I've never really liked the juxtaposition of "Victoria and the Giant Mole" and "Rockets of the Dead"...especially after seeing the deleted scenes in syndication in which Jules just really isn't having a very good day with anyone concerned. So I started writing in some filler material between the episodes--and now my plan is actually to rewrite some of the vamp episode, from Jules's perspective, continuing this monstrosity of a storyline I appear to have started up in my head. However, before I do that, I would like to know what people think of this first part--so if you could write a quick little note (just a few words-- it's easy and doesn't take much time, I promise!) saying "yes! More!" or "Gawd no! Please no!" I'd be much appreciative...yes, it's the blatant begging for feedback, can you blame me? ;-)
Disclaimers: don't own characters or historical (if fictionally realized) people, make no money off this story, am only writing for entertainment purposes. Enjoy...
A Shaky Beginning
Part One: Uphill Battle
"No--please not again..."
He was lying in the exact center of the fairly narrow bed, the covers pulled tightly up to his chin, his eyes squeezed shut. A bruise still stood out livid under his left eye--the one from the crowbar. They were all surprised it hadn't broken his cheekbone. The bruise Phileas Fogg had left under his right eye had thankfully disappeared by now. He was moving restlessly in his sleep, as if struggling against rope bonds that held him down.
"No," he sobbed, "please no. Why is this happening to me?"
"Jules?" Phileas Fogg tentatively said the Frenchman's first name, reaching out an abortive hand toward the young man on the bed. Verne gasped, flinched at the brush of cool fingers against sweat-soaked linen, and opened his eyes unseeingly.
"Get away from me!" he yelled.
Fogg dropped his hand. "Verne--"
The Frenchman looked around in blind terror. "I'm innocent! I didn't do it!" he hollered.
Phileas felt his heart spasm, even if the cool expression on his face never wavered. "Jules, it's alright, man. It's over--"
"Who the hell is he?!"
"Let me, Phil," a soft voice said from behind Fogg's shoulder, and he looked around, surprised and angered to see his cousin in the room. He hadn't heard her enter.
"I can do this, Rebecca. You don't think I can't handle a boy's nightmare?"
"You are the boy's nightmare," she told him with brutal honesty. He looked away, scowling, only to find himself facing a Frenchman with tears running down his face. But Jules wasn't struggling anymore; he'd exhausted himself with that tiny outburst. A week after being rescued from the Mole, Verne was still too weak even to get out of bed. Fogg was about ready to shoot himself. They'd been traveling aimlessly over Europe in the Aurora, allowing Verne to stay in Fogg's bed while he recuperated; Rebecca was currently without any assignments so she'd elected to stay with them. Phileas had a feeling she'd made sure she would be without an assignment for a while. He wasn't sure whether to resent the implication or be grateful to her.
"I can make this right," Fogg said through gritted teeth.
"I think you will have to, Phileas, but it will take time," his cousin answered with that wisdom of hers that could be so galling when she decided to use it. "And it won't happen today. Let me stay with him a while, and see what I can do."
Fogg didn't look up at her. After a moment, he reached his hand up to blindly take hers and squeeze it tightly. She handled the painfully crushing pressure with equanimity. "Help him, then, Rebecca, since I can't," he said, releasing her hand and standing up. He went to the door and paused before leaving. "Please."
She watched his elegant back disappear around the doorway, and then she turned back to the Parisian in the bed. He had quietened again, exhausted himself completely, tears drying under his eyes and on his bruised cheek. He was a boy, an innocent boy who'd gotten caught up in something over his head. She felt desperately sorry for him--she was sure she'd never been that innocent. She still couldn't quite forgive her cousin for what he'd done to Verne, even though she knew she would have done something equally despicable or purposefully cruel were she in Phileas's shoes and under orders from the Service in order to protect her queen.
He hadn't even been under orders. She shouldn't have shown him that drawing, shouldn't have involved him, but...he'd needed some distraction, more than the delights and possibilities that the Aurora was giving him.
"Do you all feel a need to guard me?"
The quiet, bitter voice startled Rebecca out of her reverie and she realized she was still hovering over the bed, not having sat down yet. Verne was awake, looking up at Rebecca coldly. The arrogance in his eyes, in the tilt of his head, surprised her.
"Of course not, Jules," she replied, sitting down on the edge of his bed.
"Then why is it every time I wake up, Miss Fogg, I find at least one of the three of you standing over me or sitting in that chair?"
"Because we're concerned about you," she replied calmly, "and we want you to get stronger. And I believe I told you before you could call me Rebecca."
"I've seen you before," he went on, still in that cold voice, ignoring her words. "You were in the cafe a few weeks ago, long before this Mole business ever came up. How long have you been watching me? How long have you been supposing me of crimes I've never committed?!"
She hadn't expected that. She hadn't counted on him remembering her, hadn't thought that he'd recognized her from the cafe. The only reason she had remembered him was because of his drawings. She flinched. How could any of them ever break through to him? Did they even have the right to try?
"Jules, listen to me." She reached out a hand toward his, lying on top of the bedspread, but he snatched it away and glared at her. She dropped her hand uselessly and for once found herself unsure where to look, how to respond. She paused before going on, attempting to collect her thoughts. "I know this probably means nothing to you, but...I'm sorry. We are all sorry, including Phileas."
He continued to give her an unyielding, unblinking look. She firmly held his gaze. She wasn't going to let him shame her, wasn't going to let him control her that way. She'd fought other people's control all her life. But still she found the arrogance surprising—an unexpected streak in one so…harmless-seeming. It was probably the only way he'd survived the entire ordeal he'd just been through.
"I'm tired," he said at last, still in that awful, frigidly polite voice. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to be by myself for once."
Rebecca bit her lip. None of them had been able to get through to him in the past few days, not even Passepartout, and the little valet had already started earning Jules's tentative trust even before Jules had been coerced into the Mole.
He had every right to be angry, and afraid, and accusatory, and hurt--but Rebecca still wished he would be sensible and see they all felt awful for what had happened, and that he needed their protection now. The people who had kidnapped him weren't going to let it end there, with their plans frustrated. She wished he would trust them.
She stood up. "Very well, Jules. Please...call if you need anything."
"Thank you, Miss Fogg."
She tried not to flinch again and turned away from him, deserting the room.
* * *
"I'm not sure I've ever met an innocent man in my life."
Jules whimpered, feeling the cold sting of metal pressed against his neck again, the ropes biting into his wrists, useless to do anything to save him and quickly losing circulation. This man, this cold, angry, overbearing man kept threatening him until now he'd taken over Jules's nightmares and was starting to threaten Jules's sanity.
"Who the hell is he?!" Jules shouted aloud, his real voice merging with his dream voice in an odd echoing in his head. He let out a sob of frustration.
The soft, quick knock on the door to the bedroom Jules was borrowing startled him fully awake. "Jules?" a worried female voice called through the wood.
"Go away!" he yelled, wishing he could run to the door and lock it, but he didn't even have the strength yet for that.
"Jules," Rebecca Fogg's voice accents turned insistent, "do you need help?"
"NO!"
"Very well," she sighed wearily. "Passepartout will be round later with tea," she added before he heard the click of her heels stalking away from the door. He sagged back into the pillows gratefully. He had no energy; his body felt like a collection of bones and muscle very loosely held together by his skin. And yet he'd give anything to be in his garret away from these people.
Away from Phileas Fogg.
It'd been a sweet rush in the Mole and afterwards, when Fogg had smiled at him and called him friend. A relief, to be on the same side at last as this powerful, angry man, a relief to be able to place his trust in someone else because he couldn't even hold himself up with his own two feet. But Jules's fears had come back all too soon, terrified at any moment that Fogg would turn on him, think again that Jules was his enemy. And then the nightmares had started. He couldn't even trust Passepartout, though he liked the other Frenchman. He was an extension of Fogg. As was the cousin Rebecca--and she'd already proven herself untrustworthy. Yet, in some way, he did want to trust both the valet and the cousin, had an overwhelming need to find someone he could trust, and his options were rather limited.
Jules closed his eyes in despair and tried not to start crying again, despising his weakness in all its levels. He hadn't cried in years, hadn't felt so helpless in that long either. He was completely at the mercy of these three violent, ruthless people.
He saw again the sword swing toward him, whacking the ropes away from his arms, and flinched away as if it were happening all over again. His hands gripped the edge of the blanket. This couldn't go on. He couldn't live his entire life in the grip of this paralyzing terror of one man. Something would have to be done.