Bring Back My Bonnie to Me [Part One] ~~ [Tonnie + Elinor]
In which Tom and Annie meet face to face for the first time since Levi was born...[takes place: May 23, 2022 evening]
@ugly-anastasia, @mamabear-elinor
[tw -- order stuff, manipulation, thoughts of violence/murder lol]
THOMAS: This was only Tom’s second time at the old castle in the woods and it gave him the same sense of dread and foreboding as it had the last time he’d seen it. Its parapets rose high, disappearing into the trees and a dense fog lay like a blanket over the ground. A chill ran up his spine, despite the relatively warm day. Dawn was just cresting over the horizon, but in the dense forest you could not see it. It didn’t matter to Tom anyway. It just marked his second…third? day without sleep. And another sunrise where his son was still missing.
He had come only on behest of his aunt, with no idea why she had called for him. At the very least, he could see Merida and see if she had any updates on their situation. What they were going to do. And look at his cousin with his own two eyes and know she was alright.
He could do that.
The knocker on the large oak door echoed and it took only moments for Elinor to open it.
“Oh, Thomas,” she frowned, reaching up to put her hands on either side of his face. She brushed at his oily, messy curls and brushed her thumbs against the apples of his cheeks. “We are going to fix all of this, I promise.”
Tom wanted to tell her that they couldn’t fix all of it. Unless that demon could bring back Eric from the dead. (And would Tom even want him to?)
Instead, he just nodded mutely and allowed his aunt to pull him into the castle. “Come, sit down near the fire. You’re cold as ice.” She squeezed his hand, but he barely felt it. He let her lead him, though, as if he was just a small boy again, clinging to his mother’s skirts.
That was until he stopped in the doorway of the sitting room, his feet planted. “What--what are you doing here?” he snarled, his eyes wildly darting about the room--looking for his son. “Where is Levi? What have you done with him?”
“Thomas.” Despite his own anger and his own exhaustion, his aunt’s voice was still an effective whip, cracking over his head.
He was breathing heavily, his fists trembling where he clenched them.
“Let her explain.”
“Aye, she bloody well better.”
ANNIE: Annie was really good at the art of curating an emotional crisis. Her most recent online scandal was proof of that. She knew how to put on just enough makeup that she looked tired, but not ugly; the perfect messy bun that said “I don’t care what I look like right now, but I do still look good;” a matching lounge set that was cute and understated and, like, respectful or whatever. Annie was good at reading the room.
But Annie’s current emotional crisis was not curated. She did not have any makeup on, and her hair wasn’t in a perfect messy bun, it hung around her face in a frizzy, unbrushed mess. She was wearing the same jeans and blouse she had been wearing all day, but there was a noticeable coffee stain down the front. Annie clutched at the offending mug tightly, like it was a life raft.
Tom had been right. She had handed her day-old son over to murderers. What kind of mother did that? And what was going to happen now?
“Tom, I didn’t know,” she whispered hoarsely. “As soon as Elinor told me, I– I realized I had been wrong. She was just so… Eloise, she always knew exactly what to say. I thought I was doing the right thing for Levi by listening to her. And then…” Annie’s voice caught in her throat and she started to cry– not for the first time that day, or even that hour. “I’m sorry, Tom!”
THOMAS: “I bloody told you!” Tom bellowed, his shout echoing off the walls. All his frustration, all his fear, anger, and grief unleashed. He took a step forward.
Elinor cut in front of him, drawing Tom up short. “Thomas--”
Tom sucked in a deep breath and then turned away from angling towards Annie. He crossed to the other side of the room and began pacing back and forth, a couch and coffee table between himself and Annie on the other couch. Elinor stood in the middle of the room between them. He ran a hand through his hair.
Then, all of the sudden he stopped short and whirled on Annie again, gripping the back of the fragile, antique wood hard enough heard it crack.
“Where is he?” he snarled, eyes hard and sharp. “Did you LEAVE HIM WITH THEM?”
ANNIE: For Annie, tears were usually a defense mechanism. She cried when she felt backed into a corner, because she knew how to use her tears as a weapon. But she wasn’t fighting Tom. That wasn’t what this was about.
Instead, she yelled back at him, her voice low and still thick with tears and decidedly more British. Yelling felt better than crying. It felt like she was doing something. It was practically her and Tom’s primary form of communication, wasn’t it?
“I told you, I didn’t know! Stop bloody shouting at me! You’ve got no idea what it’s like to be in my position! You think I wanted this? To find out the people who were supposed to be giving him the life he deserved are bloody psychopathic murderers?!”
THOMAS: Tom didn’t want to stop shouting. Maybe, once upon a time, he would’ve felt bad for it. For shouting at Annie, the mother of his child, a woman. But right now he only saw her as a kidnapper. Taking his son from him. Leaving his son in the care of, as she said: psychopathic murderers. He had no sympathy for her. Her tears meant nothing to him. How many tears had Levi cried? How many more would he cry if he grew up in the clutches of the Order?
“I told you!” he bellowed right back at her. “I told you and you didnae listen to me! I begged you but you thought you knew better, eh? Knew my family better than I did. Thought I was what? Crazy? A brute? A liar? Why? Why would--”
“Tom--”
“Nae, Auntie,” Tom snapped at his aunt. “She deserves this! I tried--” Tears suddenly clouded his vision “--I did everything I could.”
Elinor reached out and gripped his shoulder with surprising strength. “I know,” she murmured to him. “I know. Fighting isn’t going to fix this. It is what they would want. You need to be strong. For Levi. For your son.”
Tom let out a shuddering breath, bowing his head forward as he gripped the back of the couch. He sniffed once, then sucked in a deep breath and nodded. He looked back up, still glaring at Annie but when he spoke, some of the heat was gone from his voice.
“You’re gonnae help us get him back. And you are gonnae listen. And do everything that I say. Are we understood? This is not your world. It is mine.” He is my son.
ANNIE: Annie opened her mouth to tell Tom exactly what she thought of him. That she thought he was stubborn and secretive and no, she didn’t think he was crazy, but she didn’t trust him, and that was enough to get her to listen to Eloise over him.
(That wasn’t the whole story, of course. The whole story was that Annie didn’t really feel inclined to trust men as a baseline, and she had developed a deep aspirational obsession with Eloise over the past few months, and she felt drawn to people who validated the things she already believed about herself. Annie wasn’t self-aware enough for that part, though.)
Elinor was the one to interrupt Tom, though, and now Tom was crying, and that was what actually scared Annie. She wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid of what he was afraid of. If his family was capable of murder, what else were they capable of? What else did Tom know?
Annie stared at Tom, wide-eyed and pale. Her hand twitched and more coffee splashed out of the cup, but she didn’t notice.
“Why do you think I’m here, Tom? Obviously we’re getting him back,” Annie said, but her tone didn’t have the irritable, sarcastic tone she usually took with Tom when she said things like that to him. It was at once both desperate and flat. “I don’t care what I have to do. Sure. I’ll listen to you. If you know something I don’t, that’s fine. But I have information, too. Stuff you might not know. And they still trust me. So we’re gonna need to work together.”
THOMAS: Obviously we’re getting him back, Annie said, but that--meant nothing.
There was no ‘obviously’ about it. Tom would not underestimate the Order. They wanted his son. Tom had, technically, sworn his son to them. They would make good on their threats. He knew that they would. This was a dangerous situation. Not just for Levi, but for Tom--for everyone that he cared about.
He glanced at his aunt, who was still standing at his shoulder, a hand on his arm. Her gaze was steady, but firm and he appreciated it. At least someone else here knew what the stakes were.
“Alright: what do you know then?” Tom asked. He resented this. Working with Annie. But, at heart, he was a warrior. And it would be stupid not to take advantage of the assets he had. It didn’t mean anything. Tom wasn’t doing it for Annie. He was doing it for Levi.
ANNIE: Annie frequently preached that anything was possible if you set your mind to it. That didn’t mean she always believed it. But it was what people liked to hear, and right now, she didn’t really want to think about what would happen if they didn’t get Levi back (because she had thought about it. She had mulled it over all day. She didn’t know all the details of why they had killed that boy, Tom’s cousin, but it meant they were dangerous and they would kill again and Levi wasn’t safe there).
So right now, she was gonna have to believe it. She was putting her whole mind to this— every last ounce of determination she had. She was even working with the last person she wanted to confront right now. It was going to be worth it. It had to be.
“There’s going to be a party. Monday night. It’s kind of a meet-the-baby welcome-to-the-family type thing. And I’m invited, obviously, and they think I’m still totally fine with, uh… him being there.” Annie stumbled a little over that part, her face reddening. There was a reason they thought that. Because, for a moment in time, Annie had been totally fine with that. “Apparently it’s at a new location, this property they just got in London. They sent me the address and all. So I think I should just, I guess, uh, go in there, get Levi, and make a run for it. Not totally foolproof, but… it’s the best plan I got.”
THOMAS: Yeah, of course it was a new property. The Order wasn’t going to go back to their old haunts. The places that Tom, Phil, and John knew. The places they knew the weaknesses of. It would be stupid to stay there and, unfortunately for Tom, the Order was not stupid.
Part of him wanted to pace the floor, but Tom had never been one for pacing. He was stoic and still, as the storm raged inside him. He rubbed an exhausted hand over his face, trying to blink away the tears and bleariness. His mind chewed over Annie’s words, trying to find fault with them. He was so focused on the plan itself that he almost missed the other part.
The most important part: they think I’m still totally fine with him being there.
So, she had left Levi. She had been planning on leaving him properly. The Order hadn’t taken Levi. Annie had offered him up to them on a silver platter. Tom wanted to launch himself over the couch and strangle her. But even with the righteous fury coursing through him, he was too tired. Instead, he took a deep breath and stood up straight again, but he didn’t look at Annie. He couldn’t. If he did, he’d start shouting again.
He looked at his aunt.
“Do you think it will work?” he asked his aunt, because he knew she’d know better than him. After all, this was women’s territory. Babies and parties and things like that. His aunt had plenty of experience organizing such events.
Elinor nodded. “If they believe she gave Levi up of her own volition and just wants to come to the party, they won’t see it as a threat. She is still his mother.”
And though that did not mean as much as a father to the Order, it still meant something.
“Aye. Alright. But I’m going with her.”
“Tom, no--if anyone spots you.”
“No. I am going,” Tom snapped harshly, glaring sharply at his aunt. “I have to go.” The fire gave way to tears again as the fear squeezed his throat.
ANNIE: Annie was inclined to side with Elinor. Because even if she realized, now, that she had been wrong about Tom, she still trusted Elinor more. Tom was the one who was angry and emotional and who was making her feel the depth of all the terrible things she didn’t want to confront about her mistake.
But, then again…
Annie didn’t want to go alone.
“You can’t come in, but it might help to have someone driving the car,” Annie suggested weakly. “And, uh… I mean, obviously I don’t wanna think about the worst case scenario, and I am pretty scrappy, but if it comes down to it, might be good to have someone there for backup who’s, uh…” How was she supposed to put this. “…Trained for this kind of thing?”
THOMAS: Tom was trained for this kind of thing.
Maybe this was what his whole life had been leading up to, in some strange, twisted way. The Order had given him the tools he needed to tear it down. To save his son. If he was someone else, maybe he would not be able to. Even another Prince. Another Prince would not have the skill he had, passed down to him through his father, nor the special time spent training--the whole Order investing in him, Phil, and John, they way they hadn’t in their peers.
They had crafted Tom into a weapon and set him loose under false pretenses. Now, he was the banshee on the moor and he was coming for them. Something about that soothed him. He knew, objectively, that killing anyone would lead to his own death, but he was a talented soldier. He did not have to kill them in order to fight.
Tom still did not want to look at Annie, to speak to her. He was still boiling over with fury that she would leave their son in the clutches of the Order.
But, after a long moment, he managed to nod. Just once. “I’ll drive. You’ll go in and fetch him. If things start going wrong, text me.” He said all of this still looking at his aunt, but eventually he turned and met Annie’s gaze, his own hard as stone.
“If he’s gone, if I lose him--”
The threat burned up in his throat, because he did not know what he would do. Part of him felt that it might be satisfying to run Annie through with a sword, but the grief at just the thought was far too painful to even comprehend. So, instead, he just let it linger.
“Come on,” Elinor said softly, putting her hand on Tom’s shoulder. “You both need to rest. You have a long day tomorrow…”
ANNIE: It was what Annie was thinking, but would not say.
They weren’t going to lose him. It didn’t matter that the Harringtons had been nothing but kind and welcoming and accommodating to Annie (well, maybe sometimes they had been a little cold, which always just made Annie crave their approval all the more). According to what Elinor had said, these people were crazy evil murderers, and Annie was getting Levi out of there before any of this continued.
Not that she was comparing Charlie to a murder cult, but if the past year had taught her anything… it was when to get the fuck out of a situation.
So no, Annie was not going to let herself imagine what would happen if she failed. She nodded at Elinor and didn’t look at Tom, and then she went to start her skincare routine. She knew she wasn’t going to sleep much tonight. It was probably useless. Still, Annie clung to the routine.