Her eyes focused on him, not changing to pity, but with understanding and empathy. She let her hand curl around his and she tilted her head, letting him say what needed to be said after being bottled up for far too long. She let him cry, did not judge him for the tears that gathered in his eyes. Then she squeezed his hand and gently urged him to sit up. Assuming he did so, she moved in to wrap her arms around him, propriety be damned. She wasn't doing it as a woman, currently, she was doing it as his friend. Her thoughts were not on anything untoward even if someone might get the wrong impression upon possibly walking in on the scene.

The hug was instinctive, the need to comfort him was great. "I am here, Edward," she uttered his name this time, it was a lot more personable than being proper at that point. He needed one person just to let him do this while someone else was supporting him.

Edward eventually moved to her urging. He lacked much will in his body so he slumped into her when she hugged him but made not attempt to return the embrace. Tears still streamed down his cheeks, the memories of the day and what had followed played through his head over and over again.

"Thank you Ruth,"

Somehow, despite how lost to misery he was, her words managed to break through. He heard her say she was there and he whispered the words back. Then he shifted the bare minimum into her grip, his face now buried into her hair as he continued to sob until he finally stopped darkness over taking him.

She held him to her, not doing anything more than that. Ruth let the man cry into her hair, closing her eyes as her arms stayed still around the man. Then she felt his form relax against her as his sobs stopped. She continued to hold him like that for a few minutes longer until she was sure it was alright to let him lie back. She eased him down as gingerly as she would have done with her son. She fought the temptation to tuck an errant curl away from his face, but she let it be. Then she quietly pulled away and moved over to Jacob, lifting him and his blanket to her.

The young mother turned her gaze one more time toward Edward, and then she left him to rest.

The next few days proved to be quiet. Ruth started to keep Jacob in her company more and more as she cleaned, for the boy was starting to crawl and she would rather he be out of the way of shuffling feet in the kitchen since he was less inclined to stay in the basket. This was also partially because she just didn't want to talk about herself for the moment as her mind was occupied with Edward.

Finally, she had done all of her work for the day even after doing some extra just to keep her mind occupied, she settled into a chair in the kitchen and was drinking tea to calm her nerves. She looked tired.

For the moment, nobody else was in the kitchen as it was toward the end of the night and people were doing the things that needed to be done otherwise. She finished her tea and then moved to wash the dishes in the sink since she was there and had nothing to do otherwise. She took her time, not really looking at the dish in her hand as she scrubbed.

Edward woke the morning following his most recent breakdown feeling rather drained but not strictly speaking in a bad way. He was still a far way from peace over what had happened to him but he felt like some measure of grief had been taken away with the tears. The act of sharing with another the burden he bared on his soul had made it a bit easier to bare even if he was far from forgiveness.

He didn't check the time when he emerged from his room. He wanted a cup of tea and meandered his way down to the kitchen. He knew he could ask for one to be brought to him but he didn't like being a bother when he knew so much of the acts that maintained his existence fell into that category.

"Oh, hello Miss Blacke."

He said as he entered the kitchen and spotted her washing dishes in the sink. He supposed it must be late if she was doing so but he was sure that him putting some water in a kettle wouldn't cause too much of a mess.

At the sound of his voice, she glanced up from the teacup in her hand. "Hello, Mister Blackwood," she said softly, then looked down again and set the vessel aside to dry. She followed suit with the saucer, then grabbed the nearby towel to dry her hands before addressing him again. "Is there anything I can do for ye, sir?" she asked, still not looking at him at that moment. It hurt a little to look his way at the moment. She couldn't help but feel like she just wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him, but to do so in the kitchen where anyone could just walk in would have been improper of her. It'd been different while they were having a private moment.

She swallowed heavily, though not audibly, and then finally turned her dark gaze his way, carefully schooling her face so it wouldn't show her emotions. She had been deep in thought, even so far as contemplating her leaving the manor to save herself the heartache of loving a man so deeply that it physically hurt. She shouldn't be pining for him, she chided herself, shouldn't let her heart be tangled up in his mess. She had no business. But the thought of never seeing him again hurt even more. Suddenly, he might see that her eyes were brimming with moisture and she kind of turned her head once again to try and hide that fact.

"I was just going to make myself a cup of tea. No need to trouble yourself."

Edward said with an absent wave of his hand. He was quite sure he could manage it himself, he'd done so in the past. It had been quite a while he was fairly sure but that shouldn't matter too much. Find a kettle, get some heat underneath it, find the tea leaves and a strainer...

"Are you... quite alright Miss Blacke?"

She'd caught his eye and he'd seen the tears brimming in them which made him pause for a moment in surprise. A bit of worry ran though him as he thought something might have gone amiss that he hadn't heard about just yet.

Ahhh, damn it, she thought. He hadn't needed to see her trying not to weep. She did not answer right away and moved to put some distance between them, backing up until she realized her back was against the counter. Ruth turned away and nearly stumbled back toward the seat she had vacated. "I'm quite alright, sir," she said. It was a blatant lie and it would not be hard at all for him to discern that just by the sound of her voice, how it was throatier than normal. She tried and was starting to fail in schooling her expression so it was neutral and that would be that.

"It wasn't that brute of an ex-husband of yours was it?" Edward said, he wasn't that easy to fool and she only had herself to blame. She'd done more to pull him out of the fugue state he'd been in than anyone else. While he was still a bit out of it over all he wasn't going to just forget she'd been crying because she'd turned away from him.

<cw - panic attack>

She shook her head, her gaze averted at that point. "It's nothing, sir," she said. Ruth fought the urge to bolt, her lips tightening so she would remain steadfast in her choice to remain silent when it came to the feelings that had been accumulating. The man had accepted her with all of her flaws. She'd seemed a lot younger even as it hadn't yet been a year since their meeting. She knew that he had a long way to go before he was even ready to face loving another woman and that it might never happen, and it might happen with someone who wasn't her. It hurt more than her so called husband's betrayal, cutting like a dull knife into an already gaping wound. She hurt too but she forgot about Angus when she looked into Edward's eyes sometimes.

And then the words were on her tongue; she was poised to tell him that perhaps it was time for her to move on. Yet the thought of parting ways with him seemed to carve deeper. She felt gutted. She hated her part in marrying Angus MacLeod, hated that Angus tried to keep a hold on her despite her willingness to move on. He didn't want her, he wanted her baby. He wanted to take the boy she had raised with the help of the people who took her in when others would have balked at her scandalous past. She couldn't let him take away the light of her life on top of robbing her from a chance to be happy with a man who actually loved so deeply that he blamed himself for something he didn't do.

The young woman didn't feel she was free to even love someone else romantically. "Happily ever after" was an ideal that was a myth. She gave a shuddering breath and slowly moved to her feet, lifting Jacob into her arms to hide the fact she was beginning to tremble from the effort to keep her dignity intact. "I should... put Jacob to bed, Sir... If you will excuse me, please? Have a pleasant evening," her voice was so soft that it was as if she barely said anything at all; barely above a whisper and it was so very strained that the tenson was palpable. She forced her gaze to him for only a moment, the facade she tried so hard to portray, seemed to fall from her face long enough for her very palpable emotion to be painfully evident to anyone who might see her.

Ruth stiffly looked away, and seemed to just... walk away slowly but not with the intent of having him follow her. Her body language could quite easily be interpreted as forced, the way with which she visibly shook but only slightly. She wanted very much to run but her legs felt almost too heavy for her to put one foot in front of the other.

It was as though a soft ringing filled her ears and everything was somewhat echoing about her as she numbly put distance between the two of them before she could make a fool of herself. The only thought she would allow herself to think was that she had no business to feel love for Edward Blackwood. It was at the doorway that she gave pause, her eyes looking almost lifeless as she gave herself that last glance toward him. It was only when she knew he could not see her face that she allowed herself the pained grimace of one whose heart was in turmoil. She then curled her lips inward so hard that it pained her, and she propelled herself forward with as much strength as she could muster.

If he followed at all, it would not be hard to catch up. He was usually in his own world and she didn't expect it of him. She knew beyond the pale that he would only do what his mind would allow him to do. The closer she got to her room, the more she began to gasp and shake. She tried so hard to remain calm but even Jacob was beginning to make noises of protest. Somehow, some way, she made it into her chamber regardless of his choice of actions. She had never felt this deeply before. Her son whimpered in her arms and she whispered an apology before relinquishing her hold upon the poor child by putting into his bed.

Anyone who might have caught sight of her along the way or if he did follow, one would be faced with a door that was wide open, left like that as if in afterthought. They would then see the young woman waver as she walked upon stilted legs, and she would make her way toward her bed before the sounds of her gasping actually became an alarm bell for those who may be nearby. She rolled her eyes somewhat upward toward the ceiling as she took in great gulps of air. Her head nodded forward and she placed her hand upon her abdomen which suddenly felt so constricting. Her eyelids began to flutter and she felt faint for the first time in her life. This wasn't her! This was someone she didn't even recognize within herself!

She didn't realize that she was in the throes of panic, couldn't hear what everyone on the outside could hear at that point. She began to wheeze, She was pale and clearly not present in a mental capacity in that very moment as everything that had been happening since the moment she chose to sneak out of her parent's house.

Ruth could only hear a whistling... she could not hear the fact that her son who picked up on her emotions was crying as babes cried, could not hear anyone who might try to speak to her, even shake her in that moment. Her eyes soon looked faraway and the tears that had been suspended dribbled unchecked down each cheek, first the left and then the right came tentatively after. Her heart was so loud, beating fast and hard against her breast.

This wasn't her, damn it! She began to claw at the buttons to her blouse, her coreset was simply too tight. And then it happened. It was as if someone had snapped their fingers. The breath whooshed out of her, her legs buckled before she could even make it to her bed to sit down. What happened to her over the course of the time from the start of her walking toward her room, and the moment her body slid toward the floor, was only five minutes. In her mind, however, the whole scene took place over the span of a half an hour or so.

There was something in the way Ruth carried herself and spoke that Edward recognized on some fundamental level. An empathy that came from experiencing something not entirely unlike what she was currently going through. He didn't know enough to put a name to it but he knew that a mind could do terrible things to a body. 

Even as she started to lose herself to the panic, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her making sure that she didn't accidentally drop Jacob in the process. She might not hear it but he raised his voice calling for help. She might not realize it but Eleanor and Betsy came running. 

Together the trio helped her get to her rooms and settled into her bed. Jacob was taken by Betsy, the boy was fussing something fierce over his mother's distress. Angus was fetched and told to go into town to get a doctor. Whatever she thought, whatever she might think she should do, one thing was clear by how the house reacted. This was her home, these people her family, maybe not by blood but the care and worry they all had for her was the sort that only came with a true and abiding care. 

Edward himself the most worried of them all. He refused to leave her side until she came back to herself. The man adamant that he stay to watch over both her and young Jacob. His concern so palpable that it might have raised questions if anyone had a thought to give to why he refused to leave.