Chapter Twenty Six

(Meg is reading a book.)

JWJ: (pulling Ratigan in) Look, look, see! I told you so!

Ratigan: (hesitates) Meg, what are you reading?

Meg: (looking up) Plato's The Republic.

Ratigan: (glaring) Are you trying to mock intelligent people?

Meg: Hey, don't get mad at me. I wouldn't be reading this if it weren't for my evil English teacher. Reading intellectual works by Greek philosophers just isn't my thing. But I must say the allegory of the cave is pretty good.

Ratigan: (shaking his head) The distance you'll go to insult anyone of any original thinking.

Meg: You're just angry because I'm taking a college level English course.

Ratigan: As a matter of fact, I am. What makes you think you're so smart, you little ignorant brat?

Meg: If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Ratigan: Don't use clichés. It's very unprofessional.

Meg: Yeah, well don't use the word 'very'. It's redundant.

Ratigan: In a literary piece of work, not speech! And what would you know of redundancy? Just look at those little sob stories you write. All of them are unnecessary, unoriginal, and redundant!

Meg: If you really hate my stories so much, then why don't you use your "superior knowledge" to help me write better stories?

Ratigan: Superior knowledge shouldn't be wasted on those who won't put it to any use.

Meg: (waving her book in the air) Plato didn't seem to think so. (reads) "…the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all — they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now… they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not." In other words, my dear Professor, they must TEACH THE IGNORANT TO NOT BE IGNORANT ANYMORE, NO MATTER WHAT! Otherwise, the goal of attaining an ideal State could never be reached.

Ratigan: I would do so if my ultimate aim was not for the downfall of the State.

Meg: You have a point. All right, be a moron; don't use your brains for the common good.

Ratigan: All right then. (walks away)

Meg: Hey, don't walk away!

(He ignores her)

Meg: Fine, walk away from a philosophical debate! You're the ignorant one, not me!

JWJ: What are you talking about? He disproved your point.

Meg: (sighs) I know.

Rose was wrong: the worst was not over.

Ratigan's brief episode was the first of a series of violent fits that would spring up at the most unexpected times. They occurred in rain or shine, daytime or nighttime. Rose hardly ever left the flat; she was always at Ratigan's side, either reading to him or holding him down when he screamed about the horrors he lived in his sick mind.

She barely slept. The professor had usually fallen into these moods when it rained; and now it seemed as if, in this summer season, that all of London was forever weeping. The rain pounded ceaselessly on the roof, the thunder just barely blocking out his screams. He was too weak to move or attack anyone, and grew weaker and weaker as the days and weeks dragged on…

Reinsel helped Rose a good deal in the beginning; he came every day to see how the Napoleon of Crime was doing. But as Ratigan's health and sanity diminished, Reinsel's visits were less frequent. Sometimes Rose thought she would kill herself before Reinsel would come again with the sedatives that would relieve the professor for at least a few hours.

One visit, after the doctor had given Ratigan a dosage of morphine, he pulled Rose aside.

"When was the last time you slept?" he asked.

"I don't remember," she said quietly.

"You look horrible."

Rose shrugged.

Reinsel glanced at the patient, and then said, "Why are you still here?"

Rose gave him an annoyed look. "He's helpless!"

"Why don't you turn him in? Or better yet, just walk away?"

"I will do no such thing!"

"Why? What are you getting out of this? You look as if you are wasting away; you haven't left this room in weeks. He's only getting worse."

"That's not true!" she said heatedly.

"Little girl!" Reinsel barked at her. She glared at him. "He's weak. He won't eat; he spends hours on end raving about things no one else can see. I doubt he'll make it through the week. Perhaps it would be better if he didn't make it…"

"WHAT?"

"I could give him a stronger dose of morphine… it would be quick, painless-"

"NO! I am not going to let you kill him!"

Reinsel sighed. "All right. Say he doesn't die. Say he somehow miraculously gets better. What if the insanity comes back?"

"He wouldn't dare hurt me. I've been so loyal to him!"

Reinsel smirked. "Haven't you read the papers? An account of the battle between Ratigan and Basil of Baker Street was just printed, written by a man who was there, one David Q. Dawson. Your professor was rather cool and collected throughout the chase, according to what Basil told this Dawson fellow. That is, until he suddenly snapped… he assaulted Basil and threw himself at him, causing both of them to fall off the clock tower."

"I've read the accounts!" Rose snapped. But inside she was worried. It sounded just like his madness, except on Big Ben, he had seemed to turn into some sort of wild, savage creature. Could it happen again?

"If he does survive, you're not going to," Reinsel finished firmly.

She looked at the floor.

"Miss McGeady, you have no obligation to take care of him. You can walk away. Get away from here. Just don't ruin your life by staying with this… this creature."

She gazed at Ratigan, his mouth open, staring with glazed eyes at the ceiling.

"There will be other men in your life, you know."

Rose looked at Reinsel, speechless. He picked up his bag.

"I felt obliged to warn you. Do as you please; it is none of my business what silly girls do with their lives."

He headed to the door.

"Are you leaving us for good?" Rose finally found voice to say.

He stopped at the door, and looked back at her. "This is the end, Miss McGeady. The rest is up to him." Then, more to himself than to her, he said, "God protect you, little girl."

Rose sat on the hard chair, staring dumbly at Ratigan. He was too weak to move, but had enough strength in him to moan.

She looked at the open copy of Jane Eyre in her lap. She was sick of this book, sick of the sleepless nights, sick of the anxiety of having to deal with a dead body, sick of everything! If only he would get better…

…or give up.

Rose snapped the book shut. Such thoughts were not going to get her through this ordeal. She had to focus on the positive. Ratigan was going to get better. The rain would stop. He would gain strength, all the while formulating a plan for the uncertain future. Perhaps he would start up a new crime chain. Perhaps he would retire from his reign as the Napoleon of Crime and decide to live a quite life. Maybe he would go to the country. And maybe Rose could cook and clean for him, as she had done before.

Or maybe he would die. Maybe even tonight.

Rose traced the gold lettering on the front of the book with her index finger. All she wanted was for it to end. The sickness, or his life, something had to end soon. She was going insane with all this waiting.

Reinsel's words were haunting her: "…you have no obligation to take care of him. You can walk away… don't ruin your life by staying with this… this creature."

She got up and sidled over to the bed. He had stopped moving. His eyes were closed, his face sweaty and feverish. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she gently took Ratigan's large, once strong hand into her small one. She began to trace the lines on his hand as she had traced the lettering on the book.

"Please get better," she said quietly. Then, with downcast eyes, she said, "I don't have any family. I don't have any friends. I doubt that I have much honor left. I eventually sacrificed all that for you. But you don't even know that I'm here, do you?"

Her eyes fell on his face. Nothing had changed.

"And what was I expecting?" she asked herself aloud. "Some miraculous recovery? Some sort of deathbed confession from you? You can hardly even breathe, let alone say anything to me. What have you to say? Have you ever had anything to say to me? Or have I been alone in my thoughts, in my feelings for you?"

She reached out and touched his cheek. It was hot and sticky with perspiration.

"You could do without your little Rose, but I fear that little Rose has never been able to do without you. Not since you took her into the sewers, not since you exposed her to the worst this world has to offer, not since you took away her innocence. There is not much left in her, and it is mostly because of you."

She paused. A new thought had occurred to her.

"No. It is not because of you. You were only a tool to her degradation. She was the one who put herself in your power. You have nothing to boast of there."

As she spoke these words, she realized that all she said was true. She had been the one to accept crime over death, immorality over salvation. And now, because of it, she was sitting here, alone in the world except for this expiring man before her.

"But, after all, if I could… would I change it? Would I have stopped that stubborn, hot-headed girl storming out of her flat in Exeter, so eager to make a point? Would I have extinguished that pride that led her to stay at The Rat Trap for so long? Would I have stood bravely before the bullet of the gun that would have ended her short life?"

Rose tried to imagine her life after Exeter, before the sewers. She tried to imagine where she would be now. She thought of Scarlet, of Millie, of Giovanni, of Doonegan and Fidget and Gerald, and Basil of Baker Street and America and the Queen and the Boss, of Scarlet… Scarlet… Elaine McGeady…

"No. No, I wouldn't have changed anything. Not even my affections for you. What were you going to say to me on the night of the Jubilee? What were you going to say?"

Rose gave a dry sob. "Please…" she moaned. "Please, don't leave me here alone! Where will I go when you are gone?"

A restless night for Rose dawned in a picturesque morning for the rest of London. She checked on the patient. He seemed the same as before.

Another day dragged on, leading to another night, and another day, and another night…

It was not until the morning of the third day that Rose realized that the fever had subsided, that the moans he now gave for commands for nourishment, that he was no longer muttering nonsense to himself but requesting knowledge of his surroundings, of his condition.

All was as well as Rose could have hoped for.

The Adventures of Megana in France

(A couple of panicked metro rides later, the girls end up at the Louvre.)

Valerie: (looking warily behind the group) Did we lose him?

Lilly: (gasping) Think so.

Katie: Okay, who was that?

Amy: Eh…

Katherine: So what's the plan?

Everyone: (shrugs)

Ashley: Hey, we're at the Louvre! Let's go see the Mona Lisa!

Sam: Great idea!

Megan: (grabbing Meg's arm) Oooh, look! A bathroom!

Meg: I went before we left the hotel.

Megan: No! Langdon and Sophie hid from the police in a bathroom in the Louvre! Ooh, let's go see it!

Meg: That was a men's bathroom near the Mona Lisa, Megan! We're not going near a men's bathroom!

Megan: (pulling her) Oh, come on!