano, he thought, almost the reason he hadn't come home to her. Fucking Rothstein. Fucking Nucky Thompson (Richard couldn't dwell on Mr. Thompson while his hand moved past Clara's knee). And that fucking butcher Jimmy had pulled into their lives. Fuck all of these games he didn't understand. Destroy the man who sliced an innocent girl's face. Fine. Keep Clara alive. He understood that. Watch over Mrs. Schroeder and the children. Sure. Work out how to get the booze from a boat in the ocean, and then distribute the alcohol to various places while guarding against Prohies and rival gangs. Okay.

A small piece of biting pride floated up when he remembered that it was he, not Jimmy, that figured out how to divide the work, how to run the gangs of men to move the alcohol successfully. Jimmy had big ideas but often neglected to think about the details. Another biting piece of pride joined it as he watched a flush spread from Clara's chest to her face, heard her breathing become erratic, and felt her leg tremble as his fingers trailed higher until they traced the lace edge of her undergarment. When he moved his hand to her other ankle, she sighed in frustration, but he slowly started the game again as he thought about the night.

Whatever was going on with Jimmy, with work, now felt like twenty games all happening simultaneously. Richard wanted to ask Jimmy tonight if he had any idea of who his allies actually were. He thought of Clara asking him to leave Atlantic City with her, her fear almost palpable. And that was before the Commodore had his stroke, and Gillian Darmody began sitting in on meetings. He didn't understand Jimmy's relationship with his mother, or the darkness on Clara's face when she talked about it. Still, he knew Gillian brought out Jimmy's worse impulses. After Clara yelled that Jimmy was playing hopscotch when he should be playing chess, Richard worried all the time. And the stakes just kept getting higher.

The sound of Clara's sharp intake of breath as his fingers once more hit lace made him forget what he was thinking about and this time he let his hand continue working its way up, causing her hands to grip the bottom sheet and her back to arch. After a few minutes, his other hand left the footboard, grabbed her ankle, and pulled her down towards the foot of the bed.

Clara gasped. She had only been half awake when his hand had started drifting up her calf; by the time his fingers disappeared up the open leg of her step in any rational thought she was regaining was replaced by the fog of desire. He pulled her up, so she was on her knees and started kissing her. They were hard, claiming kisses that made her heartbeat speed up. His hands were curled around hers, but then he started tracing his fingertips up her arms. She shivered, and he pulled back when his hands reached to the straps on her shoulders. He looked at her for consent, and then pulled them down to her waist before his hands moved up to start kneading her breasts.

Over the last weeks, even when she climbed into bed wearing the step-ins she knew he liked, she had to make the initial overture. Even then, even though she liked everything they did, Richard always touched her delicately, like he was afraid he might hurt her in some way. There was little delicacy in his touch tonight. It's because he wanted her, she thought and trembled even more with excitement. One hand drifted back down between her legs, while his mouth closed back over hers and she had to put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. He wasn't wearing his undershirt, she thought. He always came to bed in it, even if she pulled it off immediately.

Suddenly his hands moved to her elbows, and he guided her to stand up at the end of the bed. She looked down at him as he pushed the step in out of the way. Clara's breath was coming in fast gasps. She was trying to think, everything was so different, but she couldn't keep her mind on any single thought when Richard's hands kept doing new things to her.

"Trust me?" he asked in a voice even more gravelly than usual while looking up at her.

Clara nodded.

He pulled her arms back behind his head, which pulled her body tight against his. "Jump."

For a moment she froze, but then she jumped hesitantly. Richard's hands went under her thighs, and he pulled her legs around his waist. Clara laughed as he spun them away from the bed and sat her down on the dresser. He smiled up at her bashfully. She ran her hands through his hair, drawing a shiver when her fingernails lightly raked down his neck.

The skin of her shoulder was silky under his mouth as he pushed into her, attempting to get used to the new angle and fumbling for a moment trying to find a rhythm. He knew he was successful when he heard Clara's low moan and felt her legs clench around his waist. It took sheer willpower to maintain the rhythm, but he didn't want to finish without her. His hand slid into between them and Clara's fingers grasped his shoulders in response. The muscles in her leg tightened under his hand, and it wasn't long before her grasp on his shoulders increased along with her panting. When she groaned out his name, he pulled her down as much as possible and finally allowed himself to start thrusting wildly.

They were still holding each other tightly as their breathing slowed slightly. The backs of his legs were vibrating, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could stand. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her before he turned and fell back onto the bed. The edge of the footboard cut into the back of his legs, but he couldn't move. Clara lay silently on top of him. Suddenly, guilt flooded into his happy haze. Clara had been sleeping. He had been rough with her, tossing her around with abandon.

Clara's hand reached up to cup the right side of his face. "When I said," she said softly, "that I wanted adventures, I didn't know you'd dream up such a good one."

He looked down at her. "Mmm. You are. Okay?"

"More than. You aren't going to be with your legs like that, though."

They shifted up so they were on the bed properly. Clara curled against him, but long after Clara fell asleep, he lay there and worried about the dark currents waiting outside their door.

It was supposed to just be another meeting at the Commodore's house. Richard wasn't looking forward to it, because Luciano, Lansky, and Capone were coming, and Richard trusted none of them. Even worse, Mr. Whitlock-who often seemed to hold back some of Jimmy's worst impulses- wasn't going to be there. But Gillian Darmody was, and that made him even more nervous.

Lansky, at least, analyzed the situations he found himself in, Richard thought. Lansky tried to deescalate problems. Lansky was the only person involved in this (nightmare, Richard thought, and then pushed away the word as being disloyal) who seemed to think de-escalation was necessary. Lansky even tried to get Jimmy to pay the damn butcher.

Every minute of the meeting felt like broken glass against his skin, as he expected. Yet he would have never guessed that Eli Thompson was the biggest danger in the room. When Eli spoke, when Eli condemned Nucky to death, it took Richard several minutes to be able to speak. Eli had dismissed him when Richard asked him how he could kill his brother. Richard looked over at Jimmy, and he saw the wild pain and fear on Jimmy's face. It looked so much like the face Clara made when she was hurt or scared that it took his breath away.

After considering everyone in the room, he realized two things. Jimmy didn't want to order Nucky's death. And everyone else in the room wanted Nucky dead. He didn't speak again, waiting on everyone to leave so he could talk to Jimmy alone.

He finally went up to Eli when Capone showed no speed in leaving. He didn't understand how anyone could call for their sibling's death. Clara loved her uncle, how could she stand knowing what he started? "You could. Make your niece. An orphan?"

"It's for the best," Eli said. "Clara will cry, you'll kiss away the tears, and then you'll both be better off. Nucky sees her as a pawn. Watching her with Blaine, it was like watching someone slowly turn the light out inside her. But all Nucky sees is money, power. The fact she loves you will mean nothing to him. He'll destroy you, not because of your face but because you aren't the husband he's pictured for Clara, and Nucky insists we all bend to his will."

As Eli walked away, it hit Richard that he and Jimmy were also complicit in the plot to kill Nucky Thompson. To kill Clara's father.

After everyone else left Jimmy dropped back into the leather chair and hid his face in his hands.

"You are. Going to let. Capone send someone. To kill. Nucky?" Richard finally asked.

Jimmy stared at him blankly. All Jimmy could think about was the weekend Nucky took him and Clara to New York for Opening Weekend the year they turned fourteen. They'd seen the Dodgers play in Brooklyn, the Giants in Manhattan, and the Yankees in the Bronx. Nucky didn't even like baseball, but he and Clara were obsessed. Nucky had then taken them to Delmonicos, where they'd eaten with a bunch of baseball players. It was the greatest meal of Jimmy's life (he still had the signed baseball from that night in his things, to give to Tommy when he was older). Clara had been so smitten with Giants pitcher Jeff Tesreau that she'd barely been able to eat her steak. He hadn't seen that look on her face again until that day in the drawing-room at the Ritz when he'd seen her smoothing back Richard's hair.

Jesus Christ, what was he doing, Jimmy thought wildly. He had just wanted Nucky to go to jail, pay for his part in what happened to his Ma, and pay for how Nucky treated him when he returned from Walter Reed. Nucky had taught him to shoot, taken him in when Gillian's life was too crazy for her to take care of him, and taught him how to wear a dinner jacket and behave at fancy parties. Nucky'd paid for parochial school until high school, he'd offered to pay for boarding school for Jimmy when he sent Clara to Foxcroft (Gillian had refused to let Jimmy go), he'd paid for Princeton. He'd given Angela money while Jimmy was in the service.

' Because I swear to you, this summer will not end with me standing in tears by a grave. I will not allow it. You have twisted everyone I love into this nightmare, ' Clara's voice whispered in his ear. Clara. Richard had once talked about his sister, his twin, and said she was his earliest memory. Clara was Jimmy's. They were on a blanket outside, and Clara was stacking leaves. They couldn't have even been two. She was always the simplest relationship in his life. He loved her. She loved him. There was no darkness between them, just the long chains of a shared childhood. The night Clara found her mother dead, Gillian had taken him to the Thompsons'. Gillian cried like it was her mother who died. Clara was sitting on the floor of her room, her knees pulled up to her chest. She wouldn't talk or look at him. He knew she had her old stuffed rabbit hidden under her pillow, so he got it for her. She rested her cheek on the rabbit, and he held her hand until Nucky came to move them to the Ritz. She had held his hand the same way when she came to Walter Reed, while he raged at the pain and frustration of still being alive. When everything got so fucked up at Princeton, when he ran and abandoned Ange, he dumped it off on Clara. She'd convinced Nucky to support Angela and Tommy, befriended Angela, watched over them until he got back. And when he left again, she did it again. Then he walked into his room in Chicago, Pearl's room, and found Clara looking at Richard like she'd known him for years and Richard staring at her like she was something from a dream.

"I...don't want to," Jimmy said.

Richard stared at him. "Then. Why?"

Jimmy didn't have an answer. "I'm going to call it off," he said decisively. He was going to put a stop to it, and then he was going to find the money to pay Horowitz. He was getting distracted. Things were falling through the cracks. He could still fix this. This war was still winnable without killing the man he considered his father until he was twenty-two years old.

As Richard left the house, he didn't notice Gillian Darmody waiting in the shadows to speak to her son.

Jimmy was at the event for Jack Dempsey, and for once there wasn't much to do on a Friday. Richard had grand plans to take Clara up the shore, but they'd gotten distracted, and it was hours later when they went to take a shower. Clara was standing in front of the mirror, pinning her hair up while he sat at the desk.

"I should just bob it," Clara said. "I hate all the time it takes."

"You. Would look. Pretty."

She smiled at him in the mirror. "I just worry about not being able to tie it back. What if I get nervous?"

"You might. Not." They were both quiet for a moment. He hurried to change the subject. "What kind. Of adventures. Do you want?"

Clara turned to face him after she pinned her hat into place. "Like we had in Washington. Some days in New York, especially before Tommy was born, I felt so free. I had one day in London like that. Rose was still in at home in Yorkshire, and I could do anything I wanted."

Richard nodded and took her hand. "I had leave. In Paris. I saw an artist. I walked around the. City and ate things. I couldn't. Identify. I bought. Emma a present. It felt like. That." It felt like a day of beauty amidst the horror of the war, he thought.

"That's what I want. I want us to go places and have days together like that. I've never been to Paris, to France, to so many places."

"We could. Go," Richard pulled her down into his lap.

"You could go back?"

He considered it. "Yes."

"We could visit England if we go to Europe so you can meet Rose's family. I love her parents."

"Why didn't. You go to Paris. When you visited. Rose."

Clara turned to look at him. "I wasn't visiting Rose, and I had promised my father I wouldn't go to France."

Her answer was puzzling, but before he could ask they heard a heavy knock on the door.

"Harrow, it's Owen Sleater," an Irish accent announced. "I know Clara Thompson is inside."

Richard moved so fast she was barely aware of how she came to be standing behind him while he held the Colt.

"I'm not here to cause trouble. Mr. Thompson has been shot, and he's asking for Miss Thompson."

Clara barrelled past Richard to open the door. "Is he alright?"

Owen kept his hand on the gun holstered under his jacket. "He's asking for you," he repeated, keeping an eye on Richard.

Clara turned. Later, she wasn't quite sure what she had been about to say to Richard. That she loved him? That she'd be back soon? That she was scared and wanted him to come with her? At that moment, they were all true.

The words died stillborn on her lips, because when she turned Richard was looking down and away. She recognized all to well the look on his face. Guilt. Shame. In an instant, she knew. She knew. This was Jimmy.

And that Richard had taken her into his bed, taken her, knowing her father was going to be murdered. It felt like the air was pushed out of her body and she almost collapsed under the weight of the betrayal. She blindly reached for her purse, sitting on the desk, and brushed past Owen Sleater on her way out the door.

Richard raised his eye just enough to watch her walk out the door. He could still feel her all around him-the slight smell of orange in the air, the book she reading on the nightstand-but he knew.

Clara had just walked out his door for the last time.