At least he was talking to her, but Zelda still couldn't find the words for the point that she wanted to articulate — couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. Maybe it was that whether Alfred wanted to believe it or not, Ari needed help — help beyond what either of them could offer outside. She swallowed and turned in her chair in order to continue looking at her husband. "When I was pregnant with Carina still, and he came for dinner," she said, "And he was strange, and it was close to when he was strange in London?"

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

Before Carina had even been born — that felt like a lifetime ago, and Alfred couldn't imagine why she hadn't said something before. They'd talked about how Ari was acting strangely, a bit off, but off was not bleeding in the bathroom. When Alfred had seen him in London he had seemed very not-himself, but it wasn't on its own anything that he might have been terribly concerned about. Alfred had thought at the time — still thought now, in fact — that Ari had just been drunk. Yes, it was odd that Ari was drunk on his own in London, but it wasn't as though it was illegal. He imagined he and Dionisia might have had an argument, or that something difficult had happened at work... in short, nothing that was any of his business. But he had told Zelda about it, and then shortly afterwards she'd found him bleeding, and hadn't said more to Alfred about it than that Ari had been strange?

"What do you mean bleeding?" he asked, still having a hard time getting his mind around it. If he'd slipped, maybe, accidentally scraped his forehead or scratched his arm on the edge of the counter... It had to have some reasonable explanation at the time. Zelda could not really have walked in on Ari — hurting himself, intentionally, and not done anything about it.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda's mouth twisted unhappily. "He asked me for gauze," she said, recounting things. "And then he — said he broke something. It was like I'd imagined it." She still remembered the strange feeling of it, the discovery that Ari could arouse worry from her when he had always been her strong, smart, older brother.

"But I — I tried to touch his shoulder, reassuring-like. And then he just left," Zelda said. If Ari had wanted her prying, wanted her help — wouldn't it have come up then?

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

None of this explanation made anything any better; none of it helped him claw his way back from the dizzying position into which he'd been thrust by her admission. Gauze. Bleeding badly enough to need gauze, and even to Alfred, who was living this secondhand and years too late, the excuse was pathetically thin. She said he'd just left, but it wasn't that simple. She'd let him leave. She said now that it was like she'd imagined it. She had probably been telling herself for months afterwards that maybe she had. Wasn't it so much easier that way?

He swore under his breath. It wasn't directed at her but it was certainly about her, and that must have come across. He felt something like an accusation on his tongue, but wasn't sure he could find the words to articulate it.

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The following 1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post:1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Ari Fisk

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda was not sure if, even in the fights they'd had before and during their courtship, Alfred had ever sworn before. Hurt bloomed over her face, a wobble in her lower lip and a crease in her forehead. She stood up from her seat at the captain's desk and looked at him, dead-on, that hurt expression frozen there. It was like her husband wasn't hearing her.

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred had been looking down at his desk and the glass of liquor he'd abandoned there while he chewed over things he might have said next, but when she stood it drew his attention back to her. Her expression was something he had never seen before. There had been conversations before where the mere suggestion of future tears had wrung him out, twisted him until he was only fit for one purpose: to comfort her. Now she looked too hurt to even cry, like they were already past the point where it should have happened, and it didn't hit the way it should have. She looked like a stranger.

"You want someone to tell you it wasn't your fault?" he said. The desk between them was small, fit for sea travel, but the space it occupied felt larger today.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The pout in her face vanished; Zelda pressed her mouth into a thin line. "It wasn't my fault," she said, fervent, believing it.

There was guilt in her chest though, anew — there was some extent to which she ought to have been her brother's keeper, and had failed in that duty. But how was she to know that the duty had existed with such need, until it was too late?

The following 2 users Like Zelda Darrow's post:2 users Like Zelda Darrow's post
   Ari Fisk, J. Alfred Darrow

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred bristled. He would have tensed if he had ever let his guard down since she'd come aboard, but as it was there was nowhere else for it to go except the hair on his arms and neck.

"Then I guess we don't need to talk about it." His tone was hard and sharp. He didn't move from where he stood behind the desk.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

She wanted to shout, but she did not know what there was to shout about, or what shouting would accomplish. "Ari said we can visit," Zelda said, her tone flattening, "If you'd like that."

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

If his tone had been a challenge, the way hers flattened felt like a concession, even if she hadn't said anything. An implicit admission of defeat or surrender. He took a breath out and let his shoulders lower slightly, though none of the tension left them. A shift in stance, but not a release. "Yeah, alright," he said. "Maybe I will."

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER