Bunny.

'Bunny? Can you hear me? Bunny?'

I opened my eyes with some effort, immediately regretting it as a flash of pain seared through my skull, the dim light of the room piercing my eyes like hot needles.

'...A. J.?'

'Thank the gods,' Raffles muttered beneath his breath. In a moment I felt his hand behind my head and a glass of water raised to my mouth. 'Take a sip, Bunny. It'll help.'

'What happened?' I groaned, barely managing to wet my lips before I felt myself reeling. My head was throbbing and waves of hot and cold nausea were washing over me. When I attempted to lift my hand to take the glass from Raffles, I found myself as weak as a half-drowned kitten. It was distinctly unpleasant, and more than a little embarrassing. 'Where am I?'

'You're all right,' he replied. 'You're still in my rooms; you weren't out for more than a few minutes. Lie back down, Bunny, and stop trying to move about so much!'

I did as I was told, and as I acquiesced to A. J.'s surprisingly tender ministrations, I felt a breeze from the open window sweep over me, cool and refreshing against my hot, clammy skin. The fresh April air carried with it the sweet scent of early-budding blossoms, and there was not a hint to my lungs of any of the usual choking fog which suffocated the city at all hours. In my fragile state the sensation was almost surreal.

'Am I dead?' I heard myself asking.

Raffles' hand came to rest upon my shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. 'Not dead, old chap; merely fainted.'

'Oh, god…' I winced, struggling to cover my face with my hands. 'I'm sorry.'

'You've nothing to be sorry for, Bunny,' Raffles replied, gently seizing my wrists and guiding my hands away from my broken head. 'Now be a good chap and stay still. You'll feel better much sooner if you do; and I wouldn't try opening your eyes again for a while either, if I were you. I don't doubt you have a devil of a headache, and the light will only aggravate it. Now, I'm going to leave you for just a minute to call for a doctor, but I'll only be in the hallway. I'll be just a minute, Bunny. All right?'

'No!' I cried — or, rather, I intended to cry, finding the word caught in my dry throat, clanging its way back into my aching head. 'No, Raffles. I don't need a doctor,' I croaked, falling helplessly back on the pillow, having barely managed to lift myself from it. 'I don't want a doctor.'

'I rather think you do,' said Raffles, laying his hand against the side of my face, tilting my head carefully from side to side, humming censoriously to himself as he inspected me.

'Please,' I murmured back, 'I don't want to see a doctor. I'll be fine, Raffles. It's nothing. I'm fine.'

'Bunny…'

I looked up at him then, in spite of the pain still thrumming through my skull, and found his handsome face grey with solicitous concern, his clear eyes dark with worry as they looked me over, his strong hand still gently pressed against my cheek. 'I'm fine, Raffles,' I said. 'I promise. No doctors. I hate doctors. They ask questions, and— Please, Raffles: no — doctors.'

A muscle in Raffles' jaw clenched, and his eyes bore into me for a moment, and then he shrugged. 'I won't force you to do anything you don't want to, Bunny — but I really think you ought to be looked at by a professional. You took a nasty whack to the head; I know from experience how deuced unpleasant they can be.'

'Thank you,' I said, closing my eyes, relaxing again, knowing I could trust him at his word. 'But I'll be all right.'

'Will you?' he asked. 'How do you know?' Still, despite his evident dissatisfaction, Raffles let the matter drop and climbed onto the bed. I felt his soft mattress sink as he swung his long legs up to rest beside me. 'How do you feel?' he asked, pressing the back of his hand carefully against my forehead. 'You're cooling down, at least.'

'I'm fine.'

'Tell me the truth,' he scolded me. 'I won't make you see a doctor if you insist against it, but don't lie to me, Bunny.'

For a moment I considered doing just that, but quite frankly I was too exhausted. And I trusted him; Raffles wouldn't force me into anything I truly didn't want, no matter how strongly he disagreed with me. I didn't have to lie to him. Not about this.

'...I feel terrible,' I murmured, leaning into his touch. 'As though I had drunk ten gallons of seawater.'

Raffles chuckled, quietly. 'That's very specific, rabbit. I hope you aren't speaking from experience?'

'No,' I said, turning, despite his orders to stay still, to rest my pounding head in his lap. 'But this is exactly how I'd imagine it would feel, if I did drink the ocean. I feel like — like all of my blood had been replaced with salt water and is evaporating in the sun.'

'A writer's description if ever I heard one! Very poetic and entirely useless. ...I take it you mean to say you feel rather bad?'

'Yes. And my head aches like hell.'

'If you'd lie still, incorrigible creature, you might give that head of yours chance to recover!' Even as he chastised me for fidgeting, A. J. repositioned himself to allow me to cuddle up closer to him, and he stroked a hand over my hair. '...You gave me quite the fright there, my fainting rabbit.'

'Sorry,' I said again, feeling warmth rush to my ears as a fresh wave of embarrassment flooded over me. 'I didn't mean to—'

'Shh, shh; none of that. It's me who should be sorry, if anyone should—' Raffles hesitated. '...Has this happened to you before, Bunny?'

I took a moment before I replied, wondering again whether I could lie, whether I should lie, and coming once again to the conclusion that I would neither benefit from deceiving Raffles, nor succeed in the attempt.

'...Yes.'

'Often?'

'You've seen it yourself when I panic, and—'

'—But not like this,' he insisted. 'Not to the point of unconsciousness, Bunny. Does that happen often?'

'No.'

'First time?'

I grimaced. '...No.'

'How many times in your life?'

'I don't know,' I muttered, wincing, tiring of this Raffleite inquisition. 'Not many. I haven't lost consciousness in a long time. Years since the last time — years and years. I thought I'd gotten over it, grown out of it— It's not something grown men should do.'

'Oh, Bunny,' Raffles sighed, offering no further words of either sympathy nor interrogation, instead simply continuing to run his fingers carefully through my hair. I joined him in his silence, grateful for it.

Between the steady rhythms of Raffles' breathing and the sheer exhaustion from my attack, I found myself soon drifting on the edge of consciousness. My thoughts began to take on a weird slant, as they often tend to do between waking and dreaming.

Shadows cast across the walls by the dying sunlight turned to reaching hands as the bed dissolved beneath me, claws reaching out to catch hold of me for god only knows what purpose. But then, as though carried on wings, I found myself soaring up and away from them, up toward the Heavens, a world of clouds and blue skies and endless eternity, intangible music, and spring blossoms on the breeze. And then the place filled with faces I almost recognised but couldn't quite name, distant and familiar and cold — but for Raffles. He appeared through the mists with a smile and an outstretched hand, casting the landscape suddenly in soft pinks and warmth, chasing fear and uncertainty from my racing heart.

But then, just as I called to him, just as I reached for him, Raffles began to fade. I ran, but could never catch up — I tripped — I fell: and I kept falling; free-falling from the clouds, through the earth, through fire and deep-delved diamonds until I found myself staring into pits of pure nothingness, hanging above infinity on a silver thread. I tried to yell, but my throat was caught, choked in knots of silk, and cords of blue cigarette smoke. When I looked up, I saw him, saw A. J., staring down at me, shouting words I could not hear. I reached out to him, turned to try and climb up to him — but the thread holding me snapped, and I was cast out, tumbling downwards, crashing through bars of iron and chains of pearls into endless marble-green waves; completely and utterly alone.

I startled myself with a violent flinch, l a shudder jolting through my whole body as an involuntary cry escaped my lips. I hadn't realised I was asleep until I had woken up. For a second I remained lost, but I soon found myself guided back to my senses by the gentle hand of Raffles shaking my shoulder, and his soft voice uttering quiet, calming words into my ear until my hypnopompic heart rate began finally to steady. I took a deep breath, held back a pathetic whimper, and nuzzled myself nearer to him, burying my face in his jacket without shame, seeking and finding comfort in his closeness. And as I moved, I realised I was wearing neither my collar nor my tie, and that my waistcoat was undone; Raffles' work, I supposed. The thoughtfulness and consideration of the gesture almost overwhelmed me.

'A. J.?'

'I'm here, Bunny.'

'Promise?'

'I promise.'

I didn't know how long I'd been lost to half-awake dreams, but through the open window I could see that the sun had fallen beyond the horizon, casting the sky in a wash of reds and purples behind the charcoal outline of the rooftops. And yet, for all the time that must have passed, Raffles hadn't moved, hadn't left me, had stayed in silent watch over me as I slept; my steadfast guardian angel — or devil, perhaps. That detail mattered less than the fact he was mine.

'How are you so good?' I half-mumbled, finding his hand with mine. 'You're so good, A. J.'

'Good? I'm not sure that's quite the word I'd use to describe me, Bunny,' he answered me with a soft chuckle. 'Are you quite awake, old boy?'

'Mm, no — I mean, yes, I am awake, but — I mean you're good at this, at being— Other people would have made it worse, or would've made me feel as though— But you don't— you never…' I trailed off. 'You're very good at looking after me. That's all I mean.'

'You look after me often enough, when I get myself into scrapes. Only fair that I return the favour, eh? And what better task than watching over my little rabbit — I can think of none pleasanter!'

I shifted in his arms, pushing myself up so that I might better look at him, blinking myself awake, fighting against both my swimming head and Raffles' continued protestations that I stay still. 'But you knew exactly what to do, Raffles; how? And — you're so calm! Carrying me to the bed, and my collar's off, my waistcoat, the water, the window... You didn't even flinch, A. J. I know it's not— I'm not— It's not dignified,' I grimaced. 'And yet still you're somehow so prepared for everything, just as you always are. You're so — unfazed!'

'It's simply common sense, isn't it?' said he after a tellingly short pause, avoiding my gaze, taking disinterested interest in a button on his cuff. 'Anyone would do the same.'

'No,' I answered, seriously. 'It's really not, and they really wouldn't. When it's happened before, if anyone else has been around—' I closed my eyes as I broke away from that unpleasant sentence and rested my head against his shoulder, holding off on speaking until I had better gathered myself and my thoughts. '...People've always reacted badly, before,' I said, at length. 'They always make it so much worse, and they always think so much worse of me for it; and they make sure I know that, too. That I know I am weak, that I'm—'

'They're idiots, Bunny, and not worth your consideration,' Raffles interrupted, cutting me off. 'I should hope you'd never class me in with such people?'

'Of course not,' I replied quickly, mostly meaning it. 'Though I wouldn't blame you, if you did feel that way. They aren't wrong, Raffles: I am weak. ...And all the rest of it.'

'Bunny…'

'I knew you'd disagree. But all I mean is that—' I sighed, giving up on any attempt at eloquent explanation. My head ached. 'I don't know. I don't know what I mean. It's only that sometimes I can't help but wonder if you are perfect at everything, A. J. You don't leave the rest of us much hope of measuring up.'

'You've a woefully short yardstick, Bunny, if I am your measure of perfection. But enough of this; how are you feeling? Better? Worse?'

'I don't know. Not worse, I don't think.'

'Hm.'

'I'm all right, Raffles,' I murmured. 'I do feel better. I'm sure I'm fine. My head doesn't even hurt that much. Not really. Not considering.'

'I would feel more confident hearing that assessment from a doctor, Bunny. Look here, I know an excellent chap over in Kensington, a good sort and trustworthy. If you'd just let me—' I leaned away from him with an obstinate shake of my head, and Raffles sighed in defeat. 'All right, all right, no doctors. You do know they aren't in the habit of applying leeches anymore?'

'Might as well be…'

'What am I going to do with you, my stubborn rabbit?' Raffles replied with a sympathetic smile, taking my hand, tracing circles over my palm with his thumb. '...You know, my eldest niece hates doctors, too. She fell ill one year when she was quite small, caught a cold or something equally commonplace and mundane, but my sister was desperately anxious to get her seen, just in case it was anything more serious. Well, the moppet all but screamed the house down when the poor medico tried to get a look at her throat!' Raffles laughed. 'I think you and Raffie must be kindred spirits in your distrust of the medical profession. Though she did have the excuse of barely being three years old at the time.'

'Wisdom is ageless — and doctors are not to be trusted,' I muttered, glancing up at Raffles with a small and self-deprecating smile as I did, only to find him staring at me intently, a frown creasing his clear brow. When he spoke it was in a voice laced with a renewed colour of concern.

'...You remember my sister, Bunny?'

'Of course I do.'

'What's her name?'

'What?' I frowned. 'Harrie. Well, Harriet, but— Of course I know her name, A. J. Why are you asking?'

'Do you remember when we last visited her?'

'I — I don't know. Easter, I think. No — or was it Christmas? Look, why does it matter?'

'What about the children, Bunny? Do you remember their names? Hm?'

Realisation slowly dawned over me as Raffles spoke, along with a vague recollection of some medical advice I'd read once in a magazine regarding head injuries and memory loss.

'...A. J.,' I sighed, 'if you are hoping to check my brains aren't scrambled by quizzing me, you'll need to choose questions I have half a hope of answering even when I haven't recently knocked myself senseless. Your sister has far too many children, and they've all got such ridiculous names — you'd be better off asking me to recite your last season's cricket scores if you want to check my memory!'

Raffles laughed at that, and I thought I heard relief in it as he pinched my arm and carefully kissed the side of my head. 'Don't let Harrie catch you saying that; she's a devil of a mother hen. Even you wouldn't get away with being so cheeky!'

'You know I mean it affectionately. I love your family as if they were my own — the whole rowdy lot of them...'

'Your tongue clearly hasn't suffered any damage, impudent rabbit... Now, look at me, please?' Raffles took my face in his hands, then, carefully tilting my chin left and right, making another close inspection of my head. 'Well, you look all right enough to me, as far as I can tell. Luckily you seem to have quite a thick skull,' he added, brushing his index finger against my forehead with the gentlest of taps, accompanying the gesture with the very softest of smiles.

Quite suddenly — though, of course, not suddenly at all — I found myself utterly overwhelmed by his care, his gentleness, by him. I threw myself into Raffles' lap, pushing my arms around his waist, beneath his jacket, grabbing handfuls of the back of his shirt and pulling him closer to me, burying my face in his waistcoat.

'What's all this?' Raffles' own arms wrapped around me in reply. 'Bunny, what's wrong?'

'Nothing. Everything. I — Thank you, Raffles.'

'For what, saying you have a thick skull?' he said through a chuckle which sounded to my ear somewhat affected. 'Thanking me for insulting you, now, are you? Perhaps your brains are a bit scrambled after all, my poor dear chap!'

'No! For—' I hesitated, unable to find quite the right words and reluctantly settling for the best I could find. 'For being so kind to me. For being so— For being — For being such a good nurse.'

Raffles barked a short laugh. 'Nurse now, am I? By Jove, I've an eclectic mix of professions! I do hope you don't have as strong an aversion to nurses as you do doctors, Bunny, if that's what you're calling me. I should hate to be turned out of my own rooms by a pugilistic patient!'

'I don't mind nurses when they're you,' I said, finally loosening my bearlike grip on him, letting him move me into a more comfortable, sensible position, my head in his lap. I suddenly felt terribly, terribly tired. 'How do you do it, Raffles?' I murmured. 'How are you always so in control? I'd be a wreck if our positions were switched, and yet here you are, so cool, so unfazed, just like you are with everything. I'd be hopeless in your place. ...I don't deserve you. You are exceptional, A. J., and — and far too good for me.'

'Would you be so hopeless, Bunny? I wonder about that. Were you hopeless that night at our old friend Barney Maguire's? Or down in East Molesey? Or when I got that horrible gash to my leg over in Campden? Or any of the other scores of times you've had my back over the years? Hopeless certainly isn't the word I would use to describe you. You give yourself far too little credit, little Harry Manders; you always have.'

'I get you into more trouble than out of it.'

'Lucky for me, I like trouble. Look here, Bunny, you really must—' Raffles stopped mid sentence, leaving the room holding its breath in the waiting silence; and in that silence, he sighed. '...Sometimes I wonder whether there is too much of the magician about me,' Raffles said in a thoughtful, resigned tone. I didn't know what he meant by that, but before I could ask, he shifted beneath me, carefully so as not to disturb me too much, but sitting up a little more straightly, before running a light hand over my hair. '...Bunny, would you like to know why I seem familiar with this sort of thing? How I am able to be, as you chose to put it, so unfazed? Would it make you feel better, to know the truth of it? I'm afraid you may find the reason terribly mundane and disappointing.'

I paused for a moment, moving to lie on my back so that I could better look up at him, scanning his features for signs of teasing or mischief. When I found in him instead only a strange, searching sincerity, I nodded.

'All right then,' he nodded back, 'I'll tell you. But only because you've had a very trying evening, and I'm feeling more than usually sentimental,' he added with a chuckle. '...Now, Bunny, you know that I don't speak often of my people,' he began, 'other than Harrie and her lot, of course, but you know them yourself, now. But for the rest of it — well, I know I've kept you in the dark a deal more than perhaps I ought to have done. I do have my reasons for keeping quiet, Bunny — though mostly because it's all in the past and completely irrelevant to our today, but...' Raffles hesitated, tutted, twisted a lock of my hair thoughtfully around his finger, '...but what's past is prologue, I suppose. You see, Bunny, the truth of the matter is that when I was a boy, my mother experienced similar attacks to the one you've just suffered. For years and years she had them, almost as far back as l can remember. And hers were every bit as bad as the one that struck you down this evening, poor rabbit, and often much worse. And much, much more frequent.

'My father would have nothing to do with it, of course,' Raffles continued after a short pause, during which I remained in surprised silence, taken aback by his sudden and extraordinary frankness on the matter of his family history; a subject hitherto almost blanket-blacklisted. 'And what with the nearest doctor being a mile or so away, and being the only decent one in a ten mile radius, he was so often too busy to come — especially not at the drop of a hat, as was so often needed. That left me, Harrie, and my mother's maidservant to deal with it, to help her when she needed it. Hannah — that is the maidservant, and a complete angel of a woman, Bunny — was usually around to handle the attacks themselves; for the most part Harrie and I only had to see to keeping the house … agreeable; acting preventatively, I suppose you might say.

'But still, when these things happen so often, one is soon required to learn the ropes oneself. Hannah couldn't always be around, and — well, you know how I am now about preparation: I was no less keen on it as a boy. And it is not too difficult a thing to deal with, after all, once you get used to it. People can become accustomed to almost anything, I suppose, and children far more so than adults. Eventually it became quite commonplace to me.'

For a moment Raffles was quiet, staring out into the shadows which draped over the far wall. There was such a melancholy colour to his eye that it made me doubt the honesty of that latter comment. And then he glanced down at me, catching my inquisitive eye, his too-bright smile restored once more. 'Well, there you do. That, my fainting rabbit, is why I have some small idea of what to do in this sort of situation. Nothing exceptional about it, you see.'

I didn't know what to say, finding myself entirely wrongfooted by his unexpected and startling confession. Raffles might not have considered it to be an exceptional revelation, but it certainly was to me! I couldn't help but recall the panic in Raffles' voice when he had called my name as I fell; this knowledge only made me feel all the more guilty.

'I — I'm sorry,' I spluttered, stupidly. 'I didn't know.'

'You've nothing to be sorry for, Bunny. How could you have known?'

'I don't know. I couldn't. You never said. But I never asked.'

'I'm grateful for it. Look, it's really not all so bad as it sounds, Bunny, there's no need to look so serious about it. I'm not telling you so that you feel sorry for me; quite the opposite. I only told you so that you'd stop being so down on yourself, and so that you'd know I mean it when I tell you I think absolutely no lesser of you, my dearest chap.'

'I know, but — but I am sorry, A. J. I'm so sorry. That must have been so hard on you — and poor Harriet, too! I'm so sorry.'

'It was harder on Harrie than on me,' he replied, thoughtfully. 'She's older, so took the brunt of it. And you know what Harrie's like, anyway; she could be one of the Lares incarnate; she always did want to be my guardian angel. And she was, in a way, much as I tried to prevent it. I was hers, too, time enough, though never quite in the same way. You know, I think in a past life she must have been a tigress, or something, like one reads about in Kipling.'

I found myself agreeing. Though I had only met Raffles' sister a handful of times in all the years I had known him, a woman half as remarkable as Harriet Featherstonehaugh, née Raffles, would have left a strong impression upon me had we only met once, for five minutes! Harrie was as sharp-witted, good-humoured, and kind-hearted a woman as I had ever met, and fiercely protective of anyone she decided was one of her own: I felt honoured that she had quickly come to consider me as such. My gratitude for her friendship was rivalled only by my enjoyment of it, for she, like A. J., was possessed of an insuppressible vivacity, a strength of spirit which burned like Greek fire, and an almost relentless optimism. How she always managed to keep such high energy and good temper with so many tiny Raffleses running around the place I could never fathom; and there were a veritable army of them in that quaint country parsonage they called home.

I say "Raffleses", though of course both Harrie and her children all bore her husband's name; but she and her pack of wild cubs were Raffles-blood through and through. The mild-mannered name of her delicate, soft-spoken parson spouse (much as I liked the man) simply wouldn't stick in my mind to such a vigorous, hearty, charismatic woman, and even less so to her rowdy brood of hatchlings, who adored their "Uncle Arthur" and were adored by him in turn.

That such childhood trauma as had just been recounted to me had marred A. J. and Harrie's formative years was almost unthinkable, knowing them both as I did; and the revelation, unexpected as it was, left me quietly reeling. Evidently Raffles' mind was as equally taken up with the matter as mine, for to my ever-increasing wonder, he continued to speak.

'...I've often wondered whether that helped her in taking so well and so quickly to motherhood,' he said. 'Harrie, I mean. She cut her teeth having to half-raise a devil of a little brother. That's practice enough for anyone; though personally I'd have thought the experience would have put her off it, if anything.'

'At six and counting, evidently not. I'm sure you weren't a devil-child, though, A. J. You know, Harrie told me Raphaela is just like you were at that age.'

'God help the moppet,' Raffles chuckled, glancing at me with a raffish smirk before his expression grew softer and wistful and distant once more. 'Harrie is a deucedly good mother, Bunny, and the very best of sisters. You speak of people being better than one deserves — Harrie has always been far too good a sister for a villain like me. She's an awful lot like our mother, in many ways. Not all, but many. All of the good parts.'

I dared to meet Raffles' eye, nervous as I was that I might all too easily spook him from speaking further, keen as I was to listen to as much as he was willing to say. But I found in his returning gaze a warm glimmer, resigned and sympathetic; an expression which gave me the wordless permission to pursue the answers I sought.

'Tell me about her?' I asked. 'Your mother?'

'If you like,' Raffles shrugged.

'Please.'

For a short time Raffles said nothing, and we laid side by side on the bed in silence. And then Raffles carried on.

'I'm not altogether certain where to begin or what to tell,' he said at last, with a calm, speculative earnestness which sent a pang through my heart. 'How can one ever hope to distill a whole person into a few paltry words? I never know which is worse, Bunny: to never talk of a person, or to talk of them incorrectly and half-imagined, never truly doing them justice.'

'Which would you prefer?' I asked, well-knowing the answer.

Raffles' lips quirked to a grin. 'Not everyone is so vain as I am, Bunny... But still—' He stopped speaking again for a moment; all of Raffles' conversations were littered with contemplative pauses, and I knew well enough when to keep patiently quiet. Raffles would speak when he wanted to; and soon enough, he did.

'She was clever,' Raffles said after a short while. 'Most people never realised just how clever — they never took the time to find out. When a person is one thing, people have a hard time imagining that they might also be anything else beside. My mother was, to most eyes, an invalid; and to most people she could therefore be little else. As though anyone is ever only one thing! She was so very much more than one thing, Bunny: well educated, well read, well spoken — when she did speak. She was a very quiet woman. Sometimes she could go days and days refusing to speak at all — but so much went on inside that mind of hers. And when you caught her on a good day, Bunny, a greater font of wisdom couldn't have poured from Socrates himself. On her good days she sparkled.

'I could never figure out why she married my father, nor why she stayed with him so long and so loyally after she did. That old Philistine cared only for dogs and drink and other women — in that order. He treated my mother terribly, and had I been older— Well, that's by-the-by. Let it be enough to say that I never understood him and never cared to, right up to the day he died. I suppose he must have had some good quality or another at some point in his life, because she married him; but if he did, I never saw it. She certainly hadn't stayed with him for his money,' Raffles added with a sharp and bitter laugh. I remained silent.

'For all that my father was a brute, she was a pure aesthete, in the very best of senses. Harrie always says I inherited my artistic streak from our mother, and I don't doubt it. We used to read poetry together by the volume; I could quote from The Lady of Shalott and The Prince's Progress before I could recite my prayers. The local vicar thought that quite blasphemous, but what did I care for that? She never smiled half so brightly when I read from Kings as when I read Keats; that was enough to convince me of the better book.

'She painted beautifully, too, Bunny. It was she who first put a paintbrush in my pudgy young hands. Even now I sometimes find myself wondering— Well, little use in what ifs, eh? Though I admit, I have often found myself wondering over them on her behalf. Those what ifs, I mean. I am of the firm belief that in some other life, down some other pathway of time, she would have been some great Bohemian artist, or poetess, or some other wild-spirited creature, freed of all the troubles which ground her down in this life. I can just see her flitting from London to Paris and Rome, running barefoot with the gypsies, free as a lark and lighting up the great cosmopolitan dives with her laughter and her art and having a thoroughly gay time of it. Oh, if only you could have met her, Bunny. You'd have liked her. She certainly would have liked you.'

'She sounds a remarkable woman,' said I, doing my best to keep too much emotion from my voice. 'And I might not have met her, A. J., but I love her just the same, for your sake. It sounds like you take after her.'

Raffles laughed, more than a little sadly, and sighed. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'In some ways more than others; and in others still not as much as I'd like. She had her faults, Bunny, and many of them; I don't mean to canonise her memory. To do so would be to do her the greatest injustice. She was all the more remarkable for her faults, because in spite of them, in spite of everything she had to put up with in her life, there still wasn't a dash of cruelty or meanness in her. She was always generous, always open-minded, always selfless to a fault — she was wasted on that life.'

Even though something told me I wouldn't like the answer, and though I knew that in asking I would be pushing Raffles' patience to its very limits, still I found my mouth shaping itself around the inevitable question. I had to know.

'...What happened to her?'

Raffles didn't look at me, staring blandly at the wall opposite, his face remaining a perfectly placid mask as he answered me with neither hesitation nor compunction: 'She was shot.'

I gasped in spite of myself, my grip tightening on his hand. I hadn't expected a happily-ever-after response — I knew Raffles was as much an orphan as I am — but the calm abruptness of his reply, and the simple way in which he worded such an awful thing knocked me back, leaving me all but speechless.

'What? A. J., I — How?'

'An accident,' Raffles replied, tone steel. 'So read the official verdict, anyway. How one gets accidentally shot whilst alone in one's bedroom, I've never yet figured out; but who am I to argue with the police?'

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. 'Jesus Christ, Raffles. I'm so sorry, I — I'm so sorry. God, that's nowhere near adequate. I don't know what to say.'

'It's all right,' he shrugged, 'there's nothing to say. It is what it is.' I would have been perturbed by his surface flippancy, had I not caught a glimpse of what lurked beneath it. 'There are plenty of worse ways to die than a shot to the head, my boy, and worse times than one's own choosing. And in any case, it was a long time ago. Time is the healer of all things, as they say.'

I wasn't so certain of that. 'How long ago?' I asked.

'Eighteen years, now — or approaching it.'

I rapidly did the mathematics in my head, and felt my heart sink as I came upon my answer. '...But A. J., that means— God, A. J., you couldn't have been more than—'

'Fourteen,' he nodded. 'I was fourteen, when she died — and only barely, at that. She was thirty-seven. She's been dead longer than I knew her.'

I didn't know what to say. There was nothing I could say; there was nothing to be said. My heart ached for him; both for the A. J. now beside me, living with those memories, and for the child who'd had to live through them. And to think that when I'd first met him he'd been only three years removed from such a tragedy! You would never have known it to meet him at age seventeen. Although, then again, perhaps you might have. Perhaps it all made perfect sense.

'...You never said anything, A. J.'

'No.'

'I'm sorry,' I found myself repeating, partly because I had no idea what else to say, and partly because I truly, deeply was. 'I'm so sorry, Raffles.'

'Don't be. It's the way of the world, rabbit,' he replied, looking down at me with a tired smile. 'We live. We die. That's the bargain for paupers and kings, saints and sinners alike. Some of us get a shorter innings than others, but that's the game. All we can do is play it well whilst we're on the field.'

I had no response to give. My thoughts were overwhelmed, my emotions overcome, my energy overextended. All I could do for a moment, several moments, was hold him, resting my head on his shoulder, encircling my fingers around his strong wrist in order to feel the reassuring beat of his pulse beneath his pale skin. Raffles had an offhand, blasé attitude toward death at times, particularly his own, which often unsettled me. But I had seen enough of the man to know that this flippancy, this insouciance, was feigned at best and defensive at worst, masking something far deeper and darker beneath; though whether that was fear or fascination I could never tell. Perhaps both. I never decided whether that troubled me more or less than his affected apathy.

I hated to think on death, and never more so than in connection with A. J. He lived his life on such a tightrope, and though I trusted his balance, all it would take was one sharp gust of wind, one unexpected push, and then— And, of course, one day the rope would run out, even if he kept all the good luck in the world. That was an inevitability. Raffles could dodge every bullet for the next forty years, and still eventually he would be forced to face the Reaper. Sometimes I found myself praying that I fell first, so I would never have to walk further down the road without him. So that I could be there to greet him on the other side, wherever and whatever that might be.

'What do you think happens? After?' I heard myself speaking the question aloud quite without meaning to, inadvertently and stupidly verbalising the words which had been circling in my thoughts. 'After we — die?'

'That's more a question for your priest than for me, Bunny.'

'But what do you think? You must believe something, A. J., even if you believe nothing at all?'

'What do you believe?'

'I asked first.'

For a handful of seconds all was quiet, and I began to suspect he would simply refuse to answer. I wouldn't have blamed him if he did. I'd pressed Raffles far harder than I ought to have done, and in his pity he had indulged me far more than I had any right to expect. But A. J. never was one to be predictable.

'I believe,' Raffles replied slowly, speaking out of the darkness slowly embracing us like a blanket, 'that after people die, those who love them, miss them.'

We lapsed back into silence, my head in Raffles lap, his fingers in my hair, his words weaving through my thoughts, tangling up with my own. The noise of the street below drifted in through the open window on the breeze: the bustle of carriages; the laughs of theatre-goers; the hushed whispers of lovers parting; the sounds of life buzzing and humming and slipping away; London dusk in the Springtime. One by one the silvery stars began to glimmer into life, awakening in the warm blue-black of the April night sky far above us. I felt Raffles shiver beside me, and he got up to close the window. Returning to the bed, and moving us both carefully so as not to aggravate my head, he laid down beside me once again, this time draping the blanket over us both, tucking me up in his arms. I could feel his heart beating against my back as he held me; or perhaps I merely felt the beating of my own, too close for me to tell the difference. There was no difference. My heart was his.

'...Was she very unhappy?' I whispered into the darkness, speaking quietly enough that if Raffles wanted to ignore me, he could. 'Your mother?'

'Oh, I don't know if things are ever quite so black-and-white as that, Bunny,' Raffles whispered back, voice soft. 'Sometimes she was happy, sometimes she was unhappy. Aren't we all?'

I had half-expected him not to answer; part of me had even expected him to get angry at me for pressing the subject yet again. In truth, I found that his quiet, frank, philosophical replies were troubling me now more than his usual secretiveness. There was an unguarded vulnerability in Raffles, that evening, which was quite uncharacteristic. I can't deny that in some strange and indefinable way it frightened me, seeming like some ill-omen; or rather, seeming as though he had seen some ill-omen that I had somehow missed. Still, I was unable to keep myself from asking him more: I always hated a mystery, always wanted to know the truth about everything, even when I was deathly afraid of what it might tell me.

'But was she—' I stumbled over my tiredness and the caution of consideration, trying to find the right words, '—was there nothing that could have helped her? Nothing anyone could have done?'

'I don't know, Bunny.'

I bit my lip. '...Are you unhappy, Raffles?'

'What? Why would you ask me that, little rabbit?'

'I don't know. Are you?'

He kissed my ear. 'Go to sleep.'

I ran my fingers over the back of his hand, pausing at his fourth finger and tracing an arch over it. 'I don't want you to be unhappy,' I said. 'I'd do anything to make you happy, Raffles.'

'You do, Bunny.'

'Do I? How can I? Nothing I can do could ever be enough, not when—' I swallowed as my throat began to tighten and my pitch rise. 'It's not right. It's not right, Raffles! How can it be right that your father could treat your mother, could treat his wife so badly as to drive her to— And yet that marriage was still more legal, more respectable, more acceptable than—' I took a sharp breath, attempting to steady myself and failing. My head still ached; my heart ached more. 'He should have done something.'

'I don't think all the blame can be laid at my father's door, Bunny, much as I hated him. Life is rarely so simple as that.'

'But it is simple — or if it's not, it should be! Marriage should be sacred,' I insisted, resenting the querulous tone in my voice but unable to keep it from creeping in. 'The blame must fall to him, because she was his wife. He should have done something; he should have done whatever it took to help her, whatever the effort, whatever the cost! Marriage means something — or it should mean something. Partnership, protection — love. Marriage should be about love, not— not whatever it's become: expedience; money; law. Every day people tarnish the name of it, they spit in the face of it, of love; they demean it, abuse it — and yet they claim to be the only true guardians of it, as though we could never—! But if I were married to you, Raffles, I'd never take it for granted. If I could marry you, I'd—' I stopped mid-sentence, the realisation of what I was saying hitting me with the subtlety of a hammer to a thumb; the realisation that I meant it settling over me like snowflakes on an avalanche. '...I'd give anything to marry you, A. J.'

For a moment all was silent. I knew I should have been worried about how Raffles would react to my words, so impetuously spoken, but I suppose I must have been emboldened by the fact that I'd recently had a whack to the head. Should my foolish honesty have been received poorly, I could simply claim that I was concussed and barely aware of what I was saying — a justification that gave me the reckless confidence to speak more freely than I would otherwise have dared. Or perhaps I was concussed. My words had certainly been rash enough to suggest it.

Still, I meant them.

'...How hard did you hit that head of yours?' Raffles said after a long pause, carefully indifferent, his words paired with a quiet and dismissive chuckle. 'I think you've knocked all sense out of it.'

'I mean it,' I foolishly persisted. 'I would like a shot, A. J. — I'd marry you tomorrow, if you'd have me. If we could.'

'...You wouldn't want to nail your colours to a mast like me, my boy.'

'Of course I would, Raffles,' I replied, turning over to face him, letting him read the sincerity in my expression, willing him to believe me, consequences be damned. Raffles had taken so many honest risks with me that evening — throughout our entire partnership! — it was only fair I did the same. 'I already have. You must know that? A. J., I love you. That's never going to change. I'll stick with you for as long as you'll have me, till death do us part.'

Raffles stared at me with a searching eye, and for a moment I felt certain he was going to say something in reply — something cynical to hurt me, or perhaps something honest and kind to reassure me: he did neither. Instead he broke from my gaze and rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling, up into the darkness, up with the walls. '...You're tired, Bunny. Go to sleep.'

'Well, yes, I am tired,' I agreed, following his movement, pushing up nearer to him once more, laying my head on his shoulder, weaving my arm around his waist. 'I am very, very tired. But that doesn't mean I don't mean what I say. I love you, A. J. I love you.'

I heard his soft sigh through the shadows. 'I know you do, Bunny.'

'Do you love me?'

'What do you think?'

'Do you, though?'

'Bunny, please go to sleep; you're so tired you're starting to sound drunk. ...You're not, are you?'

I ignored his barbed question and stormed ahead with my own. 'Because, Raffles, if you do love me — why don't we just leave? Leave London, leave England — let's just leave, A. J.! You and me,together. Please?'

'Bunny, go to sleep.'

'I know I've been a bore to be around, recently, and I know you must be getting sick of me, but if we leave, if we go away somewhere safer — not forever, even just for a while — I promise I'll be better, Raffles. I'll be more fun again. I'll stop nagging you and causing trouble. I'll stop drinking... If we can just go where we aren't known, where the police—'

'Bunny!' Raffles cut me off short, his voice sudden and sharp and making me flinch. 'Enough of this! You need to rest. You're not—' I felt his chest rise and fall beneath my arm, '—Look, we can talk about it in the morning. Or — when you're feeling better, if you still want to. All right?'

'I will still want to, Raffles.'

'Then there's no problem not talking about it now, is there?'

I gave in. He was right, and I was tired, and it was not the best time to have that conversation. But though Raffles may have been right, I wasn't wrong. We were in danger, and though I may have ceded the battle, the war far from over. The war was far from won. I had been given new fuel for my fire, and even Raffles wouldn't be able to deny my arguments now, not after that evening; not after what that bastard of a police sergeant had threatened us with. Raffles would see reason now, I thought. He would have to.

'All right,' I agreed. '...I love you.'

'I know,' said Raffles, his arms wrapping around me, brushing a kiss over my head. 'Now please go to sleep. I want you fixed up again as swiftly as possible, and that requires rest.'

'I'll see what I can do,' I smiled through the veil of the night. 'Good-night, A. J.'

'...Good-night, rabbit.'