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J. Alfred Darrow · March 27, 2020 – 11:06 PM

Ships pass in the night
I don't want to wait 'til the next life
One glance and the avalanche drops
One look and my heartbeat stops

17 March, 1890 — Artifacts Incidents Ward, St. Mungo's — After this

Alfred could breath again. As he came back to consciousness he was very aware of his breath, in a way that didn't feel natural — even for someone who had just spent a significant portion of time struggling for each gasp. This felt like something beyond his control, in a strange way — like a spell actively pushing air into his lungs instead of his body doing the work itself. Which, given his recollection of the circumstances that had put him here, was probably not too far from the truth.

Was he still dying? He no longer felt as though he were dying. The numbness from his limbs had gone, and his mind was no longer a dizzy jumble of panicked thoughts. If he was right in assuming he was breathing with magical assistance, though, had he actually gotten any better, or was this only a temporary stop to keep him alive for now? If they hadn't figured out how to get rid of the curse, or at least draw it back to inactivity, he might still be dying... just slower and more comfortably, he supposed.

Alfred took a deep breath (which felt fantastic) and opened his eyes. His breath caught in his throat for a moment, but for a reason that had nothing to do with the curse. Zelda was here. He knew, of course, that she had brought him here, and that she had been there when he'd finally passed out — but he didn't know how long he had been out, or what might've happened in the meantime, and so it hadn't occurred to him that she might still be here. That she would've stayed.

He cleared his throat, wanting to speak but not sure what kind of vocal quality he would have after that entire ordeal. Clearing his throat didn't hurt, though, so he decided to chance it by simply saying: "Hey."

@"Zelda Fisk"

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Zelda Darrow · March 29, 2020 – 3:15 AM

Zelda didn't like hospitals.

She'd paced from one end of the room to the other about a hundred times, stopping only when she decided that any healers who saw her would decide she was crazy. She finally sat in the seat by the door and sent a letter to his brother. And then it was just waiting, in a hospital, for something to happen. Waiting by Alfred's bed felt like waiting by her mother's bed in the house in Bartonburg. She couldn't focus on anything, and should have left, but could not do that, either.

Finally, he woke up.

"Hey," Zelda said. "How do you feel?"

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J. Alfred Darrow · March 29, 2020 – 3:36 AM

Alfred nodded vaguely, as though that answered her question. In a certain way, it did — he was feeling, and therefore not dead, and that was enough, wasn't it? Considering everything that had happened that morning. "Well, still a bit shite," he said after a moment, which was true. He didn't, for instance, feel very much inclined to get up, as strange as it was to be talking to her while laying down like some sort of invalid. He had regained feeling in his extremities, but his strength didn't seem to be back yet.

"But, you know. I'm here," he added with a very small smile. He moved to sit up a bit more in the bed, shuffling around the pillows he'd been given until he could look at her and not feel entirely as though he were on his deathbed and she was a mourning friend, or something. "How, ah — how long have I been out?"

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Zelda Darrow · March 30, 2020 – 3:20 AM

There was something amazing about Alfred speaking to her, even if he still felt terrible - he was alive. When they got here she had been half-certain she was bringing him to St. Mungo's so that his death would not be entirely her fault, and he was alive.

He was adjusting in his bed, and she felt like she had to move, too. Zelda scooted her chair closer; she didn't want to sit directly by his bed, but it felt awkward to be against the wall, too. Of course, now she was just in a chair six inches away from the wall, so it did not actually alleviate as much of her awkward-feeling as she had hoped.

She pulled her pocketwatch out of her jacket pocket and glanced at it. "A little less than two hours, I think," she said, putting it away. "I - um, I sent a letter to your brother. I hope that's alright."

It seemed, at the moment, the most important thing they had to unpack - but it was far from the only thing.

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J. Alfred Darrow · March 30, 2020 – 3:32 AM

"That's, ah — probably for the best. Thank you," Alfred said, though he couldn't help but frown when she mentioned his brother. Of course he could hardly complain about her having sent a letter to him. It was the right thing to do. Evander was the closest family member he had left, and so if anyone needed to be aware of the fact that he was in the hospital, it was him. If anyone should have been here in the hospital room waiting on him to recover, it was him. Not that Alfred expected Evander would want to be here, but it would seem the appropriate thing, and Evander was all about what was appropriate. He might be on his way to the hospital this very minute — she hadn't said, exactly, when she'd sent the letter, so he could arrive at any time. The only saving grace was that they weren't quite to the end of the Ministry work day yet, and there was a not-entirely-insignificant chance that Evander would feel obliged to finish his schedule and clock out before coming.

Not that Alfred didn't want to see him — only that there were things he and Zelda should probably talk about, and they were not things he was going to talk about with Evander in the room. So, best to get right to them, he supposed, before they were interrupted.

"I'm sorry I kissed you," he said, shifting his eyes down to the hospital bed sheet as color filled his cheeks. "I shouldn't've done that, but — well, I wasn't really thinking properly." Which was the only plausibly valid excuse for his behavior, really, except that it was a lie.

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Zelda Darrow · March 30, 2020 – 3:38 AM

"Oh," Zelda said. She curled her shoulders forward. She didn't want to stop looking at him, but it was hard to do so when they were talking about this. Still, Alfred was alive - and so she looked, instead of at his face, at the miraculous rise and fall of his chest.

She shouldn't hold him responsible for the kiss; it hadn't meant anything. He had been dying. It had felt like it meant something, certainly, but Alfred had made it abundantly clear that he didn't care for her anymore.

"Why - did you?" Zelda said, because she had to ask. It had to be asked. "I just - it didn't seem like you wanted to see me at all, and then."

He had called her Zelda, when he was dying. He called her Miss Fisk in letters and to her face, the rest of the time, but he called her Zelda when he was dying. She knew that it didn't mean anything - except that she had kissed him back, and she hadn't known that he was dying. So really it only meant nothing for one of them.

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J. Alfred Darrow · March 30, 2020 – 3:48 AM

She was calling his bluff, he realized; she wasn't going to let him get off with something as paltry as I wasn't thinking properly. Nor should she, given the circumstances. They weren't supposed to be anything at all to each other anymore, and then he'd kissed her and started dying. She must have pitied him, or felt guilty — and that was probably why she'd stayed, after he'd passed out, and why she was here now. They must not have found a way to actually draw the curse back, he thought; he must still be dying, and she didn't want to disappoint him when he was on his deathbed.

But then why ask? She must have known, or at least suspected, the answer. He'd kissed her because he had been dying, and, as he now knew with extreme clarity, people were very selfish when they were dying. He hadn't thought about how that kiss would make her feel, or the guilt it might leave her with after he was gone. He'd only thought about what he wanted, which was to kiss her — not just in that moment but in every moment for what seemed like several lifetimes now. Because, sometimes, he felt like she was the only thing in the world he really wanted, and he could not die within arm's reach of her and not be holding her.

But he wasn't going to say that. If she was here because she pitied him and didn't want to break his heart right before he died, saying something like that would just make things worse.

"I don't know," he said instead, mumbling slightly. "I thought I was going to die. I guess I didn't want to do it alone."

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Zelda Darrow · March 30, 2020 – 4:00 AM

Zelda looked back up at Alfred's face, but could not find answers there.

He was going to leave her. She had to remember that he was going to leave her before he started traveling and broke her heart again, but she could already feel herself getting sucked in again. If Alfred didn't die, if she de-cursed the boat and the healers fixed him, then he was going to go to India and it was going to break her heart. She could see the hurt coming, but that didn't mean she could avoid it.

"I thought -" Zelda said. She sighed and picked at the ends of her sleeves with her fingers. "It doesn't matter what I thought." She didn't have to make him feel guilty for this. And she couldn't tell him how she felt - which was that she wanted so badly to be holding him right now, that he couldn't do this if he was going to go back to calling her Miss Fisk later, that she still didn't understand what went wrong between them.

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J. Alfred Darrow · March 30, 2020 – 4:29 AM

Zelda's half-begun sentence stuck in his mind, because he had no guess as to how she was going to finish it. She'd thought — what?

Alfred was struck by the conviction that she couldn't possibly have thought anything, because she had to know what had really happened, and she had to know that he was lying (or at least telling a very muted, watered down version of the truth) now. She knew that he was besotted with her; he'd dragged himself through the miserable spectacle of asking to court her in front of her entire family to prove it. He'd offered to run away with her twice. He'd written her that lengthy and very heartfelt letter. She knew how he felt, and she knew why he'd kissed her — and she knew that he was lying when he said he hadn't wanted to be alone, because while that might have been true to some minor extent, his real motivation was that he had wanted to be with her. Not with just anyone; with her. And if she hadn't already known it a week ago, if she hadn't known it when he'd kissed her, then the way he'd clutched her hand when they got to the hospital would have told her.

Maybe that was what she'd started to say, just then. She'd thought that it was because it was her standing there, not just because of the moment. And of course she was right. Obviously. If she had even a moment of doubt on that point, Alfred was a much better liar than he had ever given himself credit for.

"I'm sorry I ruined everything," he blurted out, before he could think better of it. "Between us. I just..."

He just couldn't wait forever, or at least so he had thought in November. Now, in hindsight, he wasn't sure trying to move on had actually been any better, since it had just landed him cursed and in a hospital bed, and his forever might now be significantly shorter than he'd anticipated. He just couldn't be patient, though, and keep trying to work towards whatever standards Brannon Fisk had for people who were allowed to court his daughter. Maybe that was the heart of the issue, really: he just couldn't measure up, no matter how long he tried to, because he was not appropriate enough or established enough or polite enough. Maybe they'd been ruined from the start.

"I'm sorry," he said again, leaving it at that.

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Zelda Darrow · April 3, 2020 – 10:27 PM

She should just let it go.

She should just let him go, because apparently he was over her. He didn't want to be alone, and neither did she, but they could not just kiss and leave it at that - because Zelda still had feelings for him burrowed in her chest, so a kiss couldn't just be a kiss. And it took two to break things, obviously they had both made so many mistakes, but she didn't get it and was not sure she ever would.

"I still don't understand," Zelda said, "What happened, I mean."

They had been trying, kind of - and then there was nothing. It was like he had given up and never bothered to tell her, and then he decided to leave her.

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J. Alfred Darrow · April 3, 2020 – 10:44 PM

Alfred didn't, either, which was the whole problem. He'd thought his letter wouldn't have come entirely out of left field — that the two of them were, if not entirely on the same page, at least in the same chapter of the same book. When she hadn't responded, though, he hadn't known what to think. Had he offended her? Had she interpreted his request for some next step, whatever it might be, as something specific, which she had been unwilling to entertain? Or had she just not known what to say and given up on trying?

"I don't know," he said, rather miserably. "I just — I guess it all went off the rails a year ago, didn't it?" he reflected, thinking back to the disastrous Passover dinner that he had unintentionally interrupted. "And it seems like there isn't any way to get it back."

Maybe there wasn't really a possibility for them to turn this relationship into something respectable and proper and accepted at any point. They'd hardly even gotten started, after all, before they'd accidentally wound up in bed together, which was not the way things were supposed to go. Nonetheless, his introduction to her father (and the rest of her family) certainly hadn't helped matters.

"I just don't know where we go from here," he continued. "Your father isn't going to change his mind about me any time soon — and you won't run away with me," he said — without any sort of judgement in his tone; this was, as far as he was concerned, an established fact in light of recent events.

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Zelda Darrow · April 3, 2020 – 11:09 PM

Passover 1889 was going to haunt her forever, Zelda thought. It had fucked up her relationship with Ari for months, things still weren't the same between her and her father - and things with Alfred might never recover. If she was ever actually friends with Alfred again, she was going to just go ahead and send him the calendar of Jewish holidays in advance.

"I want -" she didn't know what she wanted. She shook her head. "I don't want to lose you," she said instead, although, she supposed, she had already lost him. He was leaving and she had not forgotten it but she was letting this happen, anyways. A good girl - a smart girl - would have backed out of the situation ages ago. Certainly after she had escaped sex without consequences although of course a good girl would have done so before. But if she was not good and was not smart then she only had honest.

"But I can't - I can't lose my family either."

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J. Alfred Darrow · April 3, 2020 – 11:19 PM

The air in the room seemed softer now, and Alfred took a moment after she spoke to just take in her words. It was gratifying to hear her first admission but, all things considered, surprisingly unsurprising. As much as he had tried to convince himself that her silence in response to his last letter meant that she wanted nothing to do with him, maybe he hadn't ever really believed that. Telling himself that she had moved on and he ought to do the same was less painful, he realized, than the sobering truth that they had uncovered here in the hospital room: that they both felt the same way, and that it didn't matter. The feelings in his chest, strong as they might be, could not create opportunities from thin air. They could not forge a happy ending from the shoddy materials the two of them had to work with.

"I know," he said eventually. "And I can't ask you to."

Alfred's insides hurt. He simultaneously wished that she would go, and that she would move closer to the bed so that he could hold her up against his chest and smell her hair and pretend that he had an answer for this, or that somehow things would be alright in the end.

"So that's it, isn't it?" he asked, with some difficulty. "We're stuck."

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Zelda Darrow · April 3, 2020 – 11:59 PM

Zelda wanted to cry. She could not, because he wasn't dying and this didn't really change anything, but she wanted to.

So she didn't. She curled her shoulders further forward; she was now really shrunk in the chair. She wanted to disappear, to be somewhere else. Really she wanted to be someone else, someone who either didn't care about her family or who had a father who was less demanding. But she couldn't lose Alfred, couldn't lose them - and so he was right. They were stuck.

"It can't be," Zelda said, "That can't just - it can't just be like that."

She couldn't stand it. Quitting was the right thing to do but she couldn't do it; it wasn't fair. If the last year had not fixed her feelings for him then she was not convinced that anything would.

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J. Alfred Darrow · April 4, 2020 – 12:11 AM

Alfred didn't know what to say to that. He opened his mouth, then closed it again and shifted his gaze to the bedsheets on his lap. He felt for her, because it was the same sentiment he'd been feeling, but saying it couldn't be didn't change the fact that this was how it was.

"Maybe if we'd done it all differently," he mumbled. Not that hindsight helped them any now.

He should have been halfway to India by now. He might not have ever found someone else like her, but at least he wouldn't be sitting here feeling this way, having this conversation with her about something neither of them could fix.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I don't know what else to say."

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

Zelda Darrow · April 4, 2020 – 12:18 AM

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for either of them, but suddenly Zelda was struck by it: it was not fair. She was going to die here, alone, in Scotland - that was the position they had found themselves in. Because she had an iffy reputation, because her family was a pain in the ass, because she was never going to marry someone without telling them she wasn't a virgin, and that ruined everything.

She was stuck here. This was her life, forever.

"You get to leave," Zelda said, "You get to go to India." If he lived, which seemed increasingly likely, then he got to leave.

"I have to stay here, Alfred," she said. "I have to stay here and - and try to just be that girl, for the rest of my life. You get to leave."

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