Darkness

Rosy

I assume that Gregor is at the infirmary. Wolk must have told him while we were on the road that there are new patients, and I’m sure he’s down there again, holding his hand on everybody’s forehead, making them feel better without them even knowing it.

I ask Jake and Jack to escort Sarah home, and when they get back I ask them if they saw Gregor down there. No, they didn’t, and they didn’t think to go check at the boarding house extension.

Oh well, I just won’t know until the morning, probably. I’m getting used to this. I put Vernon down in his cradle in the nursery, and get ready to crawl into my bed, cold and empty without Gregor.

I don’t feel like sleeping yet, though, and decide to try to read one of these books that Gregor has stacked up all over the place. I sort through them, looking for one that doesn’t look too complicated. I turn up the lantern next to the bed for light, and start slowly making my way through the first few pages of a story, when the door to the bedroom opens.

Oh! “You’re home!” I exclaim, smiling.

He smiles back, but I realize that he looks completely exhausted. He moves around to his side of the bed and drops onto it with a whoof.

“Are you all right?” I ask him. Seeming this tired is very unusual for him, unless he hasn’t slept in weeks, and I know it hasn’t been that long.

He smiles, and sort of giggles weakly. “I am fantastic,” he says without opening his eyes.

I close the book, and put it on the nightstand. I sit up next to him, and say, “Spill it.”

He opens one eye and looks at me, still smiling in a very strange way. Before he says anything, he wraps both arms around my hips, while I sit next to him on the bed, and snuggles his face into my lap.

“Ah,” he says, “so nice.”

“Are you drunk?” It occurs to me that I’ve never seen Gregor drunk, even though I’ve often seen him imbibe.

He sighs, and rolls over so his face is lifted to mine, but he keeps his head on my lap. “Do you mind if I stay here?” he asks.

“Not as long as you tell me what’s going on,” I reply, my fingers gently running through his hair, and across his forehead.

“Mmmm,” he says, and closes his eyes again, and looks for all the world like he is drifting off to sleep. What on earth?

“Gregor!”

His eyes open. “Sorry, darling. I just feel so tired.”

“Why?”

“I healed Ben.”

“Ben? What? You already healed Ben, he was fine.” This is all extremely confusing.

He nods, and says again, “Sorry. He suffered a relapse of yellow fever today while we were at Homochitto. I would have left a lot earlier if I had any idea, but….” he closes his eyes again as I massage his temples, like that is the sweetest sensation he has ever felt.

“Ohhhh,” I say. “I wasn’t here in Natchez. Harriet couldn’t tell you, she was with us out there.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” he says, nodding. Then he shakes his head slightly and makes an obvious effort to keep his dark eyes open. “Samuel found him at home, unconscious, barely breathing. I got there just in time. It took a couple of hours for him to come around, after I was able to get his heart beating again.”

“What do you mean beating again? His heart had stopped?”

“Just for a moment,” he says. “His Guardian hadn’t quite taken his soul away when I arrived.”

“He had… died?”

“Maybe, technically. Only for a second. He’s feeling better now. Samuel is with him.” His eyes close again.

I am too overwhelmed to speak. Gregor basically brought Ben back from the dead? He doesn’t seem to think that it is as momentous as it really is. Only for a second? How does that matter? A person is alive one second, then dead the next, and then that is the end. Somehow Gregor changed that.

I realize that his breathing has already slowed, and he has drifted away to sleep, his head lying in my lap, my fingers in his hair, and he has the slightest little gentle smile on his face.

Gregor being able to just fall asleep, without me wearing him out with sex first, confirms to me that something extraordinary has happened. Whatever he did wore him out more than I ever have. This is incredible.

I try not to disturb him as I very carefully move his head over onto his pillow. I leave the bed just long enough to take his shoes off, and pull a blanket over him. Then I extinguish the lantern, climb back into bed, and wrap my arms around him.

I hold him while he sleeps.

Samuel Duncan

I don’t understand what is happening, but I don’t need to understand. From the moment that Gregor manages to croak out to me that it is working, all I know is that he is somehow healing Ben. I see so clearly in my mind the scene a couple of months ago when Ayola arrived while Gregor was unconscious after the whipping, and then the wounds on his back magically sealed themselves. There is magic in Gregor, something that my medical training should never permit me to believe. But I do. He is using it to help Ben, and that is all I need to know.

Gregor tells me to keep holding on. I can’t stop crying, but I won’t let go. While I clasp Ben to me, tears dripping off my face, I feel a strange tingling sensation. It reminds me, I realize, of the charged feeling in the air months ago while Gregor was being whipped, and the crowd was overwhelmed with the emotions and power swirling all around.

I keep the fingers of one hand against the artery in Ben’s throat, feeling his pulse there, growing very slowly from terrifyingly intermittent, to unnaturally slow, to increasingly steady.

The bed is shaking, and I realize that it is caused by Gregor. Whatever he is doing is immensely difficult for him, I think, and it is causing him to strain and tremble. This is taking everything in him, and all I can do is hold on to Ben as instructed, and cry, and wait, and pray, and hope that Gregor has the strength to accomplish this task.

Ben’s heart is beating, and he is breathing, and that is what gives me the ability to trust Gregor and wait, pressed against Ben’s chest, while Gregor is pressed against his back, and all of our limbs are entangled together here on the bed.

Poor Ben must be in the crack, I realize, the indentation formed by the two small beds joined together to create one big bed for us to share. I can’t quite smile, but I know that Ben would think this is funny, if he could.

Maybe he can. Maybe I can tell him, later, someday, if he really does recover. I find myself holding my breath, waiting, fearing, hoping.

No words are spoken for over an hour, while I feel Ben’s heart rate stabilize, his breathing grow even and calm, feel his skin grow warm rather than clammy, dry rather than sweaty. I see each sign that he is being restored to health, and yet I fear to trust the evidence of my senses.

This is magic, so who knows what the end result will be. I don’t care, as long as it means that I will not lose Ben.

Finally, after an eternity of knowing that Gregor is giving everything in him to this effort, I feel Ben shift slightly, and take the deep breath of awakening.

“Hey Sam,” he says hoarsely, sounding groggy, but more confused than anything else.

I can’t stop the sob that bursts out of me, the intense relief seizing control over my voice.

Ben lifts one of his hands out from under both of our arms, touches my face, and says, “You all right?”

I sense Gregor letting go of Ben, untangling his limbs, and rolling over onto his back on the bed, exhaling shakily. Ben seems to realize for the first time that Gregor is there, and he twists around to see behind him, and says, “Um….”

Ben’s little speech impediment has never been so adorable to me. Of course he doesn’t know what to say, finding himself in bed between his lover and his boss. Is this hilarious? Yes, objectively it is hilarious. But nobody is laughing, we are all absolutely drained.

Gregor manages to push himself up to a sitting position with one hand, then swing his legs over off the side of the bed. “Hey Ben, glad you’re feeling better. I was just helping Sam, you seemed to be having a yellow fever relapse. I came upon him taking care of you, so I stayed until you felt better.” His tone is low, exhausted. He’s trying to sound like his usual jaunty self, I can see, but the exertion of healing Ben is evident in his voice.

I sit up as well, laying my hand across Ben’s forehead, and his skin feels normal, no fever, no sweatiness.

Ben looks between us, obviously deeply confused. And apparently feeling awkward, for he sits up too, and trapped between us on the bed just scoots backwards, right on the crack, and leans against the wall behind the mattresses.

“How do you feel?” I ask him. I don’t want to take my hand off of him, so I let it move down from his forehead to his wrist, taking his pulse. Steady. Normal.

“Um, fine,” he says, glancing back over at Gregor. “Er, I was at the infirmary, but nobody was there, David said I could go home. I hope that’s all right.”

Gregor huffs out a little laugh, clearly amused that Ben is concerned about whether he was doing his job properly. “It’s fine, Ben.” He puts his hand on Ben’s shoulder, and I realize that this gesture must mean something. I see him do it often, and it must be more than the simple friendliness I have always taken it to be. I am seeing Gregor in a whole new light.

Gregor looks over at me. “Samuel, why don’t you just stay here tonight. I’ll go down to the infirmary now.”

But he can barely even speak. I know for a fact that he needs rest after what he just did, despite all of his claims over the last week about not needing sleep. “Is there any way you could ask someone in your crew to stay there for a few hours?” I ask him. “You need some rest.”

He opens his mouth, and I’m sure he’s going to argue with me, but he says, “You’re right. I will. Then I’ll go home.” He rises from the bed, slowly, using his hands to lift himself off the mattress. I’m not entirely convinced he’ll be able to make it down the hill and back. But there is only one thing I can concern myself with right now, and that is Ben. I’m not sure I will ever be able to force myself to let go of him again.

“Thank you, Gregor,” I tell him before he goes, and I try to imbue my words with all the meaning they hold. He saved Ben’s life. He saved my life. I could not have gone on living. There is no way I can ever thank him, or repay him, enough for what he has done for us.

He nods, smiles very tiredly, and says, “Good night.”

His shoes crunch against the glass shattered on the floor, and I have only a vague memory of hearing the window break as he burst into the apartment. I am going to ignore it, I can deal with that tomorrow.

But Ben hears it too, leans up and cranes his head around to look into the front room, and asks, “Is that broken glass?”

I pull him back down onto the mattress with me. I wrap my arms around him again. Never. I am never letting him go. “The window broke,” I tell him, “pay no mind. I’ll clean it up tomorrow.”

“What happened?”

What a question. “Just an accident,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about it. Just go back to sleep, you’ll feel fine in the morning.”

“I feel fine now.”

“Good. I’m tired, will you hold me?” Making him want to take care of me is apparently the only way to get him to settle down. I don’t really know whether he needs more sleep, but I know he was almost dead a few hours ago, and I’m exhausted and emotionally drained. I just want to lie here and feel his arms around me.

“Mmmm,” he says, and pushes against me to make me roll over, facing away from him. He tugs me back against his broad chest, wraps his strong arms around me, and I feel his warm breath on my neck. Nothing has ever felt more wonderful to me in my life.

I don’t go to sleep, but I hear it when he does. His breathing slips into the steady, even sound of healthy slumber. I gently take his wrist in my hand, as it is still wrapped around me, and check his pulse. Steady. Normal.

As tired as I am, I don’t want to lose a minute of this wonderful feeling, so I lay here, my eyes open in the dark, feeling his arms, listening to him breathe, checking his pulse intermittently.

When the sky begins to lighten outside the window, I hear him take a deep breath, just like when he regained consciousness after Gregor healed him. “Mmmm,” he murmurs, “what time is it?”

I turn within his arms, facing him again, and stroke his bearded face, so beautiful to me even barely visible in the earliest light of dawn. I kiss him, and whisper, “It’s almost daybreak.”

~~~END OF BOOK 8 OF GUARDIANS~~~