Gertrude, as was her habit, waited until she was all the way in her kitchen with the curtains drawn before she clicked on the light. She couldn’t help the small wince at the pull across her back as she did so, which got worse as she tried to shrug out of her cardigan. At least the initial agony had faded, but this was going to be…problematic, at best. By rights she ought to have gone to an A&E, but while she could easily come up with an innocuous explanation for most things, something like this would be more difficult to excuse away, and if she had learned anything in her years as Archivist, it was that using those powers to compel people to ask fewer questions both strained her limits and also wore her out more quickly when she was already…compromised.
She was tired.
She was tired and sore and inexplicably thirsty, and she wasn’t altogether certain it had worked, and that was a new experience for her too. And she was going to have to go back into the Archives like this and Michael was going to ask…inconvenient questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. While she did have a couple of days to come up with something, it was going to have to be good or he was going to fuss. Having him completely innocent and ignorant was all well and good, but it did mean he tried to be helpful in ways that…truly were not, and she wasn’t willing to deal with that. Emma, too, was certain to ask a lot of nosy questions, and she was getting harder to put off when she prodded these days.
Perhaps she ought to go to the clinic? No. No, she was fairly certain by now that it had some sort of tie to the Institute, that he could and did watch every interaction there, so even if it was the one place she could go that wouldn’t ask inconvenient questions or report things to the authorities, she didn’t want it getting back to the Head. Not yet. Likely he knew what had happened, to some extent, but he didn’t need the details.
She bit back a hiss of pain as she tried to maneuver her left arm to tug off her right sleeve and her shoulders refused to bend that far. At this rate, she was simply going to have to hope the Eye needed her alive for what was coming, which was not a level of trust she really wanted to put in one of the Fourteen…
“I think that one might be a loss.”
Gertrude whirled around at the voice behind her, and her vision momentarily whited out from the sudden spike of pain. She blinked it away impatiently and focused on Adelard Dekker, standing in the doorway with both hands raised in the universal sign language for I am unarmed and mean you no harm.
“Adelard,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You gave me a key for emergencies,” Adelard reminded her. “I caught the tail end of a news report in a shop window and rather thought this might count as one. Nobody saw me come in, I made quite sure of that, and nobody but you knows I’m here.”
“And you don’t need to be.”
Adelard snorted. “Your cardigan is still smoking, I can’t tell if your hair is actually burnt or merely coated with ash, and you’ve been failing to fold your arms for the last five minutes at least. Someone needs to help you. And since you are both too stubborn and too paranoid to trust modern medicine—wisely, in my opinion—your options are extremely limited.” His expression softened, and he took a step towards her. “Let me help you.”
Gertrude, with difficulty, stood her ground. It was tempting to agree, but at the same time, she prided herself on her independence. And more importantly, she suspected Adelard’s motivations. Not that she thought for one minute he would harm her; he was as firmly on her side as she was on his, and would never, under any circumstances, bear her ill will. But she had long suspected that he was motivated to help her by…more personal motivations. In order for him to assist her with this, assuming he even could, she would have to allow him a degree of intimacy she had never allowed anyone, and she had no desire to encourage that hope.
“I can take care of myself,” she lied blatantly.
“Gertrude.” Adelard took another step, then another, until he stood directly in front of her. He held out his hands to her, but didn’t touch. “You don’t need to tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“I am not—”
“You are, and that does not make you weak, it makes you human,” Adelard interrupted. “In all of our acquaintance, I have never asked you for more than you are willing, or able, to give, and I never will. But for the past thirty years, you have been the one constant in my life. I should like to believe that, even if you would never feel romantically inclined towards anyone, let alone me, you do consider me a friend. And to that end, I am asking you to trust me, to allow me to help you, and to allow yourself to be taken care of for once.” He gave her a small smile, crinkling up the corners of his eyes as he did so. “Permets-tu?”
Despite herself, Gertrude smiled back. It had been one of the first conversations they had had, both of them reaching for the same book in an antique store fearing it may have been a book of power (Mary, damn her, was right about that if nothing else—what had they called them before Jurgen Leitner plastered his name all over them? It was going to irritate her). It hadn’t been, of course, and he had made a dry comment about even the Fourteen not deigning to use it that had resulted in her giving a passioned defense of her favorite novel. She had, perhaps, begun to suspect Adelard’s feelings towards her specifically because he had told her that he had made another attempt at reading it simply to see her point of view and admitted to enjoying “those parts that were not an unnecessarily detailed complaint about French infrastructure”. She had always secretly identified with Enjolras, and based on the conversation they’d had about the final scene, she thought she might be looking at Grantaire.
“All right,” she said, giving in graciously. If only because she truly was in pain.
Adelard set a bag down on the table and reached into it. The first thing he drew out was a towel; Gertrude was about to ask how messy he thought this was going to be when he folded it neatly, tucked one end over several additional times, and draped it over the back of one of her chairs. That done, he nodded towards it. “I thought that might be a touch more comfortable for you to rest your arms on while I work. Come here, let me help you get that shirt out of the way.”
Gertrude obediently turned her back, something she rarely did for anyone. Adelard seemed to understand why, and he kept up a steady stream of murmured explanations of his movements before he did them. Somehow he managed to get both cardigan and blouse off with minimal pain, and then, in response to his quiet instructions, she seated herself backwards in the chair, leaned forward, and rested her chin on the folded part of the towel. It was surprisingly comfortable.
“It could be worse,” Adelard said after a moment or two of—she assumed—quickly examining her back. “From the way the cardigan looked, I was afraid this was going to be a situation I would have to insist you go to the hospital over. Fortunately, the actual burns aren’t too deep, second degree at worst, and they’re not as terribly extensive as I feared. This might still hurt a bit. Actually, hold on.”
He passed in front of her line of vision and retrieved a glass out of one of the cupboards, opened the refrigerator, sniffed at the milk, and evidently decided it was drinkable. As he poured a glass, he asked, “Are you allergic to aspirin?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Gertrude said.
“Not to worry. I have paracetamol.” Adelard handed her the glass of milk and two small pills. “I’ve got something that should act as a local analgesic as well, but this should take the edge off while I lay out my supplies.”
Gertrude swallowed the pills, chasing them with the milk; it wasn’t her first choice of drink, but she knew it would help soothe any stomach upset from the paracetamol. Her neck was beginning to feel stiff, so she didn’t turn her head as she heard him move back around behind her and begin laying out supplies.
“Shall I take a guess as to what you plan on using there?” she asked, mostly to distract herself from the pain.
“If you like,” Adelard said easily. “Or I could just tell you.”
“What would the fun be in that?” Gertrude pondered for a moment. “Modern medicine truly has wonderful remedies for burns, I understand. Not many that one could procure as a layman, of course, but as we know, you so often are able to lay hands on supplies that are denied most laymen. I wouldn’t put it past you to have skin grafts over there, too.”
“Ah, I think that might be a bit beyond my capabilities. And it’s true, modern medical science is a marvel, but we mustn’t discount the classics.” There was a sticky, wet pop as something was opened. “This may sting a bit.”
Taking the hint, Gertrude balled up the towel in her hands. Something cool and wet poured over her back, and it did indeed sting a bit, but she was distracted by the scent that hit her. “Vinegar?” she managed.
“As I said, we mustn’t discount the classics,” Adelard replied. She could hear the laugh in his voice. “Hippocrates was known to wash wounds in red wine or vinegar, and it has proven antibacterial properties. More than that, the cooling and evaporating effects produces a surprisingly effective local analgesic on burns. Hold still.”
“Am I not already doing that?” Gertrude said, a bit irritably.
“You’re doing marvelously,” Adelard said soothingly. “But we’re about to get to the more…full contact part of the operation, so to speak. One moment.”
Gertrude eyed him sideways as he came around her, back to the sink, and turned on the water. “You didn’t clean them before you started?”
Adelard didn’t rise to the bait. “Of course I did. I’m not an idiot, Gertrude. But it’s cold in here, with the weather turning out there, so I thought I’d run my hands under warm water a bit so as to make this as little unpleasant as possible.”
“I appreciate that,” Gertrude admitted. “I…didn’t feel the cold.” She still didn’t, actually, and that despite sitting here shirtless.
Adelard turned away from the sink, drying his hands on the tea towel hanging there, and studied her. His face was creased in concern, and he bent over and pressed the back of his hand gently to her forehead.
“You’re running a fever,” he told her. “The paracetamol will help, but it’s to be expected, really. Your body is, after all, attempting to heal from a fairly major injury.”
Of course she was running a fever. That explained why she was permitting this. Gertrude didn’t say that, though, only sighed. “From past experience, two pills won’t help much.”
“Two pills is all you’re getting for now. We’ll see if I make this worse once it’s tended.” Adelard went around to the back again.
She couldn’t see what he was doing, but from the soft clinks and rhythmic tapping of a spoon in a container, she guessed he was mixing something together. It took a lot of effort not to turn her head despite the pain. She didn’t…let people get this close to her. Certainly not when she was this vulnerable. It was taking a good deal of trust for her to let Adelard work without trying to Know what he was doing, or fight him on it.
Trusting wasn’t easy for her these days.
“So what recipe does the great Hippocrates recommend for this?” she asked, mostly to distract herself.
“Well, Hippocrates recommended pig lard mixed with pine bark, squill, olive oil, white wax, and grease,” Adelard said calmly. He put a hand on Gertrude’s shoulder, ever so gently, to forestall her rise. “I’m not using that, though. This is just honey, mixed with a bit more vinegar. I’ve used it on myself more than a few times. It truly does work.”
“If you say so.” Gertrude leaned forward, resting her heads on her folded arms.
Despite his having warmed his hands up, the shock of the first touch of the honey-vinegar mixture on her bare skin sent a chill throughout her entire body. Gertrude willed herself to stay still and let him do his work. And to be fair, he did well. In spite of his lighthearted concern about making it worse, his touch was firm but gentle and skated over the raw, damaged nerves as lightly as possible while still getting full, even coverage. The combination of vinegar and painkillers, plus the cooling effect of the honey, actually started to make her feel a little better.
“I’m dressing it now,” Adelard told her. She closed her eyes and found herself actually enjoying the sensation of him placing the strips of dressing—cloth, she presumed—over the honey mixture on her back and smoothing it out with a long, firm stroke. There was the slightest tug of adhesive on the edges as he evidently taped it down, and then he drew his hands away, quite naturally. “There, that’s the worst of it. Let me take a look at your neck, and then you can put a clean shirt on.”
“What, pray tell, is wrong with the one I was wearing?” Gertrude sniffed.
For an answer, Adelard came around the table and silently held up her blouse, or what was left of it. She supposed she should have guessed from the fact that she had burns on her back that it had been…compromised somewhat, but she hadn’t expected the charred holes smeared with…fluids.
Bowing to the inevitable, she said, “There’s a plain white cotton shift in the top left drawer of my dresser. Would you be kind enough…?”
“Of course,” Adelard said with a courteous bow. He disappeared from her line of sight.
Gertrude sighed and tried to relax, listening to the sounds of footsteps crossing the floor. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had someone else in her bedroom, let alone a man. And here she wasn’t even in it…
In far less time than she had expected, Adelard returned, and she felt his fingers gently touch the back of her neck. Something light and powdery fell onto her bare skin, and Gertrude felt a sudden surge of unexpected panic. “Is it so bad that my skin is flaking off?” she demanded.
“Gertrude,” Adelard chided her, “if it was that bad, don’t you think I’d have noticed before I started looking? The skin is fine. It looks like a first degree burn at worst—like a very nasty sunburn. I have rose oil for that. No, that, ah…that was your hair. Apparently it is actually burnt.”
“Hair grows back, I suppose.” Gertrude sighed heavily. “More quickly than skin, at any rate.
“Here. Let me put something on your neck, and then you get this shift on,” Adelard said. “And if you like, I can try to trim your hair.”
“You have hairdressing experience as well as everything else?”
“No, so I will certainly not touch it if you’d prefer I not, but I can at least trim off the burnt bits so it’s less suspicious when you do go to a professional.”
Gertrude swallowed. He really did think of everything. “I would appreciate that.”
She felt him rub the oil gently over her neck, then helped her into the shift. Already she found she could move her arms better than before. Once that was done, he draped the towel around her neck and encouraged her to sit upright, then tugged her hair loose from its bun. A not insignificant portion of it dropped heavily to the floor.
“Not to worry,” Adelard assured her. “I can fix this.”
Gertrude sighed and tipped her head back slightly to give him better access. “One would think that as an avatar of one of the Fourteen, I would heal better than this on my own.”
“You’re not an avatar,” Adelard said quietly. The scissors snicked quietly behind her, and she felt the cold metal kiss her feverish skin lightly. “You’ve held yourself back enough that you haven’t gone quite so far as all that. You are still human, as far as that goes. It has its disadvantages, of course,”—snick—“but all in all, you can’t tell me you’re that unhappy about that.”
“It would make things easier,” Gertrude admitted in a low voice. “To not care anymore.”
Adelard was silent for several moments as he continued cutting off the damaged hair. Finally, he laid the scissors down on the table next to her.
“If you stopped caring,” he said, “you wouldn’t still be trying to do what you’re doing. You would only be interested in stopping these rituals in order to perform one of your own. There are innumerable people who are alive and well today solely because you care. Perhaps they’ll never know that. But you know it, and so do I.”
“And what of the ones who are dead?”
“You can’t save everyone. Most of them would have died even if you hadn’t intervened, and the ones who didn’t likely would have done worse had they survived.” Adelard bent down and busied himself for a moment, then, by the sound of it, straightened up. “I won’t pretend you’ve always made the correct decision, any more than I have, but you’ve done what must be done. And you’ve done it because you are so very human. Don’t ever forget that. Do you have a lighter handy?”
The nonsequitor startled Gertrude, and she turned to look at him in confusion. “You don’t smoke.”
Adelard shrugged and dropped the handfuls of hair he held into a metal pot she’d never much liked anyway. “No, but leaving parts of yourself around for just anyone to collect isn’t wise, is it?”
“I suppose not.” Gertrude reached into her pocket and fished out her lighter. Her movements were already freer, less stiff, and far less painful. She still hurt, though, and she was still too warm in a way she didn’t want to be, but Adelard’s treatment had helped.
As she handed him the lighter and watched him flick it into life, she remembered her manners. “Thank you. For the assistance.”
“Of course.” Adelard gave her a quick smile, then set the clippings on fire.
The smell of burning hair was unpleasant at the best of times, but Gertrude made herself stay put and watch. At the very least, she needed to make sure it did all actually burn. Fortunately, Adelard knew what he was doing, and he reached into her cupboard, found a jar of herbal tea she’d liked the smell of but not, as it turned out, been able to actually drink, and tossed a couple of spoonfuls into the fire. It masked the odors surprisingly well.
At last, Adelard grabbed a lid of the correct size and placed it over the pot, smothering the flames. He set it in the sink, then held out his hand to her. “Come on. You need rest. I’ll see you safely to bed and then leave you be.”
“The sofa in the living room is fine for the moment.” Gertrude accepted Adelard’s outstretched hand and got up. It was not as painless as she would have hoped, and she hissed slightly. “I don’t suppose I can have another paracetamol now.”
“It’s not particularly safe. And while I know most of your life is spent doing things that aren’t particularly safe, it would be rather a let-down if what killed you in the end was an ulcer caused by paracetamol.” Adelard gave her a wry smile. “Fortunately, I have codeine.”
Gertrude let Adelard take her to the living room, where she settled gingerly on the sofa. He disappeared back into the kitchen, then returned with another glass of milk and a small bottle with a bright green liquid. He set the milk on the end table, then poured a measure of the liquid into the cup on top of it and handed it to her. “Here. This is…quite bitter and unpleasant, not that it’s probably the worst thing you’ve had to do in the last forty years—”
“Don’t.” Gertrude grimaced at the reminder as she reached for the cup.
“Well, that’s what the milk is for. It should cut the taste.” Adelard watched Gertrude seriously as she raised the cup to her lips.
It was, indeed, incredibly bitter and unpleasant, and only years of practice at swallowing unpleasant things kept her from actually gagging when she downed it. She managed, though, and then reached for the glass of milk. Adelard took the medicine cup from her. “Let me go wash this out and I’ll be out of your hair.”
Gertrude froze with the glass halfway to her lips and lowered it. “You aren’t staying?”
Adelard paused and turned back to look at her. In a voice as gentle and neutral as the first snow, he asked, “Do you want me to?”
His expression, behind his gold rimmed spectacles, was impossible for her to read. She almost reached for the Eye, then stopped at the last moment and chided herself. She couldn’t do that. Not now. Instead, she simply looked at him and tried to parse out what he meant.
I have never asked you for more than you are willing, or able, to give, and I never will. His words from earlier came back to her all at once. She knew Adelard had, or had once had anyway, romantic feelings towards her, but he had never given voice to them. It was possible he was hoping she would ask, had been baiting her to get her to…but no, she realized with a certainty that had nothing to do with the Beholding and everything to do with thirty years of history, that wasn’t his style at all. That wasn’t what he had done. She hadn’t asked him to stay, so he had assumed he was leaving. He wasn’t forcing himself on her, wasn’t…well, asking for more than she was willing.
Not even to stay.
“I do,” she said, and she meant it. “Apart from the fact that I think I will likely need another dose of that and I don’t trust myself to moderate if I think taking a higher dose will get me functioning faster, at least temporarily…I would rather not be alone tonight.”
Adelard’s expression softened, and he nodded. “As you wish,” he said gravely.
Gertrude had read that book, too—once—and had been far more interested in the bits excised than the love story left in, but the only (presumably) unexpurgated copy she had ever found had been both in the original language and one of Leitner’s books—he’d said it was the Slaughter when she’d asked him but had refused to elaborate. Still, she knew what he meant.
She was oddly grateful to him for at least saying it so obliquely.
He returned from the kitchen without the medicine bottle and seated himself on the sofa next to her. Gertrude couldn’t explain what she did next—put it down to the fever and the extreme discomfort—but she leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed. Adelard, to his credit, slung his arm along the back of the sofa but didn’t touch her.
She would need to go to bed soon. It would be far better to sleep on her stomach than to risk the burns. But for now, she could sit here.
“The leaves are turning,” Adelard said after several moments of silence.
Gertrude rolled one eye to look up at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s autumn,” Adelard clarified. “I noticed that the leaves in the parks are beginning to change from green to red and gold. It should be quite beautiful this weekend.”
“I suppose.” Gertrude had never been one to appreciate the change of the seasons, but she recalled a poem she had learned in school when she was quite small. Gold the leaves and gold the corn…
Adelard glanced down at her. “It might be worth you taking a walk to keep your back limber. When is the last time you spent a day not thinking about the work?”
Gertrude huffed a laugh. “The seventeenth of October, 1964.”
“Sounds to me as though you’re overdue,” Adelard said lightly. “What do you say? A walk in the park tomorrow?”
It was one of the few things he’d ever asked her for, and it was such a simple thing. And it wasn’t as though it was in and of itself romantic; friends could do such things too, Gertrude thought. And she did consider him a friend. “I think that would be a good use of my time, yes.”
Adelard laughed. “Such a ringing endorsement.”
“It is, at the least, a sincere one.”
They sat in silence for several moments more. Finally, Gertrude could feel the codeine working; the pain was leaving her, but there was also a heavy lethargy building in her limbs. She tried and failed to stifle a yawn. Adelard shifted immediately. “Right, that’s you for bed then. I’ll stay out here, just a shout away.”
“You may need to help me walk first.”
Adelard stood and assisted Gertrude to her feet; she swayed heavily and had to lean on him, but was at least able to get to her bedroom more or less under her own power. She brushed off Adelard’s attempt to turn down the covers for her and simply lay down on top of them, face down, letting herself sink into the pillows and the mattress. If she had indulged herself in nothing else, she had, at least, made sure to have a decent bed.
“Call me if you need me,” Adelard said to her gently. “I won’t be far.”
Gertrude turned her head, with relative ease, and looked up at him. “Thank you, Adelard. For everything.”
Adelard paused just inside the doorway and looked back at her. His expression wasn’t hard to read now; it was tender and kind and said words he would never permit himself to say out loud—words that, in that moment, possibly due to the influence of the pain and the drugs, she almost wished she could say back to him.
“Of course, Gertrude,” he said softly. “That is what friends are for.”
He switched off the light and headed back to the living room, leaving the door ajar. Gertrude never normally slept with the door open, even when she was most likely home alone, but for once, she didn’t actually mind. That could also have been the codeine, but she was willing to attribute it to Adelard’s presence, and the trust she had in him. She was safe with him. He would ensure that, if anything did try to strike her while she was vulnerable, it would fail.
That was, after all, what friends were for.