Be honest
How are you feeling, girlfriend?
Have you been crying again?
Just give it some time, breathe out
See I'm happy that boy was just playing pretend
We said it, you wouldn’t listen
But finally you found out

September 7th, 1890 — The Abernathy & Skovgaard Flat, London

Fallon hadn't slept, her thoughts too restless to permit any sort of relaxation. The stress in her life had taken a dramatic turn over the past two weeks and without an outlet she was bubbling over like an unattended cauldron. She could handle the Arctic and Lachlan's numerous injuries. She could handle being exiled from her profession (granted, that was a bit sketchy). However, JP — no, Mr. Hatchitt — severing their friendship because she wasn't ready for marriage was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was just too much.

She spent the majority of the night pacing her small bedroom. The healing stumps where her toes once were opened at some point and bled through the bandage, not that she ceased her movement to address it. How had she gotten here? How had she allowed a fucking man to break her like so? Fallon had a fucking assassin with her in his sights, and she wasn't phased. But, a boy?! Fallon might as well have agreed to the marriage for all the stress disagreeing caused her.

Merlin, she would be lucky to pass the fitness tests if this kept up.

Eventually, dawn's early rays could be seen through the crack of her curtains and Fallon could stand the four walls of her room no longer. Without attempting to make herself appear half decent, she beat Malou into the kitchen and set the kettle to boil. Today was going to be a long day.

  

The flat that Fallon and Malou rented was reasonably nice, homey, clean and often caused them few problems. The one thing that it was not was sound proof. Malou had arrived home from her shift, exhausted. She hadn’t even spoken to Fallon, instead she’d fallen asleep only to wake up in the early hours hear the floorboards of Fallon’s room next to hers squeak. It continued on for long enough that Malou wondered if she ought to stop in and make sure Fallon was alright, or at least send her to bed, surely this could not be good for her injuries.

When she heard Fallon’s door open, Malou decided to get up as well. She could see the sky lightening out her window, time to make breakfast anyway. Wrapping a shawl around her nightgown Malou slipped out of her room into the kitchen, where to her surprise Fallon was actually already setting the kettle to boil.

“You’re awake early.” Malou commented, her healer’s gaze running over Fallon. She looked exhausted and the bandages on her feet were bleeding. That was what did it. “Sit down, I’ll take care of that.” Malou commanded in the quiet voice that held enough firmness her nurses never questioned her. “Then I’ll see to your toes.” She tsked.

  

---

"Couldn't sleep," she muttered in response. The kettle couldn't boil fast enough, not with the exhaustion seeping into her bones. That she kept Malou up as well wasn't a thought, though it very well should've been. The walls were thin enough to have a conversation through, nevermind the repetitive shuffling of feet.

Knowing better than to argue with Malou, Fallon abandoned her spot near the counter and plopped into her regular chair. "My toes are fine." The cuts would scab over and heal on their own, and she could replace the bandages herself. Malou dealt with enough patients at the hospital, she didn't need to add her roommate to the list. "Did you get in late?"

  

There would be no arguing about this, Malou indicated with a look as she crouched down at Fallon’s feet. “Then you’ll be alright if I look at them.” She told her as she began to undo the bandages, they had time before the water boiled. “While I do you can tell me why you couldn’t sleep.” She continued to unroll the linen bandages, looking at the damaged toes with the discipline of a trained healer. It certainly could be worse.

“Not terribly late. I was exhausted though, went right to bed.” Malou explained as she stood up and headed for a pile of bandages she kept in the corner with her healing supplies. Potions and ointments that she liked to keep on hand were kept in tidied rows on shelves, below them a basket of clean badges and a small kit of supplies. She grab a new bandages and some ointment she knew Fallon had been given and brought them back, kneeling in front of Fallon and starting on the ointment before starting to wrap the bandages up again.

  

---

She wasn't able to refuse Malou, for by the time an excuse was thought up the soiled bandage was removed. Instead, Fallon remained perfectly still, a model patient. It was the least she could do.

"J— Mr. Hatchitt will no longer be a concern." The quick correction was sure to be noticed, but Fallon had to become reaccustomed to the lack of familiarity. After all, he was bound to come up at work at some point or another, seeing as his brother was her co-worker. "He's just another arse like the rest of them." Except Lachlan. Lachlan was a decent man as far as she could tell.

  

A concern? Malou’s eyebrows rose at the word and she was grateful she was bending over Fallon’s feet or her dear friend would have noticed. Malou had never thought of Mr. Hatchitt as a concern. In fact she fully supported his interest in Fallon given his own concerns when Fallon had been missing. It seemed rather unlikely to Malou that he was either a concern nor an arse. But there was a time for such statements and now was not it. “What happened?” She pressed gently as her hands nimbly wound the bandages back up.

  

---

"I told him I wasn't ready for marriage," she stated, her tone clearly reflecting how frustrated she was. "To which he replied that it all got out of hand anyway. What is that supposed to mean?! It wasn't like I refused the concept of marrying him outright! I said I wanted to get to know him better." Then he'd gone and proved it was all or nothing. The jerk.

Once her foot was bandaged, Fallon stood to move to the boiling kettle and poured herself a cup of coffee. Malou would just have to deal with the fact that she couldn't sit still. "I sent back the gifts. Think we can find me another warm scarf?" She would've sent back the chocolate frogs too if she could've forced herself to vomit them up. Those, however, were long gone.

  

Listening to Fallon’s outburst Malou wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Oh Fallon.” She said instead, giving her a small sympathetic smile. Fallon abruptly moved and Malou stood up, refraining from mothering her friend. Instead she set out another mug for Fallon to fill with coffee. “Did he bring marriage up again?” Malou felt like she had missed the first half of the story, to be honest. With her hours at work it was quite probable she had. Questions filtered through her mind, had he brought up marriage not in jest this time? Had the conversation been through letters or had Fallon seen him since she arrived home? That alone seemed rather impossible given the surveillance around their home.

“I’m sure we can find you a scarf.”Malou assured her, she had been knitting a new one for the winter and would hardly mind giving it to Fallon. “You sent back the ring?” Malou found this fact surprising, but it was better not to press too deeply, she knew Fallon would tell her in time.

  

---

Fallon waved off Malou's pity with a shake of her head before taking a hearty gulp of her coffee. They'd likely go through three or four pots before afternoon even came. "At the hospital. He was telling the staff he was my fiance so they wouldn't question his visits." That that news wasn't widely spread was something of a relief. Fallon had little desire to contend with those rumors on top of her disappearance with Lachlan.

"Yeah, the ring, the scarf, the socks...all of it." Fallon hadn't even hesitated as she added the ring to the laundered bundle she sent him. It felt wrong to keep any gifts when they were, at best, acquaintances. "Would've sent the candies too if I hadn't eaten them."

  

“But he had not spoken to you of it?” Malou asked as she opened the icebox for some milk. She had never liked her coffee black the way Fallon did and she certainly didn’t like it to scald her tongue. Carefully she poured the milk in and stirred it into the liquid.

Trying to find the timeframe of this newest conversation she asked, “Did you see him since the last time at the hospital?” The time where Malou had sighed to know that her suspicions were true and that Mr. Hatchitt did care for Fallon - why he’d even kissed her! Not a proper kiss of course, but there was something so sweet about a kiss on the forehead she’d thought when Fallon had related the tale.

  

---

"We left it that I needed time to think." After the week she'd had and the overwhelming nature of being home Fallon hadn't known what to make of it all. She liked Mr. Hatchitt — or she thought she had — but there were also underlying feelings for Lachlan. At the point of their conversation she hadn't even known whether or not Lachlan would survive!

Fallon would never have a man in the apartment without alerting Malou and thought that was a well known fact. If she were caught it wouldn't be just Fallon's reputation that would be ruined, but Malou's too. "No," she stated firmly. "I wrote to him once we were home and it all devolved from there." Malou had gone back to work when Fallon received the apology letter, otherwise she might've asked her roommate for advice. "I ... " Merlin. Fallon didn't even know how to process her thoughts. Why had he have to be reasonable?

"I don't know. Long story short, he won't be a thought anymore." She doubted he'd reply to the angry tone of her letter. And if he did...well he ran the risk of further infuriating her.

  

As Malou listened, she always liked to have all the information before she started to give advice, she took out some eggs to fry up for them. With Fallon already awake she assumed her friend would rather have breakfast sooner rather than later. She had some leftover biscuits that she could warm up as well that she took out of a covered basket and set onto a plate on the stove.

“Perhaps he didn’t wish to cause you any additional worries?” Malou finally suggested, glancing up at Fallon from her task. “What exactly did the letter say?”

  

---

Without setting her mug down, Fallon went back into her bedroom to retrieve the two letters she still had. Once handing them over to Malou, Fallon resumed her spot at the table and stared at her friend expectantly.

  

Had it been years ago Malou might have worried she had offended Fallon with her words when Fallon walked away but after thirteen years of friendship Malou barely blinked. Instead she busied herself taking the biscuits off the stove and putting the eggs on plates. She grabbed some jam from the pantry and some butter and had just set them on the table when Fallon returned, two letters in her hands.

Malou took the letters from Fallon then put their plates in front of them and sat down. Malou’s brow wrinkled as she read the notes. They seemed so contrary to everything Fallon had told her of Mr. Hatchitt, of everything she had witnessed of him. “What did you say that prompted this?” She pointed to where Mr. Hatchitt had written about the elephant. The second letter was altogether a different letter, she rather felt that he was trying to be kind to Fallon, to not give her anything more to worry about (rightly so in Malou’s opinion) but she didn’t want to dive in before she fully understood the contents of what she held.

  

---

Fallon quietly set about piecing her meal together as Malou read the letters. Food would help with the exhaustion, right? Temporary energy until she could nap later? She took a bite of the biscuit, grateful as ever for Malou's culinary prowess.

"I tried to be joking in my letter, that's the elephant. I asked him if my just wanting to get to know him better was enough, it wasn't." She took another gulp of her coffee, frowning as she reached the bottom of her glass. Oh well, a second cup could wait minute.

  

Malou didn’t know what to say to that. She set the letter aside and cut her biscuit with a fork taking a careful bite as she thought. “He didn’t say it wasn’t, though.” She pointed out as she thought. “And really both letters sound rather as if he is trying to make sure you don’t worry. It hasn’t worked though, has it?” If Fallon’s toes were any indication she’d been up all night worried as Malou suspected, just not about what Malou rather thought she would be.

  

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