It wasn't as though anything she was saying was new to him, but the tone of her words, the undercurrent of anger, was surprising. He looked back up at her with large round eyes, trying to determine what she was thinking. Was she angry at the situation, or at him specifically?

"I thought it'd be easier," he admitted; there seemed little point in pretending he hadn't scheduled the entire India trip for the express purpose of avoiding her now. "If we didn't see each other all the time. But... well, you see how that worked out." Here he was, using this hospital bed as a confessional, after having kissed her when he thought he was dying. Not exactly an effective method of emotionally distancing himself.

"I'll probably leave again, when the Voyager will let me," he continued hesitantly. "Do you want me to stay?"

  

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

She couldn't make him stay. She couldn't make him stay but she wanted him to have a reason to stay. Zelda looked at him, met his wide eyes.

"I don't want you to leave me," she said, "Not forever. I want -"

She wanted him, was the thing - but she wanted him to want her back. And so her voice was small when she admitted, "Of course I want you to stay."

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

A lump rose in Alfred's throat while simultaneously his heart skipped a beat. Of course that was what he wanted her to say, because of course that was what he wanted to hear. But it made things difficult, because it really would be easier — certainly for him but probably for both of them — if he left. It didn't even matter where he went, so long as he wasn't here in England, running into her and being constantly reminded of all of his feelings. Reminded of everything he wanted and wouldn't be able to have.

He wished he had a crystal ball, and some skill in divination. It would be easier to know what he ought to do now if he knew how things would end up. Maybe if he left she would forget about him, because she was still relatively young and he knew how easy it was for people to change, over time. Maybe in a few years she'd be happily married to some other guy — and if that was the case, it would make it easy to know what the right thing to do would be: to leave and let her get on with it. If he was just going to leave her miserable and missing him, though — and he would be in the same situation somewhere else — and this was just it, how things were going to be for them from now on — how could he consciously make that decision? Particularly when she'd just asked him not to?

With some difficulty given that he still felt weak and sore, Alfred sat up completely. He moved to sit with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed towards her, then patted the bed besides him. "Come here," he said. When she did, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in to a half-embrace while still sitting side-by-side, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder.

The following 2 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post:2 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Cassius Lestrange, Cecily Gallivan

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

When he had returned to his office after attending a hearing, there had been a letter waiting for him. He’d had to read it twice to believe it.

Though really, he oughtn’t be surprised. Even with Alfred in the country for once, and his ship docked and retained by the Ministry, he had managed it. Evander allowed himself to heave a sigh before grabbing his coat and getting out of there. Fortunately, the letter from Z. Fisk - Miss Fisk, if he recalled, the one from Accidents & Catastrophes - had said Alfred was stable, which lent him hope that this was a minor escapade. Unfortunately, she had also offered her sincere apologies, which felt a great deal more ominous - and knowing J. Alfred Darrow’s tendencies, of course, it may well be another near-death experience. (Forget Pictish curses, their whole family was bloody cursed at this point.)

He’d considered going to get Charity on the way, but that felt like a dreadful idea if Alfred was bad, because the last thing Charity needed was to see another of her relatives lying in a hospital bed, with who-knew-what injuries. (If he wasn’t even awake, Merlin...) He expected Alfred might have been more pleased to see his niece’s face than just Evander’s, on his potential deathbed, but what else was there for it? Evander could hardly let him die alone.

He felt a little pale and clammy the moment he was directed to the Artifact Incidents ward and then to the room that held his brother, too. It was the feverishness of not knowing, probably; and the worry that finding out how bad things were would somehow manage to be worse. He stood in the doorway for a moment, knuckles white, and then forced himself to step inside.

And - that - that was not exactly the picture he’d been expecting. Decidedly not the picture. Firstly, Alfred was awake after all. And sitting up. And had his arm around presumably-Miss-Fisk, who was sitting on the bed beside him, which - perhaps he was wrong, but - did not really seem like part of her duty of care as a Ministry employee. (Unless Magical Accidents & Catastrophes did things... quite differently?) She had said she would wait with him, certainly, which was considerate of her... but if Evander had had to hazard an explanation of anything here, he would have said it was Alfred comforting her, and not the other way round. Which made no sense. None.

And Evander had stepped in and unceremoniously frozen there, his eyes wide and his ears going redder by the second, which he supposed must be some instinctive but entirely useless bodily plea for help. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sorry, am I - interrupting?” Though he rather thought he knew the answer to that already.

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The following 3 users Like Evander Darrow's post:3 users Like Evander Darrow's post
   Flora Mulciber, J. Alfred Darrow, Jupiter Smith

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Zelda could have leaned on Alfred's shoulder for the rest of the day. She was so despeate for physical contact, and especially with Alfred - and especially after today, touching for a long time felt like the most natural thing in the world. She wasn't sure how much time had passed before a man walked in, looking - well, shocked.

She sat up straight, but didn't move otherwise. She couldn't, really, with Alfred's arm around her. So Zelda had to default to the 'how to survive awkward interactions' playbook: pretending that she was supposed to be doing what she was doing. Of course, her cheeks were turning a bright red color, and it was less that she was stuck on the bed than it was that she wasn't sure how to jump up and extricate herself without making it worse.

In the hope of maintaining her dignity otherwise, "Not at all."

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The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   Flora Mulciber

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred wasn't surprised when Evander walked in so much as annoyed; he'd been expecting him to come sooner or later, after all, but he (in true Evander fashion) had picked the worst possible moment for it. They'd been having a moment — a sort of sad and hopeless moment, it was true, but a moment nonetheless. Evander knew the answer to that question before he'd asked, but Alfred assumed he'd asked it because he wanted to be lied to. He wanted to be assured that nothing was going on and there was no context here that he was missing, even though that was obviously not the case, and then he wanted to move on as though nothing had happened — as though this moment that he'd interrupted had never existed in the first place.

"Yes," he said, defiantly, while he simultaneously heard Zelda say Not at all.

Whoops. She was willing to play this game, apparently, that he had no patience for. That made sense, all things considered. Zelda worked for the Ministry, and lived in Hogsmeade during the entire year, and (at least by comparison to Alfred) she was conventional, and appropriate. These things mattered to her, because they had to. While normally he would have had no trouble respecting that, he had almost died today, and... well, he just wasn't in the mood to pretend to care about what Evander thought, at the moment, or what anyone thought. Not when this might be the last chance he had to hold her. His grip on Zelda tightened imperceptibly, signalling his reluctance to let her go, no matter who was looking.

But she wasn't his to hold on to, at the end of the day, and she was willing to pretend Evander hadn't interrupted anything. What right did he have to stop her? With a sigh, he let go and moved both of his hands to the bed behind him, leaning back on his arms as he turned a sulky glance towards the floor. No one had forced him to move his arm away, but he felt forced, and he was frustrated — with Evander, with the situation, with Zelda's family, with life.

"This is my brother Evander," he told Zelda, though she probably already knew that either from meeting him at the Ministry or at the very least from context (no one else would be bursting into his hospital room). To Evander, he continued, "This is Zelda Fisk. She's working on the Voyager and she saved my life today. And before that," he said, glancing briefly at Zelda as though she might stop him — though, of course, she had no idea what he was about to say. "I tried to marry her, only — it might surprise you to know — I'm not particularly marriageable — so that didn't work out."

This was probably not helping anything, but at the moment Alfred couldn't really bring himself to care. The message he was trying to get across was: Yes, Evander, you were bloody interrupting.

The following 4 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post:4 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Elias Grimstone, Flora Mulciber, Melody Crouch, Zelda Darrow

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

Not at all, the young woman said, and offered Evander the smallest sliver of hope that this situation could be rescued.

And then, of course, Alfred spoke, and stamped all over that slim hope until it was lying in tatters on the floor. Well done, Alfred.

If anything, Evander would have called the expression on his brother’s face, and the tone of his brother’s voice, and the reluctance with which he moved petulant, and petulance was not what he’d expected to be greeted with, in coming here. Why couldn’t Alfred just be asleep in the hospital bed like normal people were, and spare him having to have this conversation, of all the conversations?!

But no: such was his brother, and such was Evander’s lot. He could only look on in utter bewilderment at first, attempting to digest the stream of information with about the same success as if he’d been trying to eat his shoes. He felt he could have stood in silence for about a century and still not have found any English words with which to process the absolute mess that was Alfred’s life, but eventually Evander decided that he was going to have to say something if he did not want to be trapped contemplating this hell forever.

“Well, I daresay it’s probably fortunate you didn’t marry her, if you’re still not finished nearly-dying,” Evander bit out, past all the disbelief. Once in South America had not been enough for him, obviously, so he had found the curse closest to home and done it again on his front doorstep. And why on earth would anyone want to marry him, if it meant having to deal with this shit?

On that conundrum, Evander’s gaze slid along to Zelda Fisk, who, he did note, at least had the good manners to look embarrassed. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Fisk,” Evander said - though not quite consciously; apparently the habit of making introductions had not been deposed even in this diabolical encounter - “and thank you for, er, saving his life.” His tone had been polite for that moment, if a little stiff, and his expression had mostly neutral looking at Miss Fisk; but it curled into something else as he shot a look back at his brother. “I take it you’re not going to die today, then?” (Or was that part of the reason their embrace had looked quite so morose?)

Evander thought he had a right to ask, anyway, given that he still knew precisely nothing about what today’s ‘incident’ with the curse had involved, nor what the healers’ treatment or outlook had been for it, and instead all he had thus far been furnished with were details of Alfred’s lovelife for which he had not asked.

---

The following 3 users Like Evander Darrow's post:3 users Like Evander Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow, William Abbott, Zelda Darrow

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To say that Zelda didn't know what to say was an understatement. Under normal circumstances, she wanted Alfred's brother to like her - which he was certainly never going to do if this was how they met. But she also had never heard Alfred really verbalize it, to other people - he had wanted to marry her, had tried to marry her, and now they were here.

Of course she didn't want him to leave; of course she still wanted to marry him.

She looked between the two Darrows. Evander sort of looked like Alfred, but if Alfred was stuffy and a different-type-of-awkward. She had also never heard Alfred sound as forced-polite, or as uncomfortable. There was the hair, too, the tidiness of him, everything. But now was probably not the time to decide how she felt about Alfred's brother. She had barely managed to decide how she felt about Alfred.

Perhaps because of what he had said, or perhaps she was not really thinking about it, Zelda edged her hand over and rested her fingers on top of Alfred's wrist.

Her eyes were wide, but her tone was measured as she answered, "He's not going to die today. They have him on a spell to help his lungs rest, for now, but he's not going to die today."

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

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AMAZING set by MJ

The feeling of her fingertips brushing up against his wrist sent butterflies through his stomach. He'd expected her to be angry at him, or at least annoyed, and it seemed as though she wasn't — or, at least, not enough to get up and move to the other side of the room, which she could very well have done if she'd wanted to. Alfred had an impulse to return the gesture somehow, maybe by draping his arm back around her waist or leaning into her or moving to hold her hand properly instead of just letting her fingertips rest on his hand. He couldn't tell, though, whether the impulse was coming from his actual feelings about her or from a desire to continue annoying Evander, however, so decided not to.

That didn't mean he was willing to cut Evander any slack, though, particularly not after that barb about how he oughtn't to get married if he was going to get himself into predicaments like this. "It's not like I did this on purpose," he said sarcastically. "I didn't go looking for a cursed chest just to inconvenience you."

That was one of the things that annoyed him most about Evander's response. He hadn't come right out and said it, but his defensiveness implied that he saw himself as the victim in this situation, which was hardly fair. Not when Alfred had been dying only a few hours ago. Wasn't this sort of thing supposed to bring families closer and make them all sentimental and shit?

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

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

However discreet it was supposed to be, Evander - much to his dismay - didn’t miss the movement of Miss Fisk’s hand back towards Alfred’s. Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be discreet at all, and was just defiant again, like his brother’s explanation had been. This proved rather confusing. Because that made it look like Miss Fisk had no problem with the idea of marrying him - which, firstly, was insane, and secondly did not fit the story of Alfred trying and failing. Unless by not marriageable he meant to say the match hadn’t been approved (which was not a wild twist in the least; how could Alfred have been expecting anything else? This young woman might work at the Ministry, which wouldn’t say much for her prospects, but if she was a Fisk she was related to the Minister of Magic, presumably her parents were aiming higher for her than Alfred even if she was not), but Evander also couldn’t see why he ought to pity his brother for this, or be to blame. It wasn’t any of his doing! Hadn’t he tried, time and again, to advise Alfred towards a more settled life?

Maybe then he’d have been suitably marriageable, hm? Maybe then, Evander considered - returning to the principal issue here, however astray his brother’s priorities looked to be - Alfred wouldn’t have gone and found himself cursed.

Which wasn’t what he’d meant to say, exactly. He wasn’t even sure what he’d meant. He had too little room to think now, with worry twisting in his gut; all this thrown at him at once; a tremor of fear still ricocheting up his spine, quite out of his control. Evander did his best to absorb what Miss Fisk was saying about the spell on Alfred’s lungs, but his own chest was still tight with the worst thoughts of what might have been, not yet fully dissipated from his brain: what if he had gotten here too late? What if there had been nothing that they could do for Alfred? What if Evander had had to be here again, helpless by another bedside, having to say goodbye to the only family member he had left. (Close family, he ought to say, although Evander wasn’t sure whether Alfred would even grant them that.)

Alfred had latched onto his words immediately as fuel for an argument, anyway. (Clearly he was on the road to recovery, then, if he had the energy for it.) “That’s not what I said,” Evander said curtly, though not nearly as acidly as his brother was being. He knew he was only an inconvenience here, interrupting Alfred’s private moment; supposed, now that he thought about it, that Alfred might not have even wanted him to come. The letter had been from Miss Fisk, after all. If he’d been awake to intervene, perhaps Alfred would not have even bothered to tell him about today.

“But the curse is gone now, at least?” Evander added eventually, hoping that this would somehow come across as what he actually supposed he wanted to say, which was I’m glad you’re okay.

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The following 2 users Like Evander Darrow's post:2 users Like Evander Darrow's post
   Jupiter Smith, Ophelia Devine

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If they were just going to exchange barbs, then Zelda ought to leave. It wasn't that she wasn't used to fighting - the Fisk siblings fought all the time, and Zelda was usually involved in one capacity or another - but the Fisk siblings did their fighting out in the open. Things were occasionally thrown. They didn't exchange weighty barbs in hospital rooms; if she had been in this bed and Ari had been the older brother, he would have yelled, if anything.

She didn't leave, though; just tilted her head as if she was observing a different species, glancing between them. She kept her fingers on Alfred's hand.

"It's not gone," Zelda said, frowning ruefully. "Not yet, at least. It's - the healer forced it out of his lungs, and they're giving his body time to try and heal."

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AMAZING set by MJ

It was good that Zelda was willing to chime in with these sorts of answers, because Alfred honestly didn't know. Everything he knew about the curse, he'd learned from her briefing him at the Ministry, and whatever had come to light since they'd arrived at the hospital that morning he'd been unconscious for. He probably should have spent the time he had with Zelda in the hospital room before Evander arrived getting some of those details, but... well, he'd had other priorities. If Evander had been the one lying in the hospital bed, he would have handled things much differently, but Evander wouldn't have found himself in the hospital bed in the first place. Evander didn't get himself into these sorts of situations.

But Evander was here, which was something; he was worried and he'd dropped whatever other plans he had for his afternoon to come down here and attend to Alfred's deathbed. Alfred couldn't really stay angry at him when that was the base of it — particularly not when the curse wasn't actually gone yet, which meant the danger had not passed. If this had the potential to be his last conversation with Evander, they probably shouldn't spend the entire thing fighting.

"I'll try not to reactivate it again tomorrow," he said wearily, which was as much of an olive branch as he could manage at the moment. "Which I suppose means I ought to steer clear of the Voyager," he added, glancing at Zelda for some sort of confirmation. Not that he wanted to stay home when his ship was cursed, but — well, it seemed a pretty direct correlation between arriving there and having the curse start to set in, now that he knew that was what had been happening.

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

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

“Dear Merlin,” Evander said at that piece of news, by which of course he meant oh, fuck. The curse wasn’t even gone and somehow the only thought on the pair of their minds seemed to be whether or not they could get married!

If things looked up for his brother, Evander was absolutely going to find the time to be angry at the stupidity of this later. As it was, whatever new mess Alfred had got himself into, the fact was it was still a hazardous situation, and Evander would prefer not to see him wind up dead so soon. For many practical reasons, certainly... as well as - well - the personal kind.

He half-wanted to voice the words I’m sorry, and heave out the sigh building in his chest, but he didn’t think the sentiment would lend much levity to the proceedings: I’m sorry would make it sound rather more tragic, and tragedy was something they were hopefully all trying to avoid.

He nodded jerkily in approval of Alfred’s one measure of common sense, an agreement to stay off the ship that had not needed to be extracted from him forcibly. Evander wasn’t sure whether that was an empty promise, or whether this Miss Fisk exerted some kind of positive influence on Alfred’s stupid tendencies - but this was hardly the time to delve into that.

“Good,” he added, his throat still a little dry. Because Alfred was still cursed, and even if his lungs healed, then what? Evander would have suggested that the best course of action was to get rid of the ship by any means possible, as fast as possible... but that seemed so terribly obvious that he had to assume that would have been done immediately if it had been possible, and the complications here were of the curse’s own making.

“Are you -” Evander began, and then thought he may as well direct the question to Miss Fisk, as she apparently had all his case details, down to the hospital treatment. “Is he going to be discharged soon, or are they - keeping him here?” Frankly, the latter would be safest, when it came to Alfred. Otherwise - well, he would have to offer to have Alfred stay with him, wouldn’t he? Whatever this curse was, he didn’t particularly trust it not to flare back up in his own house (and with Charity there, too!)... but he certainly didn’t trust things to go much better if Alfred was left in his (once cursed?) flat, and to his own devices.

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"I think so," Zelda admitted, flashing a guilty, stricken look at Alfred. Keeping away from the Voyager was going to be tremendously difficult for him, and she still felt as if it was her fault. If she was better, maybe things would be done by now - but she was not sure that was possible. Now she really had to fix the Voyager.

Zelda sighed again at his brother's question, although it was more of an exhausted noise than a frustrated one. "They're keeping him here for a few days, I think," she said, "Miss Bones - that's the healer - would know more. I think it depends a bit on how well his lungs do." Her fingers, on Alfred's hand, pressed harder down. There was certainly an option where Alfred's lungs got worse, although at least if that happened at the hospital it - would not be nearly as bad.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Being in the hospital for a few days was probably for the best, because it would give him an excuse not to deal with anything else for a minute. Not that there was much to deal with, if he wasn't even going to be allowed to visit his ship. He'd already furloughed the crew, but he supposed writing to a few of the key officers and letting them know where things stood might be in order once he was released. The problem with that was that he didn't know where things stood — the curse, as far as he'd been told, might be gone tomorrow or in six months, and no one seemed to know which one. And in the meantime, he'd have nothing to do except sit around at home waiting for his savings to run out, with no income or cash flow. Merlin, he might have to take up teaching debutantes how to sail again (something he had not attempted since the young woman had lost an eye on a vessel that fall, which was enough to turn him off of the idea).

Alfred considered making a comment on the subject, just to see if Zelda would be able to give him any sort of timeline. He knew that if she had an answer, though, she probably would have told him already, and he knew that she was doing her best to sort it all out without getting him killed. The subject of income wasn't one he particularly wanted to bring up with Evander present, either. In a best case scenario, he'd probably start needling Alfred to take the opportunity to go find a safer (and much more boring) career. Worst case, he might offer to try and help, which would be mortifying. Alfred didn't want (or need, at the moment, at least) a loan, and he certainly didn't want Evander to offer to let him move back in to the house in Irvingly the way he'd done for the first few weeks after his return from abroad.

"Well, let's hope for the best, then," Alfred said wearily, ostensibly in response to Zelda's comment about his lungs but really meaning it about everything. Shifting his eyes down to where her fingers rested on his wrist, Alfred moved his thumb slightly to brush against hers. "I can write you," he offered. "If you need to go."

(Not that he wanted her to go, but clearly the three of them staying in the hospital room — Evander trying to pretend he wasn't uncomfortable and the two of them not talking about anything that mattered — was not particularly sustainable).

  

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

Evander nodded jerkily at Miss Fisk’s answer, making a mental note to interrogate the healers next. Alfred had not been especially forthcoming about this curse to begin with, so even if his brother learnt anything, Evander was not certain whether he would ever receive the full story.

So it would be better to keep himself well-informed.

That might also go for the Miss Fisk situation. He fully expected Alfred to have some sort of explanation for him later - an apology, even, for whatever misbehaviour he was getting into with Ministry girls, in case this sort of scandal got out - but Evander would rather not address the issue directly when the elephant in question was still in the room.

He would ask her to leave, only that would be rude, and Alfred would probably explode at him again, as if he and Miss Fisk had any right to be here in a hospital with their hands still all over each other as if they owned the place.

“I can - wait outside,” Evander said with a cough, in case there was something incredibly urgent and horrendously private they still had to say to each other before Miss Fisk was on her way.

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

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