And If Thou Wilt, Forget

It was the first time since Emma’s death that Gertrude didn’t feel she needed to worry about how long she was away from the Archives.

She had begun to suspect in recent years that the key, or keys, to the Watcher’s Crown lay somewhere within the statements and files in her charge, and that Elias knew it as well, so whenever she was gone, she always found herself rushing rather to try and get back as quickly as possible. Jurgen Leitner living beneath the Institute, something she had no intention of telling either Tim or Gerard about, meant at least there was someone keeping an eye on it, but good Lord, the man was a coward of legendary proportions, and she wouldn’t put it past him to run if Elias threatened him. The sorts of things Elias was likely capable of—especially if her theory was correct—would truly be a fate worse than death to someone who had, inadvertent though it may have been, caused as much harm as Leitner had, so maybe it wasn’t wholly unwarranted.

Still, it had been a long time since she’d left someone behind she could really rely on, and she was going to take full advantage of Tim’s offer to handle things. He had a good mind, and his background in publishing—not to mention his acting talent—meant that he could produce incredibly bland, uninformative reports, whether they had a hidden report or not. At first she’d wondered if he was lying about how well things were going, but the fact that she’d received a slightly more excited report that the fancy computer Elias had initially installed in the Archives had caught fire, and that interspersed in that particular report was the hidden message It took all the digital records but only some of the false paper ones, told her that he was actually handling things well.

She’d pretended annoyance, but secretly been pleased, that he had attached a requisition form for an upgraded fire suppressant system in the Archives rather than wait for her to get home. Even if she wouldn’t be able to chase up on it until her return, it was good to get the ball rolling while she wasn’t distracted by immediate concerns.

The problem, as days stretched into weeks and weeks gave way to months, was how little she had found. Again and again there would be a tantalizing hint—here a whiff of something that might be the Stranger, there an incident involving a circus, everywhere the niggling sense that there was something to Know around the next corner—and again and again she would be disappointed. The potential for the Stranger in Paris had turned out to be a rather nasty bit of Corruption; the circus in New Zealand had yielded nothing but an avatar of the Flesh that very much did not consider her a friend but at the very least respected or feared her enough not to consider her food.

The farmer might have considered it a memorial to Toby, but she had looked at the smooth, cold grey concrete and felt a twinge of mourning for Adelard.

Their trip to the United States had been worse, because she felt the Stranger’s presence. More than once she’d heard faint, distant calliope music, but when she went out to investigate, it was always gone before she was able to pinpoint it. She’d even tried ignoring it for two nights before going out to catch it off-guard, but it seemed to know she was coming. Or she was hallucinating. It was possible—she wanted to find the Unknowing, and badly, and she was surprised at how much she wanted to believe it wasn’t in England—but not probable. More than likely the Stranger was taunting her.

At least, Gertrude thought, sipping pensively at the weak, lukewarm excuse for tea she’d got from the station shop, at least they had eliminated some things. The files she’d had Xiaoling pull for her, which would hopefully meet her in Washington instead of following one step behind her all around the world—the last thing she wanted was them going through the Institute—should illuminate details of the Risen War, and a part of her looked forward to being able to tell Tim he was wrong in the best way…or possibly right in the best possible way. And while they had certainly found more evidence of the Hunt’s power building in the wide open spaces at the middle of the United States, she was inclined towards Gerard’s theory that it wasn’t actually interested in completing its ritual.

Speaking of Gerard…

She jerked her tea out of the way as he twitched in his sleep next to her and frowned at him. It seemed as though he was having an incredibly unpleasant nightmare; while he wasn’t crying out—she’d never heard him do so—he was thrashing about, almost but not quite as though he was fighting something off. He was facing away from her, so she couldn’t tell if it was in fear or desperation or determination. She probably ought to wake him, but she also didn’t want to get hurt. After a moment’s deliberation, she took off her heavy woolen coat and draped it over him, hoping the weight would comfort him.

It seemed to work. After a few moments, the movements settled and stilled. Gertrude nodded to herself and took another sip of the tea, but before she could lose herself in her thoughts again, Gerard spoke in a hoarse, half-choked voice. “Fuck.”

“It’s all right, Gerard,” Gertrude said calmly. She was trying to stay out of his head, more because she didn’t want to lean too much into the Ceaseless Watcher unnecessarily than out of any kind of respect for his privacy, but she assumed he was either disturbed by the nightmare or embarrassed at having had it in public. “There’s no one about, and you didn’t hurt anyone.”

Gerard didn’t reply, simply struggled to a sitting position. Gertrude watched him out of the corner of her eye. He normally kept his emotions close to his chest, but there was no disguising the mingled hurt and resignation on his face, just for a moment, before he got himself under control. She pondered for a moment, then decided to give sympathy a try. She wasn’t great at it anymore, but she could make the effort.

“You’re safe,” she said in as reassuring a voice as she could. “It was only a nightmare.”

“I wish,” Gerard mumbled. He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple slowly.

Gertrude noticed, with some surprise, that his fingers were trembling, ever so slightly. “A memory, then.”

Gerard started to shake his head, then winced and stopped with a faint groan. “Ugh. Do you have any aspirin or anything?”

“I’m afraid not.” It was, perhaps, an unpardonable oversight, but Gertrude rarely needed medications or painkillers, so she never thought to pick any up. “Do you not have any?”

“Took my last ones last night.”

“Well, there must be a shop somewhere in the station.” Gertrude glanced at the departure board. “And our train doesn’t leave for another hour.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Gerard started to stand, then fell back into his seat, his face somehow even paler than usual. He clutched at the armrest as if for support. “Give me a minute.”

Gertrude wasn’t one to worry. At least not about mundane things. The end of the world, the ascendancy of one of the Fourteen, the machinations of the Web—all of those were valid things to worry about. She rarely paid attention to petty concerns like holidays, or birthdays, or physical ailments, not even her own and especially not anyone else’s. Gerard could have walked into their rooms holding his own severed leg and she wouldn’t have cared beyond making sure it didn’t make him the keystone of a ritual. But it did occur to her that Gerard had had rather a lot of headaches lately, and that he seemed to be in a significant amount of pain.

Her first, selfish thought was that the Distortion was stalking them, that it was tormenting Gerard because it couldn’t touch her, but that thought was quickly overruled. Gerard knew the Fears almost as well as she did, and he wouldn’t have bothered with medications if it were something they wouldn’t help. This, then, had to be actual illness. Her natural inclination was to tell him to brace up, to remind him that they had work to do and no time for weakness. Perhaps, begrudgingly, she would get up and get those painkillers for him herself, less because she wanted to help and more because it would be faster than if she expected him to go himself in this state.

Something, however, stopped her, even as the words rose on her tongue. It might have been the way Gerard clung to the bench as if afraid it would move out from under him if he didn’t, his head tilted carefully to one side but not quite resting on his shoulder, an odd posture that looked as though he was patiently waiting for something to fall out of his ear. It might have been the fact that, despite being in so much pain he couldn’t stand or even see, he was bearing up without complaint—for fear, she knew without even needing the Eye’s power, that if he wasn’t useful she would discard him, either leaving him behind or killing him outright. It might have even been that she’d come this far and could hardly abandon her attempt at sympathy.

Possibly, though not likely, it might have been the fact that the station was beginning to fill up, and ignoring such an obviously ill person would have drawn more attention than simply helping him.

“Do you tend to have migraines?” she asked, keeping her voice as low and soft as she felt she could.

“No.” Gerard’s voice was a mere thread. “Not until the last few months. And I wouldn’t call them migraines exactly. Just really nasty headaches. It’ll ease up in a bit.”

Gertrude decided not to quibble about the medical terminology. “How frequent?”

“More and more often lately.”

“How would you describe them?”

Gerard smiled feebly. “Like someone’s trying to bore a hole in my brain with a really, really smooth rock.”

Gertrude thought for a minute. She was no medical professional, and while she could use the Eye to know what kind of headaches he was having, she would prefer not to. “Do they often correlate to…dreams or memories? Do you usually get them when you’re falling asleep?”

“Wh—oh.” Gerard bit his lip briefly. “I, uh, I wasn’t asleep.”

On the other end of the platform, the phone in the hands of a burly-looking man in a cap with a bear on the front burst to life, loudly playing a news report about some sort of sporting event or other. He cursed rather inventively, obviously not having expected that, and fumbled to try and turn the sound down. Gertrude was turning to offer to get the painkillers for Gerard after all when a single phrase slid into her ear and down her spine like a cold, metal lance.

In another universe, perhaps, she ignored it. In another universe, she dismissed it as a coincidence, continued with her original plan, and bought a travel-size bottle of Tylenol at an outrageous markup. In another universe, she boarded the train from Chicago to Pittsburgh and noticed nothing amiss for nearly two weeks before circumstances dictated otherwise.

But then, in another universe, she had stayed away from the obvious temptation of a statement that could possibly have made a difference in her plans and never actually met Timothy Rodolfo Stoker.

"You weren’t having a nightmare, were you?” she asked, her voice sharpening without conscious thought.

Gerard flinched, but answered honestly. “No.”

“Or a flashback of some kind.”

“No, just…” Gerard gestured vaguely with one hand. It had, at least, stopped shaking.

That didn’t make her feel any better. “Involuntary, uncontrollable movement. Has that happened before?”

“Two days ago,” Gerard admitted. “I didn’t black out or anything, and I figured…I mean, it was a pretty bad headache. Natural I should just hurt so much I couldn’t move right, yeah?”

Understandable, certainly, but Gertrude couldn’t shake the sudden conviction that there was something seriously wrong, something causing it. She watched him carefully tip his head up straight, then asked, “Does that help?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I dunno. Might be a placebo effect thing. But they always start here.” Gerard lightly touched a spot on the side of his skull. “First few times, it felt like someone was balancing a weight on my head, so I thought maybe if I leaned it the other way it’d ease up the pressure. And it kind of helps. A little. At any rate, it gives me something to concentrate on other than the pain.”

That settled it. There were simply too many red flags. Gertrude tightened her hand around the handle of her laptop bag. “Can you walk now?”

“I—I think so.”

“Good.” Gertrude stood decisively. “Come on.”

Gerard obeyed, a bit more slowly and gingerly, but without argument. He did look confused, though. “Thought our train didn’t leave for another hour or so.”

“Seventy-two minutes.” Gertrude didn’t bother telling him they wouldn’t be on it. She hoped that would become obvious shortly. Of course, it was possible they would be able to make it, but hardly likely. “Follow me.”

Gerard did, bewildered but obedient as usual. It had been his way since he’d started working with her, since she had burnt Mary Keay out of the Book of the Unnamed Dead and given him its remains. He never argued, never questioned, never refused an order. He trusted her implicitly in the field; while he might offer suggestions occasionally—not often—he never balked when she issued an order. If she had told him he was fine and that they should move on to Pittsburgh immediately, he would have trusted her without a moment’s thought, just as Michael Shelley once would have. Tim was more likely to push for what he felt was a better solution, but in the end, if she insisted, he would bow to her wishes without another murmur.

If she was being honest with herself, the irritation she felt at the thought was there to serve as a very powerful insulation against the well-deserved sense of guilt.

There was a line of taxis outside, valiantly fighting a battle against the encroaching rideshare start-ups offering nominally cheaper alternatives. Gertrude went to the third one in the queue and tapped on the window. “Are you engaged?”

“No, ma’am,” the driver said hopefully. He had a thick accent she couldn’t quite identify, except that it thankfully wasn’t Russian.

The Ceaseless Watcher pushed through the knowledge that the man was from a small village in India and was saving money to bring over his wife and four children, the youngest of whom had a genetic condition that would eventually prove fatal if not treated. Gertrude ruthlessly forced it back into isolation where she kept it.

“You are now.” Gertrude opened the back door and assisted Gerard into the seat, then slid in as well and shut the door. “The nearest hospital. Quickly.”

The area of Chicago known as the Illinois Medical District was less than two miles from Union Station, and the driver, whose name proved to be Prashant, came around to help get Gerard into the emergency room. He tried to refuse the fare, but Gertrude pressed a hundred dollar bill into his hand, despite his protestations.

“For your family,” she told him. He didn’t argue after that. Only later would she realize she had spoken to him in Maithili.

The nurse behind the desk was polite but obviously harried. The waiting room was occupied but not overfull, so Gertrude estimated their wait would be no longer than an hour, a time frame corroborated as the forms were handed over and to which both she and Gerard acquiesced without complaint. She gave the forms to Gerard to fill out and sat next to him, ready to assist as necessary but hoping she wouldn’t be needed.

She used the opportunity to look around, feeling around with senses born of long years of practice and immersion in the Fourteen for any hints of the Fears on their fellow occupants. She ignored the sparse staff for the moment; even knowing how few, relatively speaking, genuine encounters there actually were, she knew medical staff were among the most likely to have encountered them. Survivors, after all, often needed treatment. Her interest was more in the patients, who would have more recent encounters—more direct ones—and therefore would be more likely to be dangerous, or perhaps to sustain her. She didn’t enjoy compelling live statements out of people, but she was beginning to grow tired and needed a bit of a lift. In absence of the statements she was expecting from Pu Songling, someone in America she would never meet again would do.

There wasn’t much, though, which didn’t surprise her. An old man with a crying child on his lap, his expression worried and tender as he pressed an ice pack to the girl’s eye, bore traces of the Slaughter, but the hat boldly proclaiming his status as a veteran of a war that had ended forty years previously gave an explanation for that and also suggested it wasn’t recent enough to attract her. The Dark lay heavily on the shoulders of a patient clutching his stomach and rocking slightly, but he appeared to be about ten years old and the woman sitting next to him, whom Gertrude took to be his mother, did not seem the type to allow him to speak to unknown adults. The most promising source was the woman sitting in the corner amidst a swirl of the Lonely, but before Gertrude could even think about standing, a nurse came out and called for a Latasha Brown, and the woman got up and drifted quietly through the back.

Beside her, Gerard rubbed his face with his free hand, blinking hard. Gertrude normally wouldn’t have bothered to say anything—he could ask if he wanted her help—but since she was apparently being honest with herself today, she knew he wouldn’t. “Do you need assistance, Gerard?”

“Please. I’m seeing triple.” Gerard slid the clipboard and pen towards her.

He had filled out his true name and date of birth, something she would ordinarily chastise him for. Indeed, she had started to before it occurred to her that, with the cost and state of health care in the United States, he would need to give his actual information in order to not have to sell everything he owned to afford whatever was coming. She swallowed the protest and began filling out the remainder of the paperwork.

Address, employment, insurance information, emergency contact…Gertrude hesitated over that one. The obvious name to put was her own, especially since she was here. She could claim to be his mother, perhaps—say she had kept her maiden name—or perhaps an aunt; some kind of relative, at any rate. And medical privacy laws meant that she certainly wouldn’t get any information out of the doctors or nurses if she wasn’t his emergency contact.

On the other hand, she had the ability to convince people to tell her anything she wanted. Gerard would be more likely to forgive her using the Eye than an outright lie, especially given his…complicated relationship with his mother.

She printed Tim’s name and mobile phone number in the blanks. In the space reading Relationship to Patient, she hesitated for no more than a split second before writing Domestic Partner.

The second page dealt more with the medical information—allergies, family history, and reason for visit. She glanced sideways at Gerard. “Do you want me to ask you about these, or just fill it out?”

“Ask. Please. I’ve got enough of a headache as it is.”

Gertrude ticked the box labeled Headache, then went back to the top of the page. Gerard gave soft, monotone answers to her questions, and she marked and scribbled as quickly and neatly as she could. Some things she didn’t need to ask about, but she methodically went over everything else. At last, she handed the stack back. “You have to sign, I’m afraid.”

Gerard barely opened his eyes enough to see the page, so Gertrude placed her finger at the start of the lines. He scrawled his signature, which ended in a complex sigil that warded against it being used to harm him in any way, then sat back in the chair and leaned his head gingerly against the wall. She checked to make sure he was breathing, then went up to the desk to turn in the clipboard. The nurse accepted it without really looking.

“Have a seat, and we’ll be with you as soon as we can,” she said, in a voice that was more than half mechanical.

Gertrude glanced at the clock behind her desk and noted that they likely had another forty-five minutes, at minimum, before it would be their turn, and that only if someone more critical didn’t come in ahead of them. She returned to her seat beside Gerard, folded her arms over her chest, and settled in to wait.

Her eyes drifted to the television mounted in the corner, tuned to a news program, the volume muted and the closed captioning about thirty seconds behind the audio, if the reporters’ lips were to be believed. The camera switched from the studio to a sporting event of some kind, roughly a dozen young women in shorts and sleeveless jerseys running around some sort of indoor court—she wasn’t a sports aficionado and couldn’t have named the game precisely. The play all seemed to be focused around one particular player, a young and frail-looking girl barely out of her childhood with a hopeful smile and a look in her eye Gertrude knew far too well—the one her mother had called in sight of the silent lands. According to the captions scrolling across the screen, this was meant to be an inspiring, feel-good story.

Gertrude felt nothing but a niggling, incredibly irritating sense of dread.

The door opened, and another nurse appeared and called for Jordan Westburg; the boy with the stomachache stood alongside his mother and limped, whimpering with every step, towards the exam rooms. Gertrude watched him go impassively, but Gerard made a small noise of sympathy. “Hope it’s not his appendix. That’s no fun.”

“Likely his hasn’t progressed as far as yours had.” Mary had rarely bothered with her son’s physical health until it became an inconvenient crisis, a fact that would possibly have spurred Gertrude to seek assistance for Gerard sooner had she known about it.

No more than a minute passed before the door opened again. “Gerard Keay?” the nurse called, emphasizing the second syllable of his first name in the American fashion and turning his surname into a two-syllable name.

“That was fast.” Gerard pushed himself to his feet and staggered; Gertrude caught his arm and assisted him towards the waiting nurse.

“Excuse me!” A man in a tailored suit with an elaborate comb-over made a show of looking at his flashy, expensive watch before glaring up at the nurse. “I have been waiting for two hours—”

“Congratulations!” the nurse interrupted without missing a beat, not even looking in the direction of the man, who blinked at the unexpected comment. “That means you’re not dying today!”

Gertrude assisted Gerard in walking a little faster.

It was the mention of seizures that had moved him up the list, a fact Gertrude learned from the questions the doctor—after Gerard’s mumbled assent to her remaining in the room while the examination took place—asked of him. After a cursory examination, another nurse came in with a wheelchair and Gertrude was left in a hallway to wait while Gerard was taken to be prepared for an MRI.

She sat silently for a while, listening to the sounds around her—the occasional page over the intercom, the squeak of gurney wheels, the low murmur of voices as nurses and orderlies conversed, and the incessant tick…tick…tick of the clock opposite her—as she tried to get her thoughts in order. Gerard was ill. That much was clear. The MRI would find…something. With a bit of effort, she could Know what was wrong, but that would be a violation of his privacy for no real purpose, so she would leave it for if the doctors failed to diagnose it, and then…what? Force them to treat the situation, even though they found no evidence of it? She supposed that would have to be her next course of action. Since she found the very idea distasteful, she sincerely hoped the doctors would be able to find the truth.

It occurred to her, very suddenly, that she had no ties to Gerard. She hadn’t listed herself as his emergency contact, and even though she had brought him in, privacy laws meant that the doctors likely wouldn’t tell her what was wrong with him. They may not even let her in to visit him. She was fairly certain it wouldn’t come to that, and she could deal with it if it did, but…

There were no signs forbidding cell phone usage in this part of the hospital, likely because it was a waiting area. Gertrude fished out her phone, calculated the time, and pressed one of the preset buttons.

A moment later, Tim’s voice came on the line, clear and alert despite the relatively late hour in London. “What do you need, boss?”

It was a question that could have come across as rude, depending on the tone, but Gertrude appreciated the economy of words. No greetings, no pleasantries, no small talk; just get down to business and handle the situation. He knew she wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important, and that it was likely something time sensitive.

She, too, wasted neither time nor words. “You. Get the next flight out of London arriving in Chicago. Send me a text when you land and I’ll let you know where we are.”

“Got it. Need me to bring anything?”

“Just yourself. And that folio I gave you before we left London.” Gertrude hesitated, then chose to be honest. “It’s Gerard. He’s ill.”

Tim gave a hissing little intake of breath. “How bad?”

“Severe headaches, and he’s had at least two seizures. He’s in for an MRI now. I put you down as his emergency contact on the paperwork, so I need you here to assist if need be.”

“I’m on my way.” Rustling sounds and footsteps did in fact seem to imply that Tim was grabbing a bag and running out the door. “I’ll text you the flight details. Tell him I’m coming, okay?”

“I will,” Gertrude said, although it was a promise she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep. “I’ll be looking out for your text.”

The line went dead without further ado.

Gertrude sighed and sat back. She could hardly leave the hospital until Tim arrived, and she would certainly not be so unkind as to leave Gerard alone in a foreign land with a medical condition, but she did rather chafe at the timing. Still, it could have been worse. They could have arrived too late.

They still might have, but at least this way she would know she had done all she could.

Her phone buzzed, startling her, with the information for Tim’s flight. Evidently he had purchased his tickets on the way to the airport. She nodded, committing the time to memory, then sent him a text in reply: [Remember to keep your receipts for any purchases you make on Institute business so they can be reimbursed later.]

[Don’t think Elias is going to pay me back for this.]

[He will.] Gertrude didn’t elaborate. She only settled back and sighed, pocketing her phone once more.

It would be seventeen hours before Tim arrived. Hopefully he would be in time. She wouldn’t want to get Gerard’s hopes up only to have them dashed, or to leave him stressed and worried before whatever was about to happen. He would need all his strength to concentrate on himself.

She prayed it would be enough.