It's funny how sometimes we end up doing things we never thought we would when we are in a hopeless situation. Lemony never thought he would be seeking for help from S. Theodora Markson, of all people, but now he was bleeding in front of her door, and hoping that she really had been careless enough to make her address so easy to be found. It had been two years since he had last seen his former chaperone, two long and rough years. He hoped she wasn't still mad at the whole derailing a train business, or that at least she would remember he did get her out of prison before he left. There weren't many other people he could go to. He doubted he would last long enough to find any of them.
The last thing he saw before he passed out was a familiar mass of hair.
Lemony woke up on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. He could hear voices from somewhere outside.
His head hurt, but not as badly as it did before. He felt cleaner. His wounds were bandaged. His clothes had been changed.
These new clothes fit in a way they shouldn't if they were Theodora's. They actually fit better than even the ones she bought for him long ago ever did.
One of the voices he heard was hers. The other sounded like it was man's voice. They were arguing. No, the man kept his tone low. Theodora was scolding him?
If Lemony wasn't in so much pain, he would stand up to listen closer. From the bed he could not understand anything of what they were saying.
After agonizing minutes of wait, the door opened. Lemony expected to see Theodora, but instead it was a young man. He was taller than Lemony, or at least he seemed to be. He wore a pair of glasses in a shape that Lemony had only seen much older people using. It did make the young man look older. Behind them, a pair of blue eyes.
He carried a tray of food. Lemony's stomach decided to let its opinion be known.
"Who are you?" Lemony asked, trying at least to take the precaution of not accepting food from strangers.
"You know me." The man said, frowning.
Lemony wanted to insist that he didn't, but he was really hungry and not willing to start a fight.
"I'm not in my best shape." He said instead.
"I realized that, Lemony Snicket." The man gave him the tray. Lemony clenched his jaw. The man obviously realized he didn't know his name, but made it a point to say his full name.
He didn't refuse the food.
"My name is Bertrand Markson." The man finally said, after having had his fun.
Lemony almost dropped his fork. So, this was the golden apprentice. The famous Bertrand. Markson. No wonder Theodora loved him so much.
He watched the man from the corner of his eyes as he finished eating. He was too young to be Theodora's brother. Maybe her son? It was hard to imagine S. Theodora Markson having a family of her own. Besides, Bertrand looked nothing like her.
"What does the S stand for?" Lemony asked, giving him back the tray.
"Sure by now you should know." Bertrand said, smirking.
Lemony felt he had made a terrible mistake in letting him know he didn't.
Lemony was still unsure of what the link between Theodora and Bertrand was. They were casual towards each other, but not overly affectionate. Bertrand called her "S" (Lemony was convinced he normally used her first name, but now was using her initial just to annoy him) and she called him "B" or "Bertrand". Business terms.
He found out Bertrand was the one who cleaned and bandaged his wounds and changed his clothes. He also did seemingly all chores in the house. Theodora never offered help and he never asked for it. Lemony was glad he didn't have to eat Theodora's food again, and Bertrand was a decent cook. Still, that arrangement seemed just wrong.
Theodora didn't spend a lot of time at home, and when she did she was never around the boys. Lemony had to remind himself that she was a volunteer and was probably drowning work with everything going on in the organization lately.
Bertrand was a quiet company. He mostly left Lemony alone in the room, which he appreciated. He didn't let him skip meals and gave him painkillers and books to read. He left home once in a while to buy groceries or to do other things Lemony didn't care to know. But mostly he stayed there, taking care of the house and of the guest.
He didn't talk much. Mostly, he was a mystery. Lemony only liked mysteries that he had the solution of.
One day Lemony found Bertrand reading a script.
"Is that for a play?"
"Yes." He answered flatly.
"Do you act?" Lemony knew a few actors. Bertrand didn't strike him as the type.
Bertrand nodded. "I'm trying to get a role."
"What sort of play is it?"
"It's something for the organization." He shrugged, as if that explained everything.
Something wasn't right in there.
"You're not an actor, are you? You act, but that's not what you really want to do."
"It helps the organization and it pays my bills." Bertrand said, closing the script. "We don't always get to do what we want to do."
It was true, but he was too young to believe that. They both were.
"What is it that you truly want to do?" Lemony asked.
Bertrand seemed deep in thought for a moment.
"What is it that you truly want to do, Lemony Snicket?" He asked back.
To fix everything that is wrong with the world. To get rid of the trouble that followed him. To go back to those he cared about.
"I am not sure yet."
"You are too hard on her." Bertrand said, unprompted, as he took the dirty dishes to the kitchen. Like often, it was just the two of them that night.
"Who?" Lemony asked.
"S. She cares about you."
Lemony frowned. He hadn't exchanged even a few words with Theodora in the last couple of days.
"What makes you say so?" He asked, following Bertrand.
"It's clear in the way you look at her. You have resentments. You shouldn't. She is doing a lot to keep you alive."
"With all due respect, Markson," Lemony said, remembering a girl who always used that expression. "She is not doing anything. You are the one keeping me alive."
"With all due respect, Snicket," Bertrand said, his eyes never leaving his work. "If it was up to me, you would be on the streets as soon as you woke up."
Lemony didn't know how to reply to that.
So, the golden boy considered him a burden. He didn't act like that, even after that conversation. He was still nothing but polite to Lemony.
Lemony never liked this sort of people. They were dangerous. You never knew what side they were on.
He stayed up two nights in hopes of listening to Bertrand and Theodora arguing again. If Bertrand didn't like having to care for Lemony, he surely must express so at some point. If he didn't let his frustration out at Lemony, he must do so at Theodora.
He heard nothing.
Lemony was healing well. He hoped to be able to leave soon.
"Do you plan on going back to the organization?" Bertrand asked him over lunch.
Again, Theodora was not there. They seemed to only have conversations when she was not there.
"I don't have a choice, do I?"
Bertrand gave a half shrug. "It's voluntary."
"We both know these are just words."
Bertrand frowned.
"Do you feel trapped, Snicket?"
"Don't you?"
"You shouldn't go back." Bertrand mumbled. "If your heart isn't it, you should just stay away."
That mystery was going on for too long. It took some time, but finally Lemony got to stay on his own in the house.
He realized for the first time that the house had only two rooms. The one where he was staying, and Theodora's. Unless Bertrand was there temporarily, which didn't seem to be the case, then that room had to be not a guest room, as Lemony guessed, but Bertrand's room.
Nothing in it gave it any personality. He found what he supposed to be Bertrand's clothes in the wardrobe, but that was it. There were portraits. The books on the shelves didn't point to any particular interest: a few random poets, a few famous novels, some VFD's basic manuals. Maybe he had moved his more personal belongings somewhere else due to Lemony staying there.
He was disappointed to find nothing but shoe boxes under the bed.
Lemony wasn't looking forward to checking Theodora's room, but there was nothing interesting in the living room, the kitchen or the bathroom. Nothing that gave away any information on Bertrand.
Theodora's room was just the opposite. There was a lot to see there.
Her bed was a mess. She seemed to be the sort of person who used many pillows, including one to simply hold. There were brushes of different shapes on her nightstand, all full of hair, resting over a book about cars. There was also a portrait, the only one around, of her and Bertrand, both looking younger and happier. Everyone always looks younger and happier in portraits. Theodora held Bertrand in a maternal way, an adjective Lemony never expected to associate with her. The portrait seemed to show that their family was only the two of them.
Her desk contained another book about cars and a lot of papers that seemed to be about work. Personal correspondence he didn't care to check. A collection of cat shaped trinkets. One of them, a paperweight in the shape of a cat showing its belly, with a ribbon with horizontal stripes in shades of pink around its neck, seemed to be staring at him. This is not what you came here for. You know where you want to check.
Lemony knelt down and looked under Theodora's bed.
There was a wooden box, too short and too large for shoes. This was the good stuff. Lemony only hesitated for a moment, afraid of maybe learning more than he wished to about Theodora. But then he thought of Bertrand, and went on.
It was full of pictures, most of them in black and white, but a few in colors. Theodora looked much younger, and much happier. There were other people with her. Two men he supposed to be related to her somehow, if only because he refused to believe they could not be when they had all that hair. Some other familiar faces of older volunteers he knew during his training, and others that he didn't exactly know but that reminded him a lot of his colleagues. One black and white picture showed all of them when they were not much older than Lemony was now, all laughing and showing their ankles to the camera.
All volunteers, as Lemony had suspected.
As the years passed, the group got smaller. There was one person, however, who was in all the pictures, almost always by Theodora's side. It was a woman with dark hair and blue eyes. She looked as young as Theodora, but not as happy. No, she was smiling but she didn't look happy at all. In the most recent pictures, they were often one with an arm over the other's shoulder or around the other's waist.
Lemony had never seen that woman before, but her eyes looked very familiar.
Suddenly, it all clicked together. He placed the pictures back in the box, almost afraid of his conclusion. His eyes went back to the cat shaped trinket.
There was a saying about a cat that applied to his current situation.
Lemony placed the box back in its place, and went back to Bertrand's room. There, he put everything that was out of place back into place. He was not leaving a mess behind.
Then, he left the house, not planning on going back.