"No," Zelda said, glancing up at Alfred's brother and frowning faintly, "I should go." They couldn't have a real conversation in the few minutes he would leave them, and she really ought to report back to the Ministry sooner or later - people were going to wonder where she had gone off to.

She stood up. "I'll be in touch?"

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AMAZING set by MJ

For a moment Alfred took her I'll be in touch to mean that she had more that she wanted to discuss, and he optimistically thought perhaps there would be something to say other than just what had been said already. Maybe she had changed her mind about one of the things that he'd thought was a foregone conclusion, or maybe she'd had an epiphany about some new course of action they could pursue moving forward. A hint of a smile flickered across his face (more in his eyes, really, than his mouth) before it occurred to him that that might not have been what she'd meant at all. She was assigned to de-curse his boat, and to de-curse him, after all — she basically had to be in touch, sooner or later, as part of her job. Maybe I'll be in touch was an indirect response to his offer to write: don't write me, I'll write you. That would indicate that she didn't think there was anything else to say, and she wanted to control the tone and the content of their correspondence when it did begin again.

He should have been expecting that, but the possibility disappointed him nonetheless. "Yeah, alright," he agreed, with a bit of a lump in his throat. He waited until she'd gone, then leaned back on the bed frame with a weary sigh. "Sorry I almost died," he told Evander. "I promise I wasn't trying to do anything stupid."

  

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

Miss Fisk duly left the room, which was a relief. About the only thing that was a relief about this situation, Evander realised, because he was struggling to find any other positives.

Except that Alfred hadn’t actually died. There was that.

“I’m - sorry you almost died too,” Evander said, blinking back a little belated disbelief that washed over him in saying it. He dropped onto the chair beside the hospital bed with a sigh. He had meant to interrogate his brother about what had happened to him, and who exactly that Miss Fisk was to him and just how much more trouble Alfred was working up to causing him, but - with whatever had happened today, and quite how exhausted his brother looked - Evander found he didn’t have the heart. Not right now.

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   J. Alfred Darrow

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Without either the feeling of anger or desperation to keep him afloat, Alfred was having a hard time mustering the will to so much as hold his head up. The fact that the hospital bed was inclined to a semi-seated position anyway was a godsend, since it allowed him to feel like slightly less of an invalid. He watched Evander sink into the chair Zelda had previously occupied, looking as exhausted as Alfred felt. A part of him felt like Evander shouldn't have looked quite so haggard, given that he wasn't the one who had just weathered a near-death experience, but — well, Evander being Evander, he had probably put just as much mental and emotional energy into worrying in the past twenty minutes as Alfred had trying to keep himself alive all morning.

"The silver lining, if there is one, is that we know what it does now," he pointed out. "So if it were to happen again I could get myself to the hospital before it killed me. You know, probably."

  

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

Some silver lining that was.

And even if he got to the hospital in time, who was to say anyone here would be able to save him a second time? If the curse was still in him, what was the possibility it would only get stronger? They needed it out of him and far away, fast. And for good.

Evander had no easy solutions here, and they had already discussed the one point of logic that seemed a safe bet, which was staying off the ship. And out of trouble, quietly at home, where hopefully the curse would have no cause to flare up. But if he had no more reasonable advice, and he hadn’t any chiding left in him... what else was he supposed to say?

“You’ve survived stranger things than this,” Evander offered eventually, trying hard to sound firmly optimistic - or mildly reassuring. “You can’t die on me now.” And in his head, it was quite true; anyone who had managed to live for so long amongst the remotest tribes of South America without being killed or cannibalised wasn’t going to die here, with a hospital and the Ministry all working on breaking the curse he was under. And the only thing worse, he supposed, than having to endure Alfred getting into trouble in every which way, would be not having his brother at all.

He had already mourned him once, and once was more than enough.

“And if - you do die,” Evander said, with a weak smile and very uncharacteristic false lightness (a tone that held a certain degree of fear that he had misjudged the moment to attempt, of all things, to make a joke), “I promise I’ll do my best not to be embarrassing at the funeral.”

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   J. Alfred Darrow

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Alfred had survived other things than this, that was true; whether they were stranger or not, he wasn't sure. More exotic, certainly, because they'd taken place halfway around the world — but everything he'd faced on the Sycorax expedition had been, to some extent, a known entity. He'd been shipwrecked, but he was not the first person in history to have been shipwrecked, or to have survived it, and he hadn't been alone. He'd survived each day wandering in the wilderness, but in the end they had all just been days; they were, for the most part, not extraordinary. Succumbing to illness, or dehydration, or an injury — all of these were things that one could think through and get the shape of, and understand, and maybe take actions to prevent. This, on the other hand, was unpredictable, ancient magic. Wasn't it quite a bit stranger than anything he'd faced in South America?

But the sentiment was nice, he supposed, so he wasn't going to argue with it. Besides, he didn't want to die, and was hardly inclined to act as though it was imminent, if he could help it. He was trying to frame some sort of response to that affect when Evander surprised him by making, of all things, a self-deprecating joke. Despite everything else, Alfred couldn't help but smile just a bit at that. "Well, you'll only be embarrassing yourself if you do," he pointed out in an equally light tone. "Since I won't be around to mind."

  

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

He had never quite realised the value in humour before now, Evander was unexpectedly finding; not that he was any good at it, but he had always thought it somehow vulgar, something cheap... but there was something in even feigning amusement that produced a comforting effect. The fact that Alfred was still smiling in the face of his own death was a stronger notion than anything he expected the healers could say. It was only pretence, maybe, their joking; but Evander could trick himself into believing it if only he tried.

Besides, what was the alternative? To sit at his brother’s hospital bed, weeping? He’d only be embarrassing himself now. 

“Well, that’s something else for me to worry about, and something to entertain you on your deathbed,” Evander murmured dryly, managing a roll of his eyes that almost felt normal, in spite of the circumstances. He betrayed the false cheer, slightly, by reaching out to pat Alfred on the shoulder - and if it was anyone but Alfred, he didn’t think he’d have managed it. “Is there anything you need while you’re here?” Hopefully ‘here’ was just resting a little longer before he could go home, and wouldn’t actually be his deathbed for a long, long while.

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"I expect the hospital staff will take care of it if I need anything," Alfred answered with a shrug. He wasn't sure how long he'd be staying, but there were people who stayed in the hospital for weeks, so they were likely equipped to meet any needs that might possible arise in the short term. It was still good of Evander to ask, because there was a certain category of items that the hospital wouldn't have been able to provide, like a letter or a book from home or something else of that sort of personal nature. Alfred had handled all of that on Friday, though, when he'd first learned he might be dying; he didn't have anything that still remained to be dealt with now that he'd actually landed himself in a hospital bed.

He probably ought to express his gratitude for Evander having come in the first place, particularly since Alfred knew he had looked anything but grateful when his brother had first arrived. It wasn't as though Evander could have anticipated that he would be interrupting anything, though, and he must have been worried when he'd gotten Zelda's letter. Alfred was glad he had come. Verbalizing it so soon after having been more or less openly hostile to Evander felt too awkward, though, so he simply said nothing for a moment.

"Oh, that's the healer in the hall there," he said after a moment, catching a glimpse of Miss Bones (was that what her name had been?) passing outside the door. "If you wanted to ask her anything."

There was still a good deal of information that neither of them had regarding the curse and the current state of affairs in Alfred's health, but Merlin knew he didn't feel up to dashing off after her at the moment to ask.

  

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

Evander merely nodded, hating feeling so utterly useless to do anything in this situation. He hadn’t anything else useful to say, either, so had just about committed to sitting here in (the awkward Darrow version of) companionable silence when Alfred pointed out the healer.

“Oh, good.” Evander said, straightening up with a new lease of energy, now that he had a purpose. He didn’t trust Miss Fisk to have explained the situation fully, didn’t trust Alfred to find out what was actually going on with this curse, and didn’t expect the healers to tell him much of anything unless he harassed them himself. He had plenty of questions. “I did.”

“I’ll be right back,” Evander assured his brother, although with the list of questions already being compiled in his mind, ‘right back’ was maybe an understatement. He’d be back once he’d gotten a full report.

(Poor Rommy.)

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   Ophelia Devine

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