Hare and Hatter

For the person who asked, I've been working off the manga. I have yet to see the anime but in the manga the Barma scene goes as follows: Illusion Barma jumps out of the private box into the balcony and then Alice kicks him off the balcony into the lower audience where the rest of the fun happens. Maybe they cut out the middleman in the anime and just had Barma in the balcony to begin with. Hope that clears up the confusion.

Meanwhile I had the most horrible time getting Gil to say what I wanted him to say, he seemed determined to take an eternity to get to the point. Poor fellow's too nervous to be brief. Please tell me what you think.

Part Two

Chapter Twenty-six

Liam slowly came to the realization that he was sitting. When had he sat in a chair? And why was it suddenly chilly?

The usual weight of his coat on his shoulders was gone. When had he taken his coat off?

"Mister Liam?" the recognizable voice of Raven made him look up to see that the man was standing next to him, a bloody cloth in one upraised hand. "Can you… hear me?" Raven asked cautiously.

"Of course I can hear-" Memory returned in that moment and he went to stand -Break collapsed against him, mouth bloody, his jacket torn open to show- Raven's hand on his shoulder kept him in his seat. "Where's Break?"

Raven was frowning at him. "He's still in the theatre. Oz is dealing with him."

"Where is…" Liam glanced around then recognized the room they were in as a small alcove of the lobby, separated from the main theatre by distance and draperies. "How did I get out here?"

"You don't… remember?" Raven asked.

"No." Liam touched his sleeve, it was cold out here, theaters were built to be warmed mainly by the press of people in them, empty they were chilly. "What happened to my coat?"

"Um," Raven's eyes darted from side to side, looking for help, but there was no one to save him. "You took it off."

"I… did?"

"You put it over Break. In the theatre."

"I don't remember that."

"You were, um, sort of not there at the time." he offered Liam a weak smile, "After… you know, Lord Barma said Break had done all those things you sort of… well, it it was like we were talking to you but you just couldn't hear us. Lord Barma even shouted at you. Are you sure you don't remember any of this?"

"I don't. I don't remember anything after…" he winced in memory and reached up to touch the side of his head. It was aching and he could feel that his hair was matted with blood.

Raven held out the bloody cloth for him to take, explaining, "Head wounds. They bleed a lot."

He took his hand from the wound and noticed that his fingers had fresh blood on them. "It's still bleeding?" taking the cloth from Raven he held it to the side of the head, which was what Raven had apparently been doing while he'd wandered off to the land of shocked revelations. "Is that… normal?"

"Head wounds," Raven repeated with a shrug. "Um, do you feel dizzy? That happens sometimes when people get hit in the head."

There was something strangely amusing about Raven tentatively trying to give him advice like he'd never had any kind of field training and in another situation he might have chuckled at the absurdity of it. However at this very moment he wasn't feeling especially inclined to chuckle at things.

There had been a betrayal. Things were never going to be quite that same.

"I don't." he told Raven, who had been waiting all this time for an answer.

"You still look kind of… um, distant." The vaguely concerned look on Raven's face was starting to annoy Liam, especially since there were much larger things he would rather have worried about than why it was still on Raven's face.

"I'm alright." He told the other man but those words didn't exactly ring true when he went to get up and ended up clutching his head, still seated as small lights flashed in front of his eyes.

Seeing this Raven gave a yelp and went to try to steady him with a hand on either shoulder, presumably in case he fell from his chair. After a moment where Liam waited for the world to stop aching quite so much he raised his head and sighed to find one of the hands he had clapped to his head was bloody and his glove was now beyond saving. "That really is annoying." He pulled the glove off with a sigh.

There was a strange noise from Raven, who had still had his hands on his shoulders but when Liam looked curiously up at him withdrew quickly.

"Something wrong?" he asked the man.

"Um… nothing," Raven said. He went to the small table nearby and picked something up from it. "They had some bandages backstage… and you're still bleeding."

Liam held out his hand for the bandages and then paused; realizing that tying it around his own head was going to be difficult to do neatly.

As if he was reading his mind Raven offered, "I can help, if you want."

"Thank you." Liam said, wondering why the man had returned to starring at his hand. Then he remembered he'd taken off his glove and switched the cloth he'd been dabbing blood away with to cover the hand, hoping the movement looked casual.

Raven took up the bandages and moved around behind him. "You have a lot of scars on your hand." he said.

"Really. Do I?" Liam replied neutrally.

After a pause Raven wound the bandage around his head, making sure it crossed the wound. "You don't do fieldwork," he said as he worked, "and as far as I know you don't have weapons training. So… why do you have scars?"

Tilting his head back Liam looked up at Raven, "That would be none of your business." he said levelly.

"No, no," Raven waved his hands in front of him, "I get it, really. I was a servant before I was adopted into the Nightray family; I've seen plenty of servants abused by their masters before."

"I am not-"

"And I know how hard it is to go against your master, even when you don't like what he does." Raven was talking right over him, not even giving him a chance to respond. "But Lord Barma can't just hit you like that! You might not be a noble but you have rights too, you can quit. I'll help you find a better employer."

"In Pandora?" He interjected skeptically. Raven had neglected to tuck in the end of the bandage when he let it go so the cloth was sliding loose, Liam put a hand up to catch it. "My contract to Pandora is linked with my contract to Lord Barma I can't leave one without leaving the other. Besides, you're mistaken, there's no reason for me to want to leave Lord Barma's service."

Seeing Liam hold the bandage Raven realized he'd forgotten to tuck the end in and reached forward to do just that. "But he hits-"

"Raven, that was one time when I stepped into the way. You've let your imagination get away with you."

That didn't seem to convince the other man, who was still frowning at him. "Liam, everyone knows, I mean, Lord Barma's temper is common knowledge around the upper ranks of Pandora."

He rose, brushing off Raven's hands and shook his head. "I have no idea why you are trying to imply what you're implying but you have it completely wrong. Lord Barma might be… erratic but that does not mean he'd cruel. And," he turned his back on Raven's expression of concern, "This isn't the time for this. We have other things to worry about."

"What do you mean?"

As he lowered his voice Liam was extremely thankful Raven had taken the bait. "Do you really think that Duke Barma is just going to let Break leave now that he knows he's spent so much time in the Abyss? He could even try to bring the charges from when he was Kevin Regnard against him again."

"…he can do that?"

"He can and he probably will." Liam said grimly. "We need to get Break out of here as soon as possible. Lord Barma will want to interrogate him, most likely he'll do it right after he wakes. There's nothing we can do to stop that but as soon as he's finished then you need to get him back to the Rainsworth estate, he'll be safe from Lord Barma there."

"What excuse are you going to give Duke Barma for coming with us?"

"I'm not."

"What?" Raven's voice was sharp.

Liam's voice was as steady as he could make it. He would think about Break's betrayal and what it meant later, right now he had to focus on keeping his master from doing something horrible to his fr- to Break. "I'll stay with Lord Barma. Hopefully I kind find something to distract him long enough for all of you to get out of his reach."

"But you'll-"

He cut Raven off with an upraised hand. "I'll be fine. Just focus on getting Break to safety. That's what's important right now."

TBC