Coraline Murphy

20.

*A/N - warnings of description of attempted suicide in the latter part of this chapter. Please don't read if it's not a good idea for you to do so at this time.*

Polly was sat in the kitchen, illuminated by the dim light of a small table lamp. She sipped her tea slowly as she watched Tommy enter through the front door. She took in his dishevelled appearance and immediately put two and two together. "Tell me you didn't, Tommy..."

Her nephew ignore her plea. "Where is Coraline?"

"She went home."

Tommy frowned at her. "It's dark?"

"Well after I'd patched her up, we waited for you to come back so you could walk her home."

"You let her go by herself?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, Thomas," she snapped.

"Pol!"

"I woke Arthur and asked him to take her home. Said you're otherwise... engaged..."

Tommy lit a cigarette. "Fuck."

"Oh come on, Tommy. If I worked it out, you really don't think Coraline will have done? She's brighter than any of us!"

Tommy didn't reply.

"She doesn't deserve this Tommy. She's your..."

"My what, Polly?!" He snapped, meeting her fierce gaze. "What exactly are we?"

"You're soulmates, Tommy!"

"Oh fuck off, Pol."

Polly raised her hands in defeat. "I don't make the rules, Tommy. You've always been meant for each other. I should have thought that was obvious."

"Whats obvious, Polly, is that Coraline has had her chance for fucking years, and never did a thing about it."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Have you done anything about it?"

Tommy didn't know what to say.

"I thought not."

He remained silent for a moment, taking a drag of his cigarette. "I'm going to bed," he replied, and left the room.




"John, where's Tommy?" Coraline was sweeping the floor in the corner of the Garrison, her mind running wild. Something felt off, and she wasn't quite sure how to put it into words; Polly would have called it her gypsy intuition. She wasn't sure what to call it, but whatever it was, it was making her stomach churn. 

"I'm..." John stammered, looking anywhere to but at Coraline. "I'm not sure, love." 

Arthur had told him how Polly had woken him to escort Coraline back home after they'd waited ages for Tommy to return from walking Grace back to her place. John had a pretty good idea about what might have occurred between Tommy and Grace that night, as did everyone else, and he was dismayed with his brother for potentially hurting Coraline, who he saw as a sister. 

"Right okay." Coraline focused on her sweeping. The hurt she'd experienced when she'd found out that Tommy hadn't returned until the early hours of the morning from Grace's place, and that he hadn't even denied anything happening, made the pain of the neatly stitched bullet wound in her arm fade in comparison. She'd tried to talk herself out of it, reminding herself that she and Tommy weren't an item, and that she'd no right to feel hurt by his actions. 

If anything, it cemented what she'd always believed deep down; she was a burden, unworthy and incapable of being loved - her father had always said so, and she'd believed for far too long that he was wrong. Now she knew - the person she'd convinced herself loved her, didn't. And it was her own fault for ever having the arrogance to believe that he did.