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A small addendum to The King's Roads that got rather long on me. I wanted h/c in the aftermath of the previous story, Childermass and Grant's journey north and everyone's fear/grief over it. I wanted post-apocalyptic family feels, mostly. What I ended up with was angry Emma, unconscious Childermass, and poor Major Grant getting yelled at a bit. And family feels. Heh. My apologies to all. Venturing a little towards Emma/Segundus/Childermass, with Jonathan/Arabella and possibly hints of Jonathan/Arabella/undead!Grant as well. Because I'm cracked. Maybe hints of Stephen/Vinculus too.
Title: The King's Roads: Family Disputes
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (TV)
Characters/Pairings: Emma Wintertowne, John Segundus, John Childermass, Mr Honeyfoot, Stephen Black, Vinculus, Arabella Strange, Major Grant, Walter Pole, mention of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Ensemble, hinted Emma/John/John, Arabella/Jonathan(/Grant) and possibly Stephen/Vinculus, as well as Emma & Arabella
Summary: In which there are unconscious spies, angry warriors, sheepish undead majors, much hurt/comfort and the odd threat of shooting
Wordcount: 4102
Warnings/Notes: Post-Apocalyptic AU, mentions of past horrors, mention of loss of limbs, hurt/comfort, anger, families of choice, protectiveness, relief
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: The King's Roads: Family Disputes
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (TV)
Characters/Pairings: Emma Wintertowne, John Segundus, John Childermass, Mr Honeyfoot, Stephen Black, Vinculus, Arabella Strange, Major Grant, Walter Pole, mention of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Ensemble, hinted Emma/John/John, Arabella/Jonathan(/Grant) and possibly Stephen/Vinculus, as well as Emma & Arabella
Summary: In which there are unconscious spies, angry warriors, sheepish undead majors, much hurt/comfort and the odd threat of shooting
Wordcount: 4102
Warnings/Notes: Post-Apocalyptic AU, mentions of past horrors, mention of loss of limbs, hurt/comfort, anger, families of choice, protectiveness, relief
Disclaimer: Not mine
The King's Roads: Family Disputes
An odd mood fell upon the Council Chamber of Last Hope, in the wake of Childermass' return and the incredible news he had brought along with him. Perhaps they should have been elated, Emma thought, perhaps there should have been fire and excitement and determination, but in truth it was mostly exhaustion that prevailed. Relief, and then exhaustion. Though she supposed that was not so unnatural. There was hope, where before there hadn't been. There were few things so exhausting as hope and relief combined, after so long a stretch without them.
There was a report, of course. A more detailed one was required than Childermass' bare-bones declaration. What had he seen? How were Strange and Norrell? How much of London had been raised from the dead? How treacherous had the paths been when he returned? How were they to contact London, now that they knew it lived? When were they to do so? And so on, and so forth. There was so much that had yet to be relayed.
It was largely Major Grant that made this report, though, the odd dry interjection from their spy aside. And the odd quelling glance, as well, as the undead major seemed to tread too close to something Childermass felt should not be shared with them. Emma suspected she knew what lay in those gaps in the report. She suspected that Childermass thought he was sparing them, skipping across the perilous parts so as not to worry them. She clenched her hand in her lap at every evasion, feeling John flinch faintly against her leg every time. Good god, but their spy was a fool. He was an idiot of the highest order, and she only bided her time before she would tell him so, and in no uncertain terms. There were necessities to be observed first, however. Professional matters must ever come before personal. Survival demanded nothing less.
The report trailed off eventually, and there was little enough to say once it had been made. They agreed that they would contact Strange and Norrell by communication spell tomorrow, after everyone had had a chance to digest all that had happened, and bluntly put after their spy had put himself back together again. Childermass needed rest, and given that he had fought his way to London and back to bring them this news, it was an entirely unspoken but unanimous assumption that they would not act upon it until he could do so alongside them.
This did not sit entirely well with Grant. It appeared that Strange had wished to contact them immediately, and had only consented that Childermass and Grant should bear his message at all because Childermass had told him that any foreign magic that attempted to access Last Hope now would be repulsed in rapid order, at great cost to everyone. There were things in England these days that would have no qualms about using the faces of missing loved ones in an attempt to destroy them. Last Hope had armoured itself against them, against magic and demons and decay, and had Strange attempted to breach them without a physical messenger to first pave the way, they would have reacted entirely on instinct. From the way Grant edged around the matter, Emma gathered that Childermass had stated this quite forcefully. She had a suspicion that he had, in fact, fought with the other magicians over it, and that they had conceded the argument with ill grace. Major Grant, who seemed to be something in the way of their grudging concession to necessity, wished to do his job as rapidly as possible, therefore, and relay his safe arrival back to them as soon as he could.
He had been overruled. Not that he had voiced an objection, as such, but he had opened his mouth at Stephen's decision to wait until tomorrow, and Stephen had gifted him such a calm, impassive look in response that he had hastily shut it again. Emma had been somewhat proud to see that even Arabella, who longed so much to see her husband again, would not be moved on the subject. It was only right, though. Strange and Norrell had survived this long without them. They could wait another day pending Childermass' health.
The mood had fallen in the aftermath of that decision, though. The strength of action, of information to be relayed and decisions to be made upon it, faded as soon as those decisions were settled, and they fell into a stilted silence in their wake. Arabella drew Grant aside, no doubt asking after her husband, and Stephen drew Walter and Thistlewitch into something of a huddle beside the fire as well. Vinculus was not inclined to move from the hearth, though he did not join them in their deliberations. He looked over at Emma, instead, his wicked little eyes twinkling knowingly at her. He knew full well what she meant to do next, and the old reprobate was thoroughly amused by it. Emma gifted him a sharp little smile in response. His amusement had absolutely no bearing on her actions.
She waited until Childermass let his head fall back against the chair. It did not take long. He had been exhausted enough to let Grant do most of the talking, she had not anticipated that he should last long once his duty was finally done for the moment. He faded off very rapidly indeed, sleep and sheer exhaustion stealing him away in no time at all. She nudged John, once it had happened. Mr Honeyfoot, behind them, had already crept away to fetch the necessities. He had anticipated them as easily as Vinculus, and with more gentility. Not that their spy deserved such, of course, but Emma supposed Mr Honeyfoot could not help his soft heart.
She stood, once she was certain that Childermass slept, and moved to stand above him once more. John Segundus came behind her, more gentle than she but perhaps equally as angry. He had noticed Childermass' evasions as well, the way he had directed Grant to fall uncomfortably silent at awkward moments. He had guessed as well what lay behind them, and was no more happy about it than she. They would have their truth now, though. They would see how much their spy had tried to keep from them.
A stuttered silence fell a little as Emma reached down to begin unknotting Childermass' neck cloth. It was small, and easier done than the coat, and if Childermass was not so deeply asleep yet then they should notice it before moving on to more difficult articles. When he did not stir, well and truly unconscious, she directed John to ease him forward enough that she might push his coat off his shoulders as well, and then began work on his waistcoat, unbuttoning it with nimble, angry fingers. Behind them, Grant audibly stuttered to a halt, and a small silence developed over by the fire as well. Emma glanced up, looking defiantly at Stephen, and their king looked away again, a small and weary smile on his face. Her ex-husband looked away also, more stiffly and with red staining his cheeks. Emma did not care much about that. It had been a long time since she had.
"What ... Forgive me, what are you doing?" Major Grant stammered suddenly, almost striding back across to them. She blinked at him, trying to decide if it was offended propriety or some nascent protective instinct towards Childermass that moved him. "Why are you ... My lady, you are stripping him!"
Ah, Emma thought. Mostly propriety, then, though perhaps a little of the other as well. She dismissed him, accepting Childermass' weight so that John could finally manage to ease the coat fully out from under the man. Good, she thought, as he lifted it up to examine it carefully. Well done, John. He could not manage buttons very well any longer, the false hand was too clumsy for it, but he had long since ceased to let that stop him from being useful. He hung the garment from the dead arm, and rifled through it quickly with the living one. He looked back at her, and shook his head in some relief. No major holes or slices, then. The blood seemed to be largely someone or something else's.
"Yes, we are stripping him," she replied to Grant, almost absently since she was in the process of worming Childermass' waistcoat off his shoulders, letting John take his weight back again so that she could untuck the ends of his shirt after it. "Why? Do you have an objection to it?"
Grant stuttered. "You ..." he said, looking helpless at Arabella, who only shrugged somewhat apologetically back. "I mean, why, your ladyship?"
Emma ignored him for a moment, as she and John between them finally wrestled the shirt over Childermass' head, earning themselves a vague groan in the process but no actual return to wakefulness. When Childermass had said he needed some time to rest, clearly what he had really meant was that he was half an hour away from falling dead of exhaustion. It was only once they had laid him back against the chair, now half-naked and with his cuts and bruises at last plainly to be seen, that she looked back at the corpse of a soldier standing awkward and half-panicked behind them.
"Because," she said, very sharply. "Because magicians lie, sir, they hide things, and this one is the most bloody stubborn of the lot. Because he directed you to disguise things from us, and you did so, and now we must see his injuries for ourselves." He opened his mouth, and she slashed her hand across the air between them, cutting him off instantly. She had no care for excuses at present. "Do not trouble yourself, sir. You made the mistake of listening to him, and now you must simply pay the price. Kindly leave us to our business. Unless, of course, you have had a sudden change of heart? Unless you wish to tell us what it was he wanted hidden?"
"There's no visible spell damage," John said softly, while Grant merely opened and closed his mouth helplessly. She looked back at him, since he was so obviously the more useful of the two. He'd cupped his living hand behind Childermass' head, the dead one resting carefully against their spy's chest. Childermass slept on oblivious, resting limply in John's keeping, and John's expression when he looked up at her was heartbreaking. "I can feel nothing, Emma. No wasting, no sickness. No curse or taint of magic. Whatever he wanted to hide, he ... I don't think he is hurt. Not badly, at least. It's only cuts and bruises, and maybe some tenderness around the ribs and shoulders. He is unwounded."
"It was only a small ambush," Grant said behind her suddenly. Stiffly, warily, but with obvious shame when she met his eyes. He shrugged, very awkwardly and apologetically. "I only thought he wanted to spare the ladies. I mean ... That is, I'm sorry, your ladyship. It truly wasn't bad. He had these little cards, they seemed to direct us away from difficult spots. We only saw combat once, and only briefly. Something cut through his spell of concealment, he wouldn't tell me what, and we fell afoul of a patrol. He regained his magic in rapid order, and we killed two of the six demons before managing to retreat. It was a small action. I only thought that he did not want to alarm you. You are ... I mean that you are ..."
Emma stared at him. Mr Honeyfoot had returned, by this point, and she was dimly aware of him bustling around at the table behind her, setting basins and tinctures down, soaking cloths in warm water and handing them down to John so that he might begin setting Childermass back to rights. She should help with that. She would, in a minute. She had only a little thing to say, first. Major Grant had been dead for most of England's fall. She understood that it was not his fault that he didn't know these things. Someone must explain them to him, though. If he was to be of any use to Last Hope at all, someone must clearly explain things to him.
"... Major Grant," she said, taking a small step closer to him and running one hand gently but obtrusively across her bandolier, reminding him that she was armed. "You have been away, sir. I think there are things you do not understand. You must allow me to explain them to you, all right?" She smiled at him, and he swallowed worriedly. He was dead. He should have no more cause for fear. It pleased her slightly that she might still cause it anyway.
"... Of course, ma'am," he said, and behind him Emma saw Arabella smiling faintly. Painfully, yes, but also genuinely. The other woman nodded at her across the major's shoulder, knowing exactly what Emma was about to explain, and Emma nodded back with the faintest smile of her own. She turned back to Grant, and the smile faded before a darker, more serious sort of look.
"There is no-one in this room who has not seen horrors," she said to him quietly. "Ladies, men, fairies, humans. Those things out there have no care. None of us have escaped, sir. We fought our way to safety. Most of us here went back out, once we had achieved it. We patrolled. We sought information. We went back to pick up stragglers. Mr Segundus, behind me, lost his hand to a wasting spell on one such expedition. Mrs Strange saw six people torn apart by a demon patrol while scrying for a group we had lost. I killed my first creature to prevent it from killing a mother and child, and though I did kill it, I did not succeed in saving them. There were too many, and I was too inexperienced then. I have become better, since then. We all have. We have all been tested, we have all suffered horrors, and we have all come through the other side. There is no-one here, sir, who needs sparing any longer. There is no-one here who can possibly be more alarmed by the truth than by evasion. Remember that. It is secrets that kill us, sir, not truths. Do not lie to us again."
He blinked at her. He was stiff, and gaunt, and dead. The plague had killed him, before ever he had to see the ruin that England had become. It was nonsensical to see him as an innocent, when he was a soldier and had undoubtedly seen other wars, yet to them in many ways he was. He did not know how things worked any longer. He had not seen. He had not fought. He was an innocent, Major Grant, and he had stumbled across bad initial company when it came to understanding the propriety of things. Childermass could not manage explanations if his life very literally depended upon it. Childermass was a stubborn, stupid idiot, and Grant could have done so much better for a guide to how things were.
Not, perhaps, much better a guide to survival. That they had both made it from London through every army, ruin, spell and horror in England proved that much. It was only that Childermass had developed some odd ideas about the importance of his own survival that had led them to this juncture.
"I am sorry," Grant said, more slowly now and more genuinely. He looked to the man behind her, unconscious still and now on his way to cleaned and bandaged. He shook his head, a curious expression on his bone-white face. "He did not wish you to know. He has not led me wrongly, this past week, and this is his home. It seemed prudent to listen to him. In that, it seems I was mistaken, and I am sorry for it."
"He doesn't tell us things," John said quietly, looking up at them at last, leaving Mr Honeyfoot to mop quietly at Childermass' forehead. "Since they have surrounded us so completely, he and a few of the fairies are the only ones who can go out with any regularity. He doesn't want to tell us what happens to him out there. I think he is afraid we would make him stop going if we knew." He looked down, worrying angrily at the straps of his false hand. "I do not help that. I would stop him, if we could afford it. If I didn't know ... I would like to make him stop. I would like it very much. He knows that. He hides things from us because of it."
"He is an idiot," Emma summed up after him, much more succinctly. She reached down, rested a hand on John's shoulder comfortingly. He smiled lopsidedly up at her, and she had to resist a sudden urge to kick Childermass' unconscious shins. Damnable man. Stubborn, idiot, damnable magician. She ought to have shot him again. That would keep him from going anywhere in a hurry. That would keep him ... Damnit. It would keep him safe. For the half an hour, at least, before he took it into his head to bloody well crawl somewhere dangerous, it would give them a moment's worth of peace.
"They love him, you know," Vinculus piped up suddenly. He was lying back on the hearth rug, his arms crossed over his blue chest, his feet crossed at his ankles, watching them all like they were the very best of plays. "The lady and the one-handed magician. Couldn't have picked a worse idiot if they'd tried, but they do love him. Wouldn't be so angry at him else, would they?"
Emma stared at him. Her hand was still on her bandolier. She gave a brief moment's thought to simply shooting every man there, with the possible exception of Mr Honeyfoot, who was sweet, and Stephen, who was ... at present, palming his face in wearily amused exasperation. Ah. Perhaps she wouldn't spare Stephen then. Vinculus, divining her thoughts effortlessly, cackled at her for them. He clambered gracelessly to his feet, patting a stiff-faced Stephen on the arm, and ambled over to peer down at Childermass. He did not flinch as he passed her. He gave her an evil little wink, instead. Then he stood there, for a moment, staring down at their sleeping spy, and leaned down with an odd expression on his face to ruffle Childermass' filthy hair.
"It's good you're back, magician," Vinculus told the unconscious man quietly, an odd little smile on his face. "No-one makes life interesting like you do. Best entertainment to be had, you are. Would have been a shame if you'd been killed."
He stood back then, smiling sunnily at them all, and offered a small bow towards Stephen. "I'm away to my bed, my king," he informed them lightly, waving a hand in the air. "Wake me if anything else interesting knocks on our door, hmm?"
Stephen rubbed vaguely at his temple, but nodded at him. "I'm sure you'll be among the first to know about it," he commented wryly. "Goodnight, Vinculus. I'm sure the rest of us will not be long after you. Those of us who are not already asleep, at least." He smiled slightly towards Childermass. Thistlewitch, behind him, clearly thought they were all the most fascinating study in human oddity that she had ever seen. She smiled a fairy sort of smile, and waved a vaguely menacing goodnight to Vinculus as well. Around this point, Emma decided that perhaps, in this one respect, their prophet might have the right idea after all.
"I think we might retire as well," she decided, looking down at John, and then over at Mr Honeyfoot. "Can you two carry the idiot between you? He needs to be poured into a bed, I think. Heaven knows where he's been sleeping for the past few weeks. And no," she said, holding up a hand towards Grant. "You needn't tell me. If he hasn't been sleeping, I don't want to know about it. I'll only end up shooting him."
Grant, with an admirably blank expression, closed his mouth again. Arabella pressed a hand to hers, striving valiantly to hide her smile. Emma grinned at her, and moved across to take her hands for a moment.
"I hope Jonathan is well when you see him tomorrow," she said, very seriously. She held the other woman's hands, squeezed them comfortingly. "I'm glad that he will be returned to you, Arabella, for however long it might be. I hope all goes well for you, my dear."
Arabella blinked at her, tears gathering around the edges of her smile. She squeezed back, and then pulled Emma forward into a brief embrace. "I'm glad you got yours back as well," she said, with something not too far from composure. "Try not to shoot him. I understand the temptation, but it probably wouldn't help anything. Men are too stubborn to be moved by such things."
Emma laughed, kissing her on both cheeks before withdrawing. She looked over at Grant, and cocked an eyebrow back at Arabella. "I take it you will be showing the Major to his rooms?" she asked, a little slyly. Formality may have been clung to after the Fall of England, at least to an extent, but certain other aspects of society had been less so. Or perhaps, she admitted, it was only that they were the Council of the King, Stephen's advisors, and so could get away with so much more. "You will want to ask him some more questions, I think? About your husband?"
Arabella punched her in the shoulder in response. Only lightly. "Go put our spy to bed," she instructed coolly, her face perfectly straight to hide her smile. "The rest of us shall deal with things as sense and propriety demand. I'm sure of it."
"We're ready, Emma," John interrupted quietly. She turned to him, to meet his exhausted, tentatively peaceful expression with her own. Mr Honeyfoot stood beside him, with Childermass slung awkwardly between them. His head hung against John's chest, his hair matted and dusty still, his skinny chest all marked with bruises. She felt a surge of something, at the sight of him. A terror close to weeping, a fury at the ruin of the world around them. She felt a rush of helpless, bitter anger, and a hot, fierce desire for the army that Strange and Grant promised them. She wanted to see it. She wanted to join it. She wanted to shoot and stab and fight until every last one of those things was cleared from their path, so that they should never lose anyone to them again. She wanted it so fiercely. There were three men stood before her, friends and a king behind her, and she could not bear to lose any of them. Not even Walter, no matter how stiff things still were between them. She would give anything to protect any one of them.
They knew it, too. They saw in it her, as they saw it in each other. None of them needed sparing any longer. They all knew what they would do to keep each other safe. Some tension spooled out of her, at the thought. Some of the fury fled, since in this company it was unneeded. She moved across to touch John's cheek gently, to cup her hand for a second around Childermass'. She smiled at Mr Honeyfoot, who was a gentle soul and put up with so much from them all.
"Let's get ourselves to bed, gentlemen," she said. "We have a war to plan tomorrow, and a siege to break. We should get some rest, I think."
"Amen," said Stephen, very softly behind them. He stood straight, and calm, and immovable as the kingdom he had built. He looked at them, their saviour and their silver king, and smiled a smile that was not peaceful at all. Emma echoed it back to him, and proudly.
Yes, she thought. Tomorrow they would fight. They would plan, and fight, and win, or they would die trying. But not tonight. Tonight, they were not dead. Tonight, those who had been lost had come back to them. Tonight, they would all climb into their respective beds, with whoever it best pleased them to share with, and they would get some rest.
There was, after all, nothing so exhausting in all the world as hope and relief combined.
An odd mood fell upon the Council Chamber of Last Hope, in the wake of Childermass' return and the incredible news he had brought along with him. Perhaps they should have been elated, Emma thought, perhaps there should have been fire and excitement and determination, but in truth it was mostly exhaustion that prevailed. Relief, and then exhaustion. Though she supposed that was not so unnatural. There was hope, where before there hadn't been. There were few things so exhausting as hope and relief combined, after so long a stretch without them.
There was a report, of course. A more detailed one was required than Childermass' bare-bones declaration. What had he seen? How were Strange and Norrell? How much of London had been raised from the dead? How treacherous had the paths been when he returned? How were they to contact London, now that they knew it lived? When were they to do so? And so on, and so forth. There was so much that had yet to be relayed.
It was largely Major Grant that made this report, though, the odd dry interjection from their spy aside. And the odd quelling glance, as well, as the undead major seemed to tread too close to something Childermass felt should not be shared with them. Emma suspected she knew what lay in those gaps in the report. She suspected that Childermass thought he was sparing them, skipping across the perilous parts so as not to worry them. She clenched her hand in her lap at every evasion, feeling John flinch faintly against her leg every time. Good god, but their spy was a fool. He was an idiot of the highest order, and she only bided her time before she would tell him so, and in no uncertain terms. There were necessities to be observed first, however. Professional matters must ever come before personal. Survival demanded nothing less.
The report trailed off eventually, and there was little enough to say once it had been made. They agreed that they would contact Strange and Norrell by communication spell tomorrow, after everyone had had a chance to digest all that had happened, and bluntly put after their spy had put himself back together again. Childermass needed rest, and given that he had fought his way to London and back to bring them this news, it was an entirely unspoken but unanimous assumption that they would not act upon it until he could do so alongside them.
This did not sit entirely well with Grant. It appeared that Strange had wished to contact them immediately, and had only consented that Childermass and Grant should bear his message at all because Childermass had told him that any foreign magic that attempted to access Last Hope now would be repulsed in rapid order, at great cost to everyone. There were things in England these days that would have no qualms about using the faces of missing loved ones in an attempt to destroy them. Last Hope had armoured itself against them, against magic and demons and decay, and had Strange attempted to breach them without a physical messenger to first pave the way, they would have reacted entirely on instinct. From the way Grant edged around the matter, Emma gathered that Childermass had stated this quite forcefully. She had a suspicion that he had, in fact, fought with the other magicians over it, and that they had conceded the argument with ill grace. Major Grant, who seemed to be something in the way of their grudging concession to necessity, wished to do his job as rapidly as possible, therefore, and relay his safe arrival back to them as soon as he could.
He had been overruled. Not that he had voiced an objection, as such, but he had opened his mouth at Stephen's decision to wait until tomorrow, and Stephen had gifted him such a calm, impassive look in response that he had hastily shut it again. Emma had been somewhat proud to see that even Arabella, who longed so much to see her husband again, would not be moved on the subject. It was only right, though. Strange and Norrell had survived this long without them. They could wait another day pending Childermass' health.
The mood had fallen in the aftermath of that decision, though. The strength of action, of information to be relayed and decisions to be made upon it, faded as soon as those decisions were settled, and they fell into a stilted silence in their wake. Arabella drew Grant aside, no doubt asking after her husband, and Stephen drew Walter and Thistlewitch into something of a huddle beside the fire as well. Vinculus was not inclined to move from the hearth, though he did not join them in their deliberations. He looked over at Emma, instead, his wicked little eyes twinkling knowingly at her. He knew full well what she meant to do next, and the old reprobate was thoroughly amused by it. Emma gifted him a sharp little smile in response. His amusement had absolutely no bearing on her actions.
She waited until Childermass let his head fall back against the chair. It did not take long. He had been exhausted enough to let Grant do most of the talking, she had not anticipated that he should last long once his duty was finally done for the moment. He faded off very rapidly indeed, sleep and sheer exhaustion stealing him away in no time at all. She nudged John, once it had happened. Mr Honeyfoot, behind them, had already crept away to fetch the necessities. He had anticipated them as easily as Vinculus, and with more gentility. Not that their spy deserved such, of course, but Emma supposed Mr Honeyfoot could not help his soft heart.
She stood, once she was certain that Childermass slept, and moved to stand above him once more. John Segundus came behind her, more gentle than she but perhaps equally as angry. He had noticed Childermass' evasions as well, the way he had directed Grant to fall uncomfortably silent at awkward moments. He had guessed as well what lay behind them, and was no more happy about it than she. They would have their truth now, though. They would see how much their spy had tried to keep from them.
A stuttered silence fell a little as Emma reached down to begin unknotting Childermass' neck cloth. It was small, and easier done than the coat, and if Childermass was not so deeply asleep yet then they should notice it before moving on to more difficult articles. When he did not stir, well and truly unconscious, she directed John to ease him forward enough that she might push his coat off his shoulders as well, and then began work on his waistcoat, unbuttoning it with nimble, angry fingers. Behind them, Grant audibly stuttered to a halt, and a small silence developed over by the fire as well. Emma glanced up, looking defiantly at Stephen, and their king looked away again, a small and weary smile on his face. Her ex-husband looked away also, more stiffly and with red staining his cheeks. Emma did not care much about that. It had been a long time since she had.
"What ... Forgive me, what are you doing?" Major Grant stammered suddenly, almost striding back across to them. She blinked at him, trying to decide if it was offended propriety or some nascent protective instinct towards Childermass that moved him. "Why are you ... My lady, you are stripping him!"
Ah, Emma thought. Mostly propriety, then, though perhaps a little of the other as well. She dismissed him, accepting Childermass' weight so that John could finally manage to ease the coat fully out from under the man. Good, she thought, as he lifted it up to examine it carefully. Well done, John. He could not manage buttons very well any longer, the false hand was too clumsy for it, but he had long since ceased to let that stop him from being useful. He hung the garment from the dead arm, and rifled through it quickly with the living one. He looked back at her, and shook his head in some relief. No major holes or slices, then. The blood seemed to be largely someone or something else's.
"Yes, we are stripping him," she replied to Grant, almost absently since she was in the process of worming Childermass' waistcoat off his shoulders, letting John take his weight back again so that she could untuck the ends of his shirt after it. "Why? Do you have an objection to it?"
Grant stuttered. "You ..." he said, looking helpless at Arabella, who only shrugged somewhat apologetically back. "I mean, why, your ladyship?"
Emma ignored him for a moment, as she and John between them finally wrestled the shirt over Childermass' head, earning themselves a vague groan in the process but no actual return to wakefulness. When Childermass had said he needed some time to rest, clearly what he had really meant was that he was half an hour away from falling dead of exhaustion. It was only once they had laid him back against the chair, now half-naked and with his cuts and bruises at last plainly to be seen, that she looked back at the corpse of a soldier standing awkward and half-panicked behind them.
"Because," she said, very sharply. "Because magicians lie, sir, they hide things, and this one is the most bloody stubborn of the lot. Because he directed you to disguise things from us, and you did so, and now we must see his injuries for ourselves." He opened his mouth, and she slashed her hand across the air between them, cutting him off instantly. She had no care for excuses at present. "Do not trouble yourself, sir. You made the mistake of listening to him, and now you must simply pay the price. Kindly leave us to our business. Unless, of course, you have had a sudden change of heart? Unless you wish to tell us what it was he wanted hidden?"
"There's no visible spell damage," John said softly, while Grant merely opened and closed his mouth helplessly. She looked back at him, since he was so obviously the more useful of the two. He'd cupped his living hand behind Childermass' head, the dead one resting carefully against their spy's chest. Childermass slept on oblivious, resting limply in John's keeping, and John's expression when he looked up at her was heartbreaking. "I can feel nothing, Emma. No wasting, no sickness. No curse or taint of magic. Whatever he wanted to hide, he ... I don't think he is hurt. Not badly, at least. It's only cuts and bruises, and maybe some tenderness around the ribs and shoulders. He is unwounded."
"It was only a small ambush," Grant said behind her suddenly. Stiffly, warily, but with obvious shame when she met his eyes. He shrugged, very awkwardly and apologetically. "I only thought he wanted to spare the ladies. I mean ... That is, I'm sorry, your ladyship. It truly wasn't bad. He had these little cards, they seemed to direct us away from difficult spots. We only saw combat once, and only briefly. Something cut through his spell of concealment, he wouldn't tell me what, and we fell afoul of a patrol. He regained his magic in rapid order, and we killed two of the six demons before managing to retreat. It was a small action. I only thought that he did not want to alarm you. You are ... I mean that you are ..."
Emma stared at him. Mr Honeyfoot had returned, by this point, and she was dimly aware of him bustling around at the table behind her, setting basins and tinctures down, soaking cloths in warm water and handing them down to John so that he might begin setting Childermass back to rights. She should help with that. She would, in a minute. She had only a little thing to say, first. Major Grant had been dead for most of England's fall. She understood that it was not his fault that he didn't know these things. Someone must explain them to him, though. If he was to be of any use to Last Hope at all, someone must clearly explain things to him.
"... Major Grant," she said, taking a small step closer to him and running one hand gently but obtrusively across her bandolier, reminding him that she was armed. "You have been away, sir. I think there are things you do not understand. You must allow me to explain them to you, all right?" She smiled at him, and he swallowed worriedly. He was dead. He should have no more cause for fear. It pleased her slightly that she might still cause it anyway.
"... Of course, ma'am," he said, and behind him Emma saw Arabella smiling faintly. Painfully, yes, but also genuinely. The other woman nodded at her across the major's shoulder, knowing exactly what Emma was about to explain, and Emma nodded back with the faintest smile of her own. She turned back to Grant, and the smile faded before a darker, more serious sort of look.
"There is no-one in this room who has not seen horrors," she said to him quietly. "Ladies, men, fairies, humans. Those things out there have no care. None of us have escaped, sir. We fought our way to safety. Most of us here went back out, once we had achieved it. We patrolled. We sought information. We went back to pick up stragglers. Mr Segundus, behind me, lost his hand to a wasting spell on one such expedition. Mrs Strange saw six people torn apart by a demon patrol while scrying for a group we had lost. I killed my first creature to prevent it from killing a mother and child, and though I did kill it, I did not succeed in saving them. There were too many, and I was too inexperienced then. I have become better, since then. We all have. We have all been tested, we have all suffered horrors, and we have all come through the other side. There is no-one here, sir, who needs sparing any longer. There is no-one here who can possibly be more alarmed by the truth than by evasion. Remember that. It is secrets that kill us, sir, not truths. Do not lie to us again."
He blinked at her. He was stiff, and gaunt, and dead. The plague had killed him, before ever he had to see the ruin that England had become. It was nonsensical to see him as an innocent, when he was a soldier and had undoubtedly seen other wars, yet to them in many ways he was. He did not know how things worked any longer. He had not seen. He had not fought. He was an innocent, Major Grant, and he had stumbled across bad initial company when it came to understanding the propriety of things. Childermass could not manage explanations if his life very literally depended upon it. Childermass was a stubborn, stupid idiot, and Grant could have done so much better for a guide to how things were.
Not, perhaps, much better a guide to survival. That they had both made it from London through every army, ruin, spell and horror in England proved that much. It was only that Childermass had developed some odd ideas about the importance of his own survival that had led them to this juncture.
"I am sorry," Grant said, more slowly now and more genuinely. He looked to the man behind her, unconscious still and now on his way to cleaned and bandaged. He shook his head, a curious expression on his bone-white face. "He did not wish you to know. He has not led me wrongly, this past week, and this is his home. It seemed prudent to listen to him. In that, it seems I was mistaken, and I am sorry for it."
"He doesn't tell us things," John said quietly, looking up at them at last, leaving Mr Honeyfoot to mop quietly at Childermass' forehead. "Since they have surrounded us so completely, he and a few of the fairies are the only ones who can go out with any regularity. He doesn't want to tell us what happens to him out there. I think he is afraid we would make him stop going if we knew." He looked down, worrying angrily at the straps of his false hand. "I do not help that. I would stop him, if we could afford it. If I didn't know ... I would like to make him stop. I would like it very much. He knows that. He hides things from us because of it."
"He is an idiot," Emma summed up after him, much more succinctly. She reached down, rested a hand on John's shoulder comfortingly. He smiled lopsidedly up at her, and she had to resist a sudden urge to kick Childermass' unconscious shins. Damnable man. Stubborn, idiot, damnable magician. She ought to have shot him again. That would keep him from going anywhere in a hurry. That would keep him ... Damnit. It would keep him safe. For the half an hour, at least, before he took it into his head to bloody well crawl somewhere dangerous, it would give them a moment's worth of peace.
"They love him, you know," Vinculus piped up suddenly. He was lying back on the hearth rug, his arms crossed over his blue chest, his feet crossed at his ankles, watching them all like they were the very best of plays. "The lady and the one-handed magician. Couldn't have picked a worse idiot if they'd tried, but they do love him. Wouldn't be so angry at him else, would they?"
Emma stared at him. Her hand was still on her bandolier. She gave a brief moment's thought to simply shooting every man there, with the possible exception of Mr Honeyfoot, who was sweet, and Stephen, who was ... at present, palming his face in wearily amused exasperation. Ah. Perhaps she wouldn't spare Stephen then. Vinculus, divining her thoughts effortlessly, cackled at her for them. He clambered gracelessly to his feet, patting a stiff-faced Stephen on the arm, and ambled over to peer down at Childermass. He did not flinch as he passed her. He gave her an evil little wink, instead. Then he stood there, for a moment, staring down at their sleeping spy, and leaned down with an odd expression on his face to ruffle Childermass' filthy hair.
"It's good you're back, magician," Vinculus told the unconscious man quietly, an odd little smile on his face. "No-one makes life interesting like you do. Best entertainment to be had, you are. Would have been a shame if you'd been killed."
He stood back then, smiling sunnily at them all, and offered a small bow towards Stephen. "I'm away to my bed, my king," he informed them lightly, waving a hand in the air. "Wake me if anything else interesting knocks on our door, hmm?"
Stephen rubbed vaguely at his temple, but nodded at him. "I'm sure you'll be among the first to know about it," he commented wryly. "Goodnight, Vinculus. I'm sure the rest of us will not be long after you. Those of us who are not already asleep, at least." He smiled slightly towards Childermass. Thistlewitch, behind him, clearly thought they were all the most fascinating study in human oddity that she had ever seen. She smiled a fairy sort of smile, and waved a vaguely menacing goodnight to Vinculus as well. Around this point, Emma decided that perhaps, in this one respect, their prophet might have the right idea after all.
"I think we might retire as well," she decided, looking down at John, and then over at Mr Honeyfoot. "Can you two carry the idiot between you? He needs to be poured into a bed, I think. Heaven knows where he's been sleeping for the past few weeks. And no," she said, holding up a hand towards Grant. "You needn't tell me. If he hasn't been sleeping, I don't want to know about it. I'll only end up shooting him."
Grant, with an admirably blank expression, closed his mouth again. Arabella pressed a hand to hers, striving valiantly to hide her smile. Emma grinned at her, and moved across to take her hands for a moment.
"I hope Jonathan is well when you see him tomorrow," she said, very seriously. She held the other woman's hands, squeezed them comfortingly. "I'm glad that he will be returned to you, Arabella, for however long it might be. I hope all goes well for you, my dear."
Arabella blinked at her, tears gathering around the edges of her smile. She squeezed back, and then pulled Emma forward into a brief embrace. "I'm glad you got yours back as well," she said, with something not too far from composure. "Try not to shoot him. I understand the temptation, but it probably wouldn't help anything. Men are too stubborn to be moved by such things."
Emma laughed, kissing her on both cheeks before withdrawing. She looked over at Grant, and cocked an eyebrow back at Arabella. "I take it you will be showing the Major to his rooms?" she asked, a little slyly. Formality may have been clung to after the Fall of England, at least to an extent, but certain other aspects of society had been less so. Or perhaps, she admitted, it was only that they were the Council of the King, Stephen's advisors, and so could get away with so much more. "You will want to ask him some more questions, I think? About your husband?"
Arabella punched her in the shoulder in response. Only lightly. "Go put our spy to bed," she instructed coolly, her face perfectly straight to hide her smile. "The rest of us shall deal with things as sense and propriety demand. I'm sure of it."
"We're ready, Emma," John interrupted quietly. She turned to him, to meet his exhausted, tentatively peaceful expression with her own. Mr Honeyfoot stood beside him, with Childermass slung awkwardly between them. His head hung against John's chest, his hair matted and dusty still, his skinny chest all marked with bruises. She felt a surge of something, at the sight of him. A terror close to weeping, a fury at the ruin of the world around them. She felt a rush of helpless, bitter anger, and a hot, fierce desire for the army that Strange and Grant promised them. She wanted to see it. She wanted to join it. She wanted to shoot and stab and fight until every last one of those things was cleared from their path, so that they should never lose anyone to them again. She wanted it so fiercely. There were three men stood before her, friends and a king behind her, and she could not bear to lose any of them. Not even Walter, no matter how stiff things still were between them. She would give anything to protect any one of them.
They knew it, too. They saw in it her, as they saw it in each other. None of them needed sparing any longer. They all knew what they would do to keep each other safe. Some tension spooled out of her, at the thought. Some of the fury fled, since in this company it was unneeded. She moved across to touch John's cheek gently, to cup her hand for a second around Childermass'. She smiled at Mr Honeyfoot, who was a gentle soul and put up with so much from them all.
"Let's get ourselves to bed, gentlemen," she said. "We have a war to plan tomorrow, and a siege to break. We should get some rest, I think."
"Amen," said Stephen, very softly behind them. He stood straight, and calm, and immovable as the kingdom he had built. He looked at them, their saviour and their silver king, and smiled a smile that was not peaceful at all. Emma echoed it back to him, and proudly.
Yes, she thought. Tomorrow they would fight. They would plan, and fight, and win, or they would die trying. But not tonight. Tonight, they were not dead. Tonight, those who had been lost had come back to them. Tonight, they would all climb into their respective beds, with whoever it best pleased them to share with, and they would get some rest.
There was, after all, nothing so exhausting in all the world as hope and relief combined.
Tags:
- au,
- dark,
- fanfic,
- js&mn,
- the kings roads