Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths...

Title: Is this to be our life?
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Arnold Rothstein, Carolyn Rothstein, mentions of the boys, Bobby Winthrop and Manny Horvitz
Rating: G
Word Count: 683
Summary: A dinner filled with silences and promises
Warnings: Angst. Vaguely inspired by Margaret/Nucky in 2.05 -hence the title

( And I am short on words Knowing what's occurred She begins to leave because of me Her bag is now much heavier I wish that I could carry her But this is our ungodly hour Ungodly hour, ungodly hour Her bag is now much heavier I wish that I could carry her But this is our ungodly hour )

Title: Kol Nidre
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, Benny Siegel
Rating: G
Word Count: 671
Summary: The Jew boys of New York make sure there's a spot at the table for Charlie.



Charlie found them at four in the morning at Katz’s Deli and for several minutes he was stopped in the doorway by the image before him. The restaurant had maybe twenty people in it; mostly longshoremen who were coming off their shifts to find food before meandering home for the morning. There was a pair of cops sitting in the far corner- their helmets perched on the back of their chairs and eyes groggy from lack of sleep. They kept stealing glances at the table nearest to the counter where; oblivious to the world sat Arnold Rothstein, Meyer Lansky and Benny Siegel locked in some conversation that was drawing all of their attention away from their surroundings.

( Here O Israel, the Lord your G-d... )

Word Count: 451, references A Return to Normalcy

"For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and the blood on it.” -Robert Penn Warren


There was a moment in the car ride home from the election party when Nucky almost believed things were going to be fine. Margaret and he had stared out across the ocean for almost an hour, unheeding of the well wishers and dying revelry behind them as they studied the waves come slowly in until both their eyes burned and the cab was hailed to take them home. She rested against him; from fatigue and not affection and in silence they rode.

He thought of Jimmy and Eli; and their absence in Babette’s. In the morning he’d call Angela to check on him just not too carefully because he knew the boy liked working girls. The irony of that never failed to amuse Nucky: for all the hatred he had for his father’s treatment of his mother- at least the Commodore had never paid her. He kept her yes, but with all the grace of a quadroon mistress which was a lot more then Jimmy ever gave his whores. As for Eli, a few days of quiet brooding, the nursing of the tantrum and things would return to normal once the money came in to remind him how well they had things.

It wasn’t perfect, Nucky knew that more than anyone else; but it made them all wealthy men and with this election in pocket; they had connections as far reaching as DC. With the baseball business finally killed too he even had Arnold Rothstein- King of the Gamblers- owing him a favor. This should have been a good night for him; the best night.

Instead he thought of Mabel, and the lesson she left him with one night with his shaving razor. There wasn’t going to be any joy he received that didn’t come with a greater price, no triumph without lost that would leave him reeling. There was a part of him that knew rationally, in the end she’d been so far removed from the world she couldn’t have known what she was doing. But part of him knew she knew, because it was the one she could make certain he would never forget; no matter how many people owed him favors or who they were, and no matter how full the coffers were.

It was her last words to him, and the last curse. Every victory he would receive would be tainted; doubled edged. Just as the night he was delivered Atlantic City on a silver platter found him returned home to a bloodied and cold wife so to, would the country nod deference to a Nucky Thompson who found neither brother nor ‘son’ there, and a woman at his side only there for comfort and not affection.