Metropolitan Hospital – March 3rd
Rain—it was rain she was hearing. Like the teardrops of a thousand angels against windowpanes. Were they crying for her? Or were they crying with her? This, she could not determine.
Eloise wanted to reach out and feel the tears, the raindrops, hitting her cold palm. She wanted to know that she could but do such a thing. She wanted to feel a part of the place in which she resided, a bowl of white light, where nothing and no one but she sat. She wondered why he was not there with her, why neither of them had come. Certainly, wherever she had ended up, one of them must have followed. Whether heaven, or the hells of a time unchanging, ever-drifting.
Yet, there was no Frederick, and there was no John. There was Ella, alone in thought.
"Fear not. You'll dream of me, pet."
And so she did. He was there even without standing bodily at her side. His every spoken word and promise and offer, wavered over her head, within arm's reach, waiting to be pulled down and cradled safely in her keep. She could feel his mouth in places that were hidden in the midst of the white clouds. She could feel the smoothness of his marble tongue, bringing to life her every pore, satiating her limbs, corner by corner, freckle by freckle, and tremble by excruciating tremble. The ecstasy lingered. The scent of him, upon her, within her, all over her, filled the space. It calmed her until she wanted no more calm.
To replace it, was tension, and it arrived in the form of Frederick's breath. It trickled down her neck, through every curl of her hair, and across her shoulders. It melted the chill that John had left behind. It unnerved her in the best of ways, the most humane and gentle and caring of ways. His breath protected her like no stone cold kiss ever could. His body filled hers, so much so that Ella swore he was there then, in that moment, moving with her through the white space, tangled and twisted and dripping with sweat upon her breasts.
She could no longer see the line that stood between her imagination and reality. It was so fine a thing. It was so consistently crossed now, that she believed herself to be making love to him, arms safe around his neck, mouth parted and raw as it brushed against his sideburns with every swift thrust. Ella believed it all so much, that she only stopped herself once she heard the sound of the rain on windows again. She let him go, hand sliding across his chest as he disappeared. Her fingertips moved away, moist with his heat and his love, like droplets of that same rain, those same angels' teardrops for her.
That's when she realized that it wasn't a choir of angels, but only one guardian.
It was him.
"I want you, Eloise. When will I see you again?"
"Soon, I hope."
The moment she heard herself say it, somewhere in the farthest reaches of her memory, she felt her eyes opening in a way she hadn't realized they could. She thought them to already have been open, to the whiteness, the blankness of emotions and sensations and two men doing to her what she'd never believed either of them would again, let alone at fair intervals.
Ella was back to the reality. She'd crossed the line once more. And here, in this place, there was only more of the cold, and as she had guessed, rain sliding down long windows on towering walls. There were instruments that glimmered with faint light, and there was a sickening scent of coppery blood, which resembled death. Among the tastes and aromas and sights, there was but one single sound, moving faintly through the silence. It was agony. It was falling pain, teardrops from stricken eyes. It was the sobbing of a man—a thing that so rarely was a woman tribute to, and Ella, never before.
She blinked away the sleep from her eyes. She curled her tired toes beneath the white sheets.
And then she parted her lips, quivering with the cold, ready to speak. She meant only to whisper his name across the room, to use the call and bring him forth from hiding where she could not turn her neck in pain. She had intended to say 'Frederick', until he came to her side and kissed her, loved her and forgiven her. But when she forced the word in her throat, and moved her lips to form the syllables of his sweet name, nothing left but her warm breath. The word was not formed. The name was not called.
Ella had never felt as trapped as she did then, all so suddenly. She ached with longing, to ask for him, to make him come to her from wherever he was she could not see and only hear. She tried again to say his name, and once more, nothing arrived but her own exasperating breath. Beneath the sheets, she drew her hands into fists. She bit her lower lip in anger and crossed her brow defiantly. She was readied to scream for him, to make herself into an outrageous case, to go wild upon the hard wooden bed. She was going to yell for him, for anyone, when she realized that it was not going to happen. She could not form the words, or even the sounds to voice her opinion, her desperation. It was as if she had but disappeared.
Save for one thing—her tears, her own sobs.
She used them to her advantage in an instant. She cried like she had never cried before, noises made by a natural defense of emotion, rather than any speech or state of mind. And it worked, though nothing else had. For not a full moment passed, before she could hear his sobs retire beneath hers, and saw him from the corner of her eye, hurrying to her bedside. He stood as handsome as she'd ever remembered him. He spared no time in taking her wet face into his hands, in finding the spirit of alertness in her green eyes, and brushing away the tears as they fell.
"You're awake," he spoke with a trembling lip. "Oh. You came back to me, love."
His smile faded with sadness, but was there just the same.
Ella wanted to reach out and weave herself inside of his arms completely. She wanted to hide her face against his neck and tell him she was sorry, and that she'd always loved him, and that she'd been a fool. She wanted to ask him if he was alright, and check his every bone and pore for wounds—ones she knew as well were there someplace. She wanted to say words to him, words she'd always meant to and hadn't before. But with her voice playing cruel tricks on her, none of it came forth. She could only lie beneath his sweet eyes and listen to him speak.
He said, "Everything's going to be alright." And she tried to believe him.
He said, "You're safe now. He's gone." And she tried to agree with him, silently.
He said, "I love you, Eloise." And she tried to say it back. But couldn't.
"It is as well, darling." Frederick kissed her forehead as he hovered over her. "You don't need to answer me now. You need to rest only."
She shook her head tiredly in his hands, trying to make him understand her. She pulled on the collar of his shirt and the buttons of his wrinkled vest, but he could not see her meaning.
"What's wrong?"
She opened her mouth to attempt any sound possible, but all that came was a sigh, a small, throaty moan. His eyes widened nervously at the way she struggled, the way in which she remained silent but desperate for something the same. Frederick took both of her cold hands and squeezed them in his, trying to warm her.
"You're cold, yes? Is that it?"
Ella cried and shook her head up at him.
"You're in pain, then. Let me go and get the doctor—"
Before she could stop him, the buttons of his shirt loosened from her grasp. He scurried back from the bed and through the door of the large, echoing room. She was left alone, crying more deeply, waiting for the news she already felt.
It came too, when the doctor and Frederick returned together, in a storm of anxious movement around her bed. A few nurses, with their starched aprons and perfectly creased hats, lingered near each side as well. Hands moved upon her tiny body, touching limbs and places where the pain was assured to be. And yet it was not. There was nothing but a numb comfortableness when they touched her. The only struggle that existed was revealed when the doctor began to ask her questions, ones she could not and did not respond to, though she desperately tried.
A prognosis was all too soon formed.
"Miss Rousseau," the doctor spoke. "I'll need you to sit up for me."
Ella looked to Frederick, and he wrapped his arms about her tiny form, lifting her carefully. She rested in his embrace, her every bone trembling against his body as she cried with the pain and the fear of so many people circling her in silence. Then the doctor stepped in closer, with two different instruments in hand, a small reflecting mirror and the other a prodding stick. She felt her skin crawl nervously.
"I'll need for you to open your mouth as well, Eloise."
She did as she was asked, prying them open with her chattering teeth.
"A little wider," he said quietly. And she did. "That's it, very well."
He moved both instruments between her lips and studied for a long time, not saying a word, only examining in silence. Ella could feel Fred's arms growing stronger around her, his voice in her ear, whispering sentiments to calm her. It only helped so much. Because all she truly wanted then, was for him to be quiet, and for her to have the opportunity to speak to him, to reassure him of her love.
"Right." The doctor removed the tools with a sturdy eye. "Inspector Abberline," he commanded past her head. "A word with you, perhaps?"
Ella's body shook in his hold, and he felt her fear the same as his own.
"Of course," he finally answered.
He helped her to rest again in the care of the nurses, and wandered to the far side of the room with the doctor. Suddenly, standing beside the rain painted window, overlooking the drenched city, he felt as if he were back in the prenatal ward of the same hospital, being spoken to by a midwife with sorrowful tears in her eyes and an extended hand of comfort on his shoulder. He felt as though he were back at the beginning of his life's sadness, reliving it now with another woman, a new woman, Ella—the one he truly needed more than life itself.
He at last heard the older man speak in a hushed tone.
"Eloise has suffered traumatically, as you well know. Drawing from the infected bloodstream must have been done sooner to prevent this. The toxins, whatever they so be from, were beyond a control, as only now we can see. There has been damage done that I had no knowledge of beforehand."
Frederick gulped and turned his eyes to where he saw the nurses tucking Ella under the sheets, wiping the sleep and tire and tears from her eyes with a warm cloth.
"What are you saying, Doctor Phillips?"
"I suppose what I mean to say, is that the poison and infection have spread. The appearance now is one of muteness, Inspector."
His brow crossed and his head spiraled back to the old man.
"What are you talking about? No. That's not possible."
The doctor nodded gravely. "There can be no other explanation. She cannot speak. She has been taken deaf, as permanently as I can stand to guess."
"No." Fred shook his head in disagreement. "You're mistaken. Check her again. You're a bloody doctor. Help her!"
From across the room, Ella flinched at the sound of Frederick's voice raised. She saw him standing angrily before the doctor, but could not hear what the old man was saying. She could hear nothing but the sound of her own head, pounding from the inside out. It forced her to sleep, to relieve the ache. Whatever it was that had been said, or determined of her, whatever it meant at all, was of very little concern to her once she had drifted off.
There was only peace. And there, in that state, she could tell Frederick all the things she meant for him to know, forever.
