Chapter Two

I didn't want to b-be alone…

Phileas sat bolt upright, a cold sweat trickling down his skin as he gripped the blanket with white-knuckled ferocity.

The memories could not be said to have come flooding back. They had been there all along, incessantly, in his sleep. At the instant of his waking, they crystalized for a single moment, then faded slightly—more dreamlike now than when they had entangled his unconscious mind. Only the pain did not abate. Fear, anger, shame… pain was the one word to suit them all.

He had almost destroyed everything that meant anything to him.

The images were dark and distorted, but the physical memory of violence lingered within his body itself, confirming the horrors. Most clear in his mind were fragments of that final ordeal at Balmoral, and strangely, he seemed almost to have two separate sets of memories of it: that of a broken man more dead than alive, and that of a child, confused and afraid. He wasn't certain which of those had been the one to walk out of that room, after the long struggle up from the darkness, into the sunlight of sanity and Rebecca's sweet smile.

But he had walked out. He was alive.

Rebecca…

Swallowing hard, he finally took note of his surroundings, as the remembered horrors retreated from behind his eyes. He was in his cabin on the Aurora. A blue-black night sky showed through the porthole, the small room lit only by a lamp burning low on the dressing-table—and at the edge of its amber circle of light sat Passepartout, his chin hanging down to his chest as the faintest of gurgling snores emerged from him.

Phileas' heart turned over, and a few of the memories slid a little deeper into the abyss.

Passepartout was alive, and safe… and with him. His loyalty that knew no bounds had stationed him at Phileas' bedside. Just this once, he had sensed and understood his master's need for the comfort of a simple human presence.

Yes, Passepartout was safe. But…

Slowly Phileas rose from the bed, and as he did so, an amazing collection of physical pains caused him to wince and look down at himself. His head ached monstrously, and strained muscles made their presence known within, but the outward injuries were more disturbing. Faded needle tracks marked his forearms; his left shoulder was one tremendous bruise, and his upper right arm was bandaged.

He grimaced as one of the memories stirred above the rest. The pain of a blade sliding across his skin was clear, but the face of his attacker was shadowed and shifting…

Rebecca.

He swayed slightly and closed his eyes. My God.

With slow and hesitant movements he began to dress. As he was buttoning his shirt, his shadow fell across Passepartout, and the valet started awake. His mouth popped open for an instant before he lurched to his feet.

"Master, you should not being awake," he said softly—although he automatically began to help with the sleeve buttons.

Phileas' mind momentarily boggled at the utter simplicity of Passepartout's actions. There was no reluctance, no hesitation, to render his care to the man who must have almost killed him. Who thought he had killed him.

They understood, then, something of what had been done to him. They knew what it had to have taken to cause him to harm them, even when he knew not what he did.

"Need to see Rebecca," Phileas rasped. "Just… see her."

There was something amiss about his clothes, or rather certain deficiencies thereof. His eyes passed over the end of the bed, in search of his waistcoat.

Oh.

His hands twitched at the memory of the lead wires they had held. He clenched them into fists, a slight tremor passing through him. Or not so slight; Passepartout evidently felt it through his battle with the sleeve cuffs, and looked up sharply.

"I… am being so very, very sorry to have hurted you, Master."

The words made Phileas flinch, as again his memory cast up darkened visions of violence. He shut them out with a fierce shake of his head. "If you hadn't, things would have… I might have…" He took a deep breath. "Thank you for it, my friend."

In the act of smoothing imaginary wrinkles on Phileas' left sleeve, Passepartout's only response was a brief tightening of his hand on his master's arm. The grip lingered for merely a second, but it spoke more than words ever could.

Phileas made a small dismissive gesture when Passepartout moved to retrieve a fresh vest and suitcoat. His appearance was ragged by his usual standards, but he didn't care. He wasn't sure he would ever care again. All pretense and triviality was gone in the face of the weight within him, the heaviness of his heart and his conscience.

With small, deliberate steps and with Passepartout following closely, he walked out of his cabin and moved to Rebecca's door. He felt like a child seeking the security of his parents' bed during a storm, but it just didn't matter.

In silence he opened the door, and his heart fluttered painfully at the sight of Rebecca laying asleep in her bed. Her face was pale and shadowed with the lingering struggles of the day; even so, it must have been a wondrous feat for Passepartout and Verne to coax her to sleep at all. He knew she would have long refused to leave his side, because had their places been reversed, he would have done the same.

He wanted more than anything for her to be awake, to sit with him and recall to him stories of their childhood—to ground him in his life, in what he was and had been. But he would not wake her.

You're dead. I killed you. I'm dead, too.

She had suffered enough by him.

He closed the door. She too was alive and safe; that was all that mattered.

Verne.

Phileas made his way to the spiral staircase. Passepartout did not seem surprised, and followed him down without a word.

The sofa where Verne always slept was empty, and a twinge of alarm passed through Phileas—but then he noticed a silhouette against the forward windows. Verne was standing by the helm, stargazing, or merely lost in thought.

Passepartout discreetly retreated to the kitchen, and Phileas stepped forward to join Verne. The younger man turned at the sound of footsteps, his expression quirking with uneasy startlement in the silver-blue moonlight.

"Fogg…? You should be resting!"

Gravely Phileas shook his head, stepping past Verne to lean on the forward railing and gaze out. The sky was cloudless, but its starlit sapphire expanse offered him no comfort.

Perhaps after a week or two of having Rebecca, Jules and Passepartout in his constant sight, the creeping dread in his heart might be almost bearable. That, however, would be a rather impractical arrangement—and Phileas was a practical man. With his own eyes he had seen each of them alive and well, and intellectually if in no other fashion, he had accepted it beyond all doubt. That would have to suffice.

"Fogg… are you alright?" Verne's voice sounded as feeble as if he knew how idiotic the question was, but Phileas had no cynical retort to offer.

No pretense. Gripping the railing, Phileas lowered his head and sighed deeply. "No, Verne… I'm not. At the moment… I'm not certain that I'll ever b-be alright again." Blast. The stammer slipped by, despite his effort to speak slowly and carefully, and he clenched his teeth. Not enough the rest of this horror—must I overcome that bloody impediment all over again, as well?

Verne took a step closer. Surely he had begun to realize that it was more than simply drugs which had ravaged Phileas, chemicals already fading from his system. His mind had been preyed upon in the most calculating and devastating of psychological warfare. Memories, even of lies, could be dulled in time, but their damage was already done.

In that moment, oddly enough, he sympathized with Verne. A dangerous life having made his sleep light and ever-wary, he'd always grumbled with affected annoyance when he was awakened by the soft outcries with which Verne's too-frequent night terrors sometimes ended—even though he would slip downstairs to stand unnoticed in the dark, watching over him until sleep returned. Now, he felt he understood.

"How do you face the nightmares, Jules?"

Feeling the younger man's uncertain hand placed for a moment on his back, he raised his head. He needed to move. He pushed himself away from the railing and slowly paced, rubbing his palms together. Wishing that Rebecca were awake.

I didn't want to be alone…

The remembered words gave him pause, and he shot a glance at Verne. Yes, he had heard those words, and seen the tears of emotions stripped utterly naked by the torments real and imagined. Verne had been witness—along with Queen Victoria and an entire roomful of assembled royalty.

Bloody hell.

There was no going back now—least of all with Verne.

Phileas sagged against the railing once more, but turned his head to gaze at Verne with a steady if weary eye. His friend was still looking at him as if he were a ghost, but that might not have been so far from the truth anyway.

"Tell me what happened, Verne. What really happened."

Verne gaped, hesitated a moment, then slowly began to speak. His words were too simple to encompass the magnitude of the horrors; but then, he clearly did not know all of it. "It was the League. They… they drugged you very heavily, Fogg. They drugged the rest of us, too, to bring out our fears and trick us. To try to make us all believe that you'd…" He shivered and looked away abruptly.

"I saw Count Gregory's minions." A shudder ran the length of Phileas' spine as he forced himself to look into the memories, but with a will he restrained his emotions from his voice. "…It was you, wasn't it? You, and Rebecca, and Passepartout."

"You didn't know that," Verne asserted swiftly. "They made you see what they wanted you to see."

"Did they." Phileas' voice was flat, impassive, and evidently somewhat alarming to Jules.

"Fogg…"

He raised a hand, breathing deeply. "McLean told me that… that I had b-been… conditioned." The word caught in his throat. At Verne's look of concerned puzzlement he said, "Not them. My father. Conditioned, to b-be a… a killing machine… in the service of Her Majesty." With a fierce stab of shame, he fought to keep a trace of bitterness from his voice as he spoke the honorific. The grip of the deceit was still powerful.

Even in the washed-out colors of the moonlight, he could see Verne become pale. "Fogg, you know that isn't true." For a moment, he sounded as if he was saying it as much to reassure himself as his friend.

"Yes," Phileas quietly hissed. He turned away, tightening his hands on the rail, and closed his eyes. "And that is the worst of it, Verne. How could I… b-blame others… for what I myself chose to b-b-become?"

There was an ugly sort of gratification in the silence that followed. Jules Verne, a writer, a man of words, could find no words to respond.

"You are not a killing machine, Fogg." The blunt reply, at last, was spoken in a slow and deliberate tone. Verne believed it.

Verne was a very naïve young man.

And yet…

You're not a monster.

The words were Rebecca's, and the sudden memory of them made Phileas flinch. Rebecca might lie to him about many things, but never about himself.

With a choked whimper, Phileas retreated to the table, where he sank down onto the edge of the sofa and raised his hands to his face. The sobs that wracked his lean frame were deep but silent, fury without sound. Tears had never been enough to release his burdens.

He'd long ago ceased to count the number of times he had questioned his own sanity. He knew now how foolish he had been each time. Now he had looked into the depths of true madness—perhaps looked at last into the deepest depths of his own soul—and he knew that for him, there was only one road to that particular hell.

I don't want to be alone…

Light footsteps crossed the deck, and Verne sat down—but only at the opposite end of the table, maintaining a sensitive distance. Good. He was there, and that would suffice.

Phileas found a certain comfort in that respectful space between them. He was as ever untouchable, yet he was never alone—never abandoned by those who knew, who saw past the mercurial affectations, even past the darkness, and saw in him what he would never see. Their sight was his salvation from himself.

I don't want to be alone.

They knew. They always had.

And Phileas Fogg was not alone.

Morning.

Rebecca stirred and sighed, feeling like several counties' worth of bad road. Whatever armies she had been wrestling, she hoped she'd won. Considering that she felt the familiar, comforting vibrations of the Aurora beneath her, it seemed safe to assume that she had.

Then she remembered the previous two days, and all her drowsy indifference vanished.

Phileas.

Giving a glance to the sunlight streaming through the porthole, she ground out some choice curses and began to hurry on her clothes. Only Passepartout's assurances that Phileas would sleep the night through, and that he would wake her before dawn, had convinced her to sleep. Yet the sun must have been up for at least an hour now.

Dressed enough to at least let others pretend she was a proper lady, she quit her cabin and crossed over to Phileas' door. Softly she turned the handle, and holding her breath, looked in.

The room was empty, its narrow bed neatly made.

Rebecca's heart skipped a beat, and she rushed to the spiral staircase. Her anxious footfalls rang loudly on the steps, until some instinct gave her pause; she slowed, and descended the rest of the way in a thoughtful silent glide.

Passepartout was at the helm. Jules was sitting at the table; his notebook lay open an arm's length away, for once abandoned. Instead his attention was raptly focused on the pale, drawn face of Phileas Fogg, who sat half-reclining on the sofa behind the table—asleep.

Conflicting emotions swept through Rebecca. Despite the anguish that pierced her through when she saw Phileas, thinking again of what he had endured, her heart warmed a little as she looked at Jules. She had more than once seen Phileas when he stood wraithlike in the shadows, watching their young friend settle himself after his nightmares. To find Jules returning the favor unawares touched her deeply.

Jules turned his head, meeting her eyes, and gave her a small, sad smile. Not quite succeeding at returning it, she moved closer with soundless steps. Reaching Jules' side, she stopped and gazed down at her dear cousin.

Phileas' face was turned toward the sunlight that poured through the forward windows, warming his pallor and softly illuminating every detail of his features: thinned lips, long eyelashes resting against graceful cheeks, the small and faded dueling scar near the corner of his left eye. Despite his exhausted gauntness, for once in his life, his expression was oddly serene.

He was so beautiful.

Quietly Jules stood up and stepped away from the table, moving to look over Passepartout's shoulder. Rebecca followed him, speaking in a voice just above a whisper. "When did he wake up? Why isn't he in bed?"

"It was very late… or very early. He wouldn't go back to bed, but he finally drifted off. I… don't think he wanted to be alone." Jules blinked wearily, and on closer examination, Rebecca could see the dark smudges under his eyes; he had sat up all night. She frowned in disapproval. After being drugged, clouted very soundly at least once, and enduring numerous other physical and mental strains, he needed rest as much as any of them.

"You should have waked me," she sighed. Then she glanced back at Phileas, with a darker expression. "Jules… what does he remember?"

The writer's eyes took on new shadows. "Too much."

Rebecca's teeth ground together. She wanted to find the men who had caused all this pain and crush them into very tiny particles. Slowly. With her bare hands.

Instead, she mustered a calm tone of voice. "Passepartout, will you see about breakfast? I know we may have no appetites just now," she added quickly, forestalling Jules' impending declaration to that effect, "but we need to keep our strength up. Besides, Phileas should eat when he wakes."

In full agreement, or perhaps simply in the interest of having something better to do, Passepartout trotted off to the kitchen. Over a steaming cup of the valet's fine coffee, Jules was soon recounting to Rebecca all the things Phileas had said—about what he really saw when he attacked them, and the lies he had been told. By the time he was finished, Rebecca was pacing, and had to swallow back her tears before she could look again at her cousin.

"It's unbearable," she breathed, gazing at Phileas' still figure on the sofa. For the first time in her memory, he looked… fragile. "How they must have torn him apart to make him believe these things, even for a moment."

"Rebecca, he's going to be alright," Jules said behind her, prompting her to turn. "Without that poison working on him, he's safe now—and he's sane." He sighed. "I know he's been hurt. But he's strong enough to make it through this. And if I know that… then I'm sure you know it, too."

There it was again, the elusive quiet strength of that dear boy, reminding Rebecca that Jules was not a boy after all—he was a mature and uncommonly capable young man. She looked away, hiding the sudden dampness in her eyes.

"Oh, I want to kill them, Jules. I want to set after them this very moment, hunt them down like the animals they are—"

"But you're not going to, are you?" Her friend looked steadily at her, with a wiser gaze than a man of his youth had any right to possess.

She smiled sadly in response. "No, Jules. I'm not." Her tone was almost defeated, but her eyes were fierce with protective devotion. "Phileas needs me. Sir Jonathan is investigating, and if he turns up anything, he'll inform me. He knows better than not to."

Jules almost smiled, understanding perfectly well what that meant.