A few more bad things he could say about Melody Crouch rose in Art's mouth like bile, but he kept them down, closing his eyes tight for a second as if to shake off the thought. Saying bad things about Melody Crouch was unhelpful if Ben was trying. Or, saying bad things about Melody Crouch might somehow segue too far into what was going on in Art's life, and he was worried about that.

"Maybe one from the Irvingly infirmary? Or wherever," Art suggested, a little lamely. He didn't really understand how healers worked, honestly.

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The Irvingly Infirmary wouldn't have been his first choice, he didn't think, except that it was conveniently close to home. If this was serious, though, weren't there more experienced healers elsewhere? If it was serious enough that someone Ben had probably never met thought that Melody dying was a foregone conclusion... well, convenience wasn't really his prime concern, at that point. It occurred to him, though, that Art might have some personal experience with this — and particularly with how the Irvingly Infirmary might deal with this exact type of issue.

"Is that where you went?" he asked, before he could think better of it. "When —?"

  

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Arthur didn't physically flinch, although there was a pang in his chest - instead he went still, all the usual little motions he kept on even when he was sitting dragged out of him. He looked at Ben's shoulder instead of at his face. Usually it was as if there was a stuttering in his brain when he thought about the miscarriage, but when he was asked about it and hadn't expected it it came to him in flashes: Desdemona's face, when he came in the room, and the guilt, because he hadn't been there.

"Yeah," he said, still unmoving.

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Ben looked at Art, who wasn't looking directly at him. He regretted asking the question, but he couldn't take it back, and now he didn't know what to say in response to Art's answer. He thought maybe it would make sense to continue this line of inquiry, to justify having asked the question in the first place, but he couldn't imagine how he would do it. And you were happy with how they handled things? Obviously not. Did they do everything they could? Did it matter? Do you think they can help Melody? They hadn't saved Art's baby; why should anyone think they would save Ben's?

He shifted in his chair uncomfortably and looked off towards the shelves again. "Right," he said, having to force the word through a dry throat. "Sorry."

  

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It was less about the baby, Art thought, and more about Desdemona - like if he had any idea how to communicate their shared grief, any idea how to reach her, he wouldn't feel like this now. Or - maybe he would still feel it, but less. He tapped his fingertips against the thigh of his trousers, still sitting on the desk and looking more at Ben's shoulder than his face, as if a return to motion would make him useful to Ben again.

"I think it was, um -" fuck, how did he articulate this? "- they had to call the midwife. It was - it'd be a different kind of healer."

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   Reuben Crouch

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Ben looked over with some surprise at this comment. "Would it?" he asked, because he honestly didn't know. He didn't know much about pregnancies, and didn't know what the practical differences were between a midwife and a healer. Midwifes were there when the babies were born, but that was about the extent of his knowledge on the subject. Was there a certain point when things switched over from normal-healer concerns to midwife concerns? Was Melody approaching that point, or not? He knew things were still early for Melody, and he realized with a start that he didn't actually know how far along Desdemona had been when it happened. He hadn't known there was even supposed to be a baby until it had already gone. Art hadn't said any more about it, and Ben hadn't ever asked.

Should he have? Would Art have wanted to talk about it? He had no template for this sort of scenario, and no idea what Art would have needed or expected from Ben at that moment. He hadn't ever brought it up, but — maybe this was like their last conversation, where they both sort of knew what there was to talk about, but both of them were too chicken to actually say it.

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   Arthur Pettigrew

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Arthur shrugged. The shrug didn't encompass this, but the admission was damning — more damning than the gambling, maybe. "I don't know, I — I wasn't there," he admitted, and it felt like a confession, and he was looking at his hands instead of at Ben at all, "Until after."

It hadn't been his choice, Arthur's kneecap had been shattered in the game and it was only until it was halfway pieced together again that the mediwizard had bothered telling him about Desdemona at all, but — he hadn't been there, waiting outside the room for Dez, until well after. And the baby would have died anyways if he had been, he knew that, but it still felt like an offense their marriage would never recover from.

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   Reuben Crouch

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Oh. Shit. That was — heavy, and Ben didn't know what to do with it. He didn't know how to make that make sense in his head, because he had no experience anywhere in his past that was even remotely comparable that he could hold up next to it. He had no idea how that would feel, but based on the way Art's shoulders had slumped after his shrug he could safely say not great. If something like that had happened to him and Melody, though, he knew he would have wanted to be there. Even if there was nothing he could do, even if his presence there actively made things worse, he still would have wanted to be there. He honestly didn't know how Melody would feel about it, whether she would want him there in a moment like that or not, but he could imagine that Desdemona would have wanted Art there. Suddenly it made sense, why they still hadn't moved past this. How did you even start a conversation about an experience you didn't share?

"I'm sorry," Ben said, after a long moment — too long of a moment, he should have spoken earlier but he honestly couldn't cobble together enough coherent thoughts to push words out of his mouth without making things worse. "I shouldn't have asked. It's not the same."

It couldn't be the same, anyway — Ben's baby was going to survive this. It had to, because Ben wasn't prepared to consider the consequences if it didn't.

  

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He had to stop thinking about this, he couldn't think about this — it was like his brain was caught on it instead of stuttering over, and Art pressed his thumb into the side of his leg, hard, to shake himself out of the feeling.

"They'll be okay," Art said, trying to remove his own feelings from the situation. He flashed a sheepish smile at Ben, as if to apologize for having brought it up in the first place. "Melody and the baby both. I'm sure of it."

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   Reuben Crouch

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Ben didn't know what the response was: a way to reassure him about his own situation, a way to deflect the conversation away from Art's family, a way to end the conversation entirely because neither of them had the capacity to actually deal with something like this at the moment. Whatever it was, it felt best not to press it — he had fucking Witch Weekly to deal with. While it was hardly ideal, at least Ben had a mental template for this, because he'd been in the pages of Witch Weekly before. The rest of their conversation — not so much.

"Yeah, thanks," he said with a nod. "You're right. It'll be okay."

  

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