TITLE: Nota Bene (3/7) Securus te Projice (Throw Yourself Down Safely)
AUTHOR: Blue Fenix
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: the_blue_fenix@yahoo.com
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: AuroraVernealis, Aurora Journals, and Fanfiction.net only
CATEGORY: Het; adventure
SPOILERS: Cardinal's Design, Cardinal's Revenge
RATINGS/WARNINGS: R for consensual heterosexual activity
MAIN CHARACTER(S): Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, Rebecca Fogg, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas pere, special guest villain
SUMMARY: The return of the Phoenix time machine draws Fogg and company through time to save the life of an old friend.
DISCLAIMERS: the usual. Borrowed characters, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I've got no money to sue for.
Rebecca Fogg wasn't sure she was going to be able to sleep tonight. But she was grateful all the same for the solitary quiet of her temporary room in the Paris boarding house. She lit a single candle on the dressing table. Rebecca settled herself in a nearby chair, disciplining mind and body alike into a semblance of calm that was almost a reality. She folded her hands on her lap. Nota bene. The recent past came alive for her trained memory.
-----
The only word to describe Rebecca's reaction to the older version of her cousin, she'd thought a trifle giddily, was enchantment. It hadn't been the sudden widening of the gap in their ages from just over six years to something like twenty-six. Older men as such had no special fascination for her. But this one had been Phileas, freed from the corrosive despair that had darkened so much of his life. It had looked like true release, not just one of his periodic lighter moods. However welcome those were, they always had a frantic edge born of the knowledge that the respite was temporary. This had been stable, deep-rooted contentment. Rebecca hadn't seen Phileas in that state since they were children together. She'd given up hope of ever seeing it again. This other Phileas had known the secret, and she wanted it.
Her own Phileas had been bristling with dislike for the older man. Rebecca couldn't blame him. The other's self-assurance must have made him feel his own unhappiness twice as badly. Rebecca hadn't had time to take that into account. When the entire party had left the library, she'd fallen into step with the older man like a co-conspirator. "I have about a thousand questions." There'd been no point in dissembling, not with him.
"For you, I'll answer anything." His voice had been warm velvet.
"What happened to you?"
He hadn't pretended to misunderstand. Whatever the years had brought hadn't included false modesty. "Why, you did. You saved me."
Rebecca had clamped down control of her face and body language, to keep any hint of shock from reaching the Phileas beside her or especially her own Phileas walking behind them. So. This is how it ends. She'd always known the choice she would make, if it truly was her career and independence against her cousin's life. She had nearly done it in America, during the harrowing weeks when leaving him alone for ten minutes risked finding him dead, but the crisis had passed in time. She could imagine him vividly, still and broken. Nothing was worth that. Rebecca had straightened her spine. Phileas loved her tenderly, that part would be all very well, but the sacrifice of everything else in her life ...
"Dear Becca. Sometimes you have a touch of the family pessimism yourself." The man beside her hadn't missed a single nuance despite her efforts at self-control. His eyes had been intense, drawing her in. "You're wrong. I could never become happy by making you miserable. And you could never hide it, if you felt stifled; you aren't made to be a stoic martyr. Thank God. Any solution has to content us both, or none." A near-smile had crossed his face. "You must resign yourself to being a bit selfish, for both our sakes."
That ruled out everything. "Then how?"
The other Phileas had looked maddeningly inscrutable. Then they'd been at the Phoenix, and the scrap of privacy had been gone. A few minutes later he'd dropped that sudden bombshell about her own Phileas quietly planning to die if she did. She couldn't blame the older man for his timing, given his limited options, but it had stopped her before she began from any sort of lighthearted attitude toward her cousin's future.
-----
Rebecca's head was aching dully, in the present; she couldn't decide if it was the aftereffects of nota bene or sheer worry. She slowly unwound her clasped hands in her lap. She knew Phileas far too well. His remark about death meant no ordinary pining but direct action, probably a large-caliber bullet through his own head beside her grave. The risk was intolerable. If Phileas needed her, then clearly he had to have her.
She thought over possible complications. While her sexual history contained nowhere near the operatic disasters of Phileas' own, there was more of it than Rebecca had felt it good for him to know. A few suitors whose attentions she'd let exceed the platonic would be no surprise to him. She'd made no secret of those, the better to keep him from asking deeper questions. There'd been a mission or two, like the enticement of Duke Rimini but more so, which she and Sir Jonathan had agreed should be kept out of the departmental files. Her cousin had occasional fits of curiosity which no lock or safe was guaranteed proof against. And there'd been the horrific near-miss when she was captured in Vienna, that not even her superiors knew of ... but the man was too dead to spread stories. Revenge was a fine medicine. She'd shed far more of his blood than he ever had of hers, and even the nightmares had stopped three years since.
Those indulgences -- and impositions -- had been rare and without lasting consequences. Rebecca was familiar with the methods that disreputable women used to avoid pregnancy. She had used some of the safer ones to improve her odds. But none of that was likely to be enough in the case of a frequent, long-lasting sexual affair. If she partnered herself with Phileas, in the long run she would become pregnant. And he would marry her, if he hadn't already -- his honor would allow no less. Every skill she'd learned in her adventurous adult life, the hard-won respect of her professional peers, the independence of living on equal terms in a man's world -- all would be no more than a memory. It's only retirement. It's no more than Phileas has already done himself. But that half-truth was no comfort.
She would do without comfort. Rebecca was trained to make hard decisions, to die or kill with equal facility in the service of the cause she was pledged to. This was no different. Ruthlessly she called up the image of Phileas dying or dead and made herself feel it as an immediate reality. Is that what you want? No? Then stop it from happening.
You must resign yourself to being a little selfish, for both our sakes. The older Phileas' words came back to her with perfect fidelity. But the advice was no help, without knowing what he'd meant by it. You and your enigmatic remarks. Rebecca could only do her best, and hope it was enough.
She'd brought a small arsenal along on this trip but no change of clothes, not even a nightdress. What looked like an ordinary gentlewoman's day dress was little more than a cleverly shaped fabric shell over a layer of heavy equipment. Rebecca laid the outer dress down on her bed and began disarming. A derringer, daggers, a garrote or two, money belt, equipment pouches. Under that, the more standard feminine gear of a hoop skirt -- although the largest hoop on this one could be reformed into a powerful recurve bow, with a little setup time. Under that, a form-fitting leather fighting suit of her own design. Rebecca loved the outfit with a passion. It offered her complete freedom of movement, better protection than male-styled clothing, and any number of places to hang tools and weapons. It gave her confidence when she launched herself into combat with larger, stronger opponents. She stripped it off.
Under that, essentially nothing but herself. The leather suit fit too tightly to allow more than the most minimal and gauzy underclothes. Rebecca shivered a little. Well, it's a cold room. She put the outer dress back on over nearly bare skin. It trailed the ground without the hoops holding the skirt out from her body, but it approximated a modest dressing gown well enough to pass in semi-public for brief periods. She pulled pin after pin from her hair until it cascaded loosely down her back. She blew out the single candle.
They'd been given three rooms, side by side, on the top floor of the rooming house. Rebecca's bare feet were silent on the wooden hall floor as she closed the door to her own room. Memory took her back, only a quarter-hour or so. Two rooms with two beds each, one with one. That would put Dumas and Verne in one room, myself alone in another, and you and Phileas in the third. Does that make sense, Passepartout? The valet had agreed. After he's asleep, see if they can find you a couch or something in their room.
He'd stared at her. Miss Rebecca?
She could be cold, and she had turned that aspect on him. Or you can wait a bit and use my room. The stare had turned to an open-mouthed gape as he understood her at last. Not a word. She had known Passepartout would obey her, even though his first loyalty was to Phileas -- no, because his first loyalty was to Phileas. They had that in common.
The hallway was empty. The door to the third bedroom was unlocked, as she'd expected. Rebecca opened it quietly and slipped inside. Phileas stayed asleep when she closed the bedroom door, which she hadn't expected. She couldn't believe he would let his guard down to such an extent in a strange place. Maybe his sleeping senses had mistaken her for the valet. Or perhaps -- she paused, still in arm's reach of the closed door -- some half-aware part of him knew her.
She waited, letting her eyes adjust to the light level. They were too near the center of Paris for total darkness. A thin curtain drawn most of the way across the window blocked some of the light outside, but enough seeped through to show her the room in shades of darker and lighter gray. He was lying on his side in the middle of the larger bed, under the window. The less dim strip of light at the edge of the curtain crossed his form at chest level. The skin of an arm and shoulder gleamed above the covers. With no more luggage than she, he was sleeping naked or close to it. At the very least, this will be easy.
Her hem swirled against the floor as she moved toward the bed. Rebecca considered sitting on the edge, gathered her skirt around her instead and sank to her knees on the floor beside it. The bed was low, putting her head and chest to mid-breast above the level of the mattress. She contemplated his bare shoulder, and her own hands -- suddenly ice cold -- and touched a blanket-covered part of Phileas' back.
He stirred, not the sharp jerk usual for sudden awakenings but a seamless transition to awareness. His life had depended on that ability, at times. Phileas identified her in the bad light and pulled the covers up over his bare shoulders. "Rebecca? You shouldn't ... what are you doing here?"
A half-naked woman appearing in a half-naked man's bedroom in the middle of the night shouldn't have to explain herself, in Rebecca's opinion. "Be quiet." She slid both her hands around the back of his head and kissed him hard on the mouth.
That seemed to have resolved the ambiguity nicely. Phileas came upright in the bed, knocking the covers down to waist level, and clasped Rebecca to him with both arms. He's hairier than I'd thought. When she melted against his chest she felt him discover the yielding nudity under her dress. He made an appreciative sound in his throat, and deepened the kiss. He's good at it, anyway ... She could have done this years ago.
He unclamped from her mouth as Rebecca was beginning to see spots from lack of oxygen. She gasped, dizzy from need and breathlessness alike, as his hands moved along her ribs and the sides of her breasts. Phileas began undoing the hook-and-eye fasteners of the high-necked dress. When she was open to the collarbones his mouth fixed on one side of her neck, hard enough to hurt, reminding her wildly of vampires. But his teeth were blunt and moving, teasing sensation from an earlobe one instant and the soft top of her shoulder the next. His hands went momentarily to her waist, pulling her onto the bed, and then came up again to cup her breasts directly. It felt good, intensely good, but that very intensity was a little alarming. She had no intention of stopping, but she wondered fleetingly if a stop signal would be heeded anyway. Phileas was going after more fasteners, with increasing urgency. His fingers fumbled. The room was silent, except for their breathing. She clearly heard thread snap and a small metal hook fall to the floor. The front of the dress was open to the waist now, baring her breasts and stomach. His mouth was hot and wet against her skin. She heard a small whimper, in her own voice. All her muscles tensed before she could countermand the impulse. Her nerve wavered. Rebecca stopped herself from squirming out of his arms only by a sharp effort of will.
She was suddenly, dizzily off balance; Phileas had let go of her. The mattress shook as he moved away. His silhouette showed against the curtain and then it was flung wide open, bathing both of them in more light. "What are you doing here." Nothing alluring or allured in the words this time. It was his harshest public voice, crisp-edged, and it was scarcely a question.
Rebecca had anger of her own for an ally. "You seemed to be grasping the idea well enough a moment ago."
"Do you know, I'm not sure I was. They're very nice tits, I'd be the last to deny that." He brought out the deliberate vulgarity as if presenting a winning poker hand to a despised opponent. "But counterbalanced by the impression that one's about to be vomited on, it's very nearly not worth it ... why bother at all if the prospect's so distasteful to you?"
The room was still three-quarters dark, surely too dark for him to see her face change. But Phileas seemed to sense it all the same. His voice was glacial. "I didn't ask for your damned pity. Get out."
Her temper snapped. Rebecca came upright, braced on her knees. She responded not with a maidenly open-handed slap but a straight right, from the hip, fit to break a man's jaw. Phileas, bristling with tension, was ready for anything. He twisted aside like a bullfighter, knocking her fist off-line with a forearm and sliding the arm down to capture her wrist. Rebecca tried to use the recoil to slither out of his grip, but the mattress was an unstable fighting surface. She lost her center of balance for a fraction of a second. The next instant she was spun around, her back pressed tightly against his bare chest, with her wrists crossed in front of her in an iron grip. No affection in the clutch; not even any prurient interest, though his bare arms felt burning hot to Rebecca where they crossed her breasts at the open front of the dress. "Do go away," he snarled in her ear.
Rebecca couldn't break his grip -- he was ready for that too -- and damned if she was going to ask for release. "Isn't it what you always wanted?" she whispered back savagely. "Never mind my motives. You've been hinting forever that you wanted me, and saying outright that you wanted me out of the Service so I'd be safe. I'll do that too, if I have to. What have you got against winning?"
No answer. His breath had turned harsher, and not from the brief fight. It had a note almost like desperation. Phileas released her wrists. "Give me a little credit," he said dully. Rebecca moved away from him without haste. The anger had left both of them. "Do you think after all this time I don't know you? If I'd ... blackmailed you with some weeping tale about not being able to survive without you, you'd hold yourself bound to take care of me. And bound is exactly how you'd feel. Don't you."
She had no answer. Phileas didn't seem to need one. The toneless voice went on; this wasn't the first time he'd rehearsed this speech, whether he'd ever expected to say it aloud or not. "Better to keep my damned mouth shut and not interfere with your choices," he said. "You're not the kind of person who can be coerced, or should be. The chance of seeing you die on duty was less terrible than the certainty of having you come to hate me. I've known that for a long time. I don't know why that ... elderly bastard in the time machine forgot it, and I can't get at him now."
"He's you," Rebecca said again. "He meant well. I don't know what he meant to do, but I'm certain of that much."
Phileas shook his head, dismissing her words. "Please go. We needn't talk about it any more. Perhaps we can go back to the way things were, given enough time."
Rebecca doubted that with her whole heart. But she couldn't refuse him. I meant well, too. I do love you; that's why the risk of losing you is intolerable. It was the worst possible time to say so. Phileas had pulled the covers back over himself, curling up on his side. She gathered the loose edges of her dress together and reached for the doorknob. Rebecca stopped. "Phileas ..."
His voice shook with rage bordering on hysteria. "What now?"
Rebecca had forgotten the state of her clothes. She pressed a palm against the wooden panel, jerked it back. "This door is red hot."
Their training allowed both of them to switch mental gears. Rebecca inhaled deeply and smelled what she'd missed before, a persistent reek of smoke. Phileas slid out from under the covers, not quite naked after all, she noted with a detachment impossible moments ago, and touched the door too. "The others -- Jules, and Dumas."
"I sent Passepartout to their room," Rebecca said. "He was a Paris fireman -- if he can't get them out I doubt we could. Probably safe already. God, we're fools."
"Later." Phileas left the door as it was and went back to the window. "I didn't notice gas laid on anywhere in this hotel, did you?" Rebecca shook her head. "Perhaps the building won't explode, at least ... no balcony this side, damn it. Maybe a ledge or trellis."
The smell of smoke was stronger now, if Rebecca wasn't imagining it. She very much feared not. When Phileas opened the window it grew even stronger as fresh air was drawn through the room. Like a chimney. "There isn't much time. If we tear the bed sheets ..."
Phileas had his head out the window. "The wall looks passable. I'd rather trust handholds than an improvised rope." He straightened up. "And quite a crowd to watch the fun." He reached for his trousers, fastened them hastily at the waist. "Ladies first."
Rebecca fastened the first few hooks and eyes she could find on her dress. They seemed subtly mis-aligned, but at least her chest was covered. "Don't dawdle." She clambered feet-first through the window.
Phileas' description of the situation had been informative in every detail. It was an eminently climbable wall, old brick with wide mortar channels for her fingers and toes and better yet a drain pipe in arm's reach. The crowd he'd mentioned was there as well, clustering in the narrow street in the eternally Parisian urge to be at the center of the action. Rebecca wondered how much of a show she was putting on, in her ill-fastened dress, and dismissed the problem as impossible to solve. Groups of the bystanders were holding outstretched blankets like trampolines, urging her to jump to safety. From three floors up? Thank you, no. One little knot of figures waved urgently at her. She was nearly sure it was Jules, Passepartout, and M. Dumas; a weight left her heart. A glance upward showed her Phileas joining her on the wall seconds before flames blossomed through the open window. An unbuttoned shirt flapped around him like a white flag. Damn his vanity. I suppose I should be grateful he didn't stop for cufflinks and all. Rebecca continued climbing downward methodically.
-----
The bedroom was well alight before Phileas Fogg had thrown on clothes and other essentials and all but dived out the window. He could imagine Rebecca's forthcoming lecture on the subject. She'd be scathing about his losing focus in a crisis, and worse yet she'd be right. He was shaken, more so than a professional had any right to be with an immediate danger in view. The only point he could possibly make in his own defense -- if he'd had the effrontery to do so -- was that his loss of composure was entirely Rebecca's doing.
Phileas was contemplating the death of hope. He'd always believed, with a faith beyond any attack from reason, that Rebecca's love could save him from himself if she chose. Even when they argued, even when separate duties called them to opposite ends of the globe, the possibility had been enough to keep him going through his darkest moments. It would be an earthly heaven, making up for all the deprivations either of them had ever suffered. It would be an endless extension of the best moments of their friendship and professional partnership, with the bonus of sexual access to her incredible beauty. Finally, when he'd almost lost sight of the dream, she'd come to him in reality ... and the longed-for transcendent experience had turned into a nightmare of missed signals and ruffled feelings.
He'd wanted to give her something perfect. In the event, he'd been as gormless as some sweaty-palmed youth following her on the street. Worse, she'd been prepared to tolerate his fumbling -- out of compassion, not desire. He'd pleased enough women to know the difference. But worst of all, he'd barely had the willpower to turn her aside from her self-sacrifice. Rebecca's touch, her scent, were as intoxicating as his wildest expectations. He'd wanted so badly to seize the fleeting opportunity, to take whatever she'd allow him. Even if it was pity. Even if every other part of their relationship was irrevocably ruined in the process.
Phileas' own weakness disgusted him. He seemed to have managed the worst of both worlds. Not enough contact to ease him, but enough to leave her feeling vaguely soiled. He shivered in sympathy with the memory of her ... perhaps not quite revulsion, if God had any mercy, but certainly something far short of pleasure. Rebecca deserved so much better than that. Better than him, to cut to the core of the matter. Phileas had wrecked his only chance with her, and it was past time to accept that. His arms and legs kept moving of themselves, finding safe handholds on the rough wall by rote. Little besides responsibility for his friends kept his brain from overriding them and letting gravity have its way. Dropping a mere two and a half stories was too likely to leave him alive but maimed. Besides -- he glanced down the wall -- Rebecca hadn't reached the ground yet herself. He couldn't fall on her.
He'd been keeping focus, ignoring the crowd and the sheer drop as a pointless distraction. Looking down now he saw them for the first time, a mass of humanity flowing like water toward the best vantage points or away from points of danger where part of the ground floor was beginning to burn. All but one. A single figure in the middle of the human tide was standing fast like a water-washed rock. The distance down and across was less than fifty feet now. Even at this angle the foreshortened silhouette was suddenly familiar. Fogg recognized the mortal danger even before he saw the gleam of a blue-steel gun barrel against the flames. The muzzle was aimed at only the slightest upward angle. Phileas went cold with horror. "Gun!" he shouted.
Rebecca's own training was as ingrained as his. She instantly assessed the complete vulnerability of her position, some ten feet above ground level, and took cover in the only possible direction -- downward. It was not a fall but a backward leap, aimed at the nearest cluster of blanket-waving would-be rescuers. She landed less on the blanket itself than on the men holding it, bowling them over like tenpins. The whole knot of people went down. The well-meaning crowd surged close to help, surrounding Rebecca with as fine a bulletproof shield as the heart could desire. Fogg, twelve feet higher up the wall, had no such quick escape available. His back knotted as if muscle tension could turn aside gunshots. Take the easy shot, damn you. Let that be enough revenge. Nothing. Fogg waited another few breaths, until the bricks began to heat under his hands, and then climbed downward with reckless haste.
He touched ground. The looming shadow in the crowd was gone. Phileas ran to Rebecca, who was still tangled up in a heap of rescuers. From the vigor of her movements she had no bones broken, not even any serious bruising. "You're all right." His brain could hold no more at the moment than that single fact.
"Rebecca?" It was Jules, pushing through the crowd on the opposite side, slightly smoky but fully dressed and intact. "Thank God. We pounded on the wall of your room in case you were asleep, but you ..." Jules Verne's voice died away. Rebecca emerged from the blanket that had wrapped around her in her fall, and her dress was once more open to the waist. The few fasteners she'd gotten back together hadn't been up to the strain of climbing and leaping. "Oh." Jules' eyes moved to Fogg's equally disheveled clothing. The young man's face went very still, only one tight muscle jumping along his jaw betraying any reaction. "Excuse me." Jules turned away.
"That will do, Verne," Fogg interrupted brusquely. He began to do up his shirt as quickly as he could. Rebecca, once more under cover of her blanket, was undertaking similar repairs. "We have much more immediate problems. Cavois was here -- or still is. I'll wager he had more than a little to do with the building catching fire an hour after we entered it."
They were speaking English to each other. The crowd of Parisians, bored by their incomprehensible babble, was wandering off to watch something more interesting like the arrival of the fire engines. Passepartout and Alexandre Dumas joined their friends now, pushing through the thinning crowd. "Master! Thinking you were choked on the smoke," Passepartout said. "Very sudden to come up -- not a normal fire at all. Not helping but to wonder ..."
"Yes, yes, we've done all that," Phileas snapped. "Arson, to drive us across his path like rats from a trap. It's Cavois. I saw him."
Dumas looked from Phileas to Rebecca and made the same deductions that Jules had, although he merely raised an eyebrow in what looked like mild envy. "The same man you were hunting when we met last, who'd made a spy's code out of one of my books?"
"And killed our code breaker, and had a try at the rest of us. The same," Phileas said. "Just now he tried to shoot Rebecca."
"Or you," she suggested.
Fogg shook his head. "He had an age to shoot me, if he'd wanted to. He was aiming at you. Because ..." His voice died out. Because he knows it's the best way to make me suffer sounded incredibly self-centered. "Because he's playing with us. Again."
Passepartout knew more of the truth than anyone else. He'd been with Phileas the night of the duel with Cavois. The valet's eyes were locked on Fogg's, warning or imploring that the others had a right to know the whole story. Fogg responded with an almost Gallic shrug of surrender. "We should get under cover," he temporized. "If there is any cover anywhere, after this. He might leave us alone for days or he might circle back in the next ten minutes. Terror is what the bastard wants." Phileas at least was obliging him, though he hoped it didn't show in his face and manner.
"I must remember to thank him." Rebecca was looking up at the blazing windows with hard eyes. "All our equipment -- all my equipment. My best fighting suit." She looked down at the cobblestones as if discovering her bare feet for the first time. "My blasted shoes."
Dumas shrugged off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. "Your servant, mademoiselle, for whatever I have."
That set off a train of association for Rebecca. "The money -- Phileas, we haven't got a penny between us."
"It's not quite so bad." Phileas reached into a trouser pocket and displayed a small wad of bank notes. The outermost layer was slightly scorched. "One of the things I stopped for. It's not a lot, though."
"How could Cavois find us, anyway?" Jules said with a clear determination not to agree with anyone named Fogg. "It's not as if he could have followed us into Paris -- we appeared out of thin air."
Phileas made another mental connection. "You've never hunted, have you Jules? Chasing is an amateur's game, for something like foxes. You can rouse a pack of dogs and a string of horses and make all the noise you want, because it doesn't matter if you catch your prey or not. But if you're serious, if it's life or death whether you succeed -- big game like a bear or lion -- you don't chase at all. You put yourself in a place where you know the beast has to go, and you wait it out." He glanced across at Dumas. "I think I owe your tavern keeper an apology. You were right. You weren't killed by accident in a random fight. You were deliberately murdered, to draw us to Paris. And it did work, only the chain of cause and effect got a little twisted. We showed up before the murder -- so instead of committing it, Cavois went on to the next step of his plan. He must think he's got the luck of the gods on his side right now."
"We really must convince him otherwise," Rebecca said in a chill, calm voice. "I'd like to make a project of it."
"I think that choice is out of our hands," Fogg said. "Either we survive or he does; I don't see a third option. What's more, I don't see any way we can call for official assistance from the Service until our ... position in time is back to normal. We're still in London. Sir Jonathan knows that. If he gets a cry for help from Paris, he'll assume it's a forgery. Or he'll wire the London house -- and a version of you or me who's six days younger will quite sincerely deny every word."
Rebecca smiled bitterly. "Damn Shakespeare."
Jules stared. "Excuse me?"
"Phileas' favorite play," she said. "'The time is out of joint -- oh cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.'"