Chapter Eight

Stranger Things Have Happened

"We're entwined in ways we don't even understand. I find the idea of English roses twirled around a hard German wire to be rather delicious with its sadistic overtones. Don't you?"

-Dorian, to Klaus (Love in Greece)

This isn't happening…

"God knows he's been nothing but a pain in the neck since he first stole that damn pumpkin pants painting from me! Always interfering with my missions! Making bloody indecent proposals! I don't even like him," the Major heard himself saying. "But he can't just die here. It—it isn't decent. This isn't even Earth."

The Witch kept looking down at the body on the bed, then to him, then to Glinda, who had gone so pale it was hard to believe she wasn't going to faint at any second. "It's just one more failure, on my part," she muttered finally. "There's nothing more I can do for him."

"What?" the Countess said in a hoarse whisper. "You mean—? You can't mean…"

"What do you want me to do?" Elphaba said, but her voice had lost it's sharp edge. She sounded quiet, even subdued. "I couldn't stop my lover from dying. I couldn't stop my sister from dying. I couldn't stop my mentor from dying."

The Major felt the cold pit gnawing and twisting in his stomach. He clutched the bedpost, the same thought hammering through his mind again and again. This can't be real! The idiot survived countless run-ins with the KGB! He's successfully mangled how many NATO Intelligence operations? He can't just die like this!

He can't! It's ridiculous! I won't have it!

But then Glinda collapsed on the bed in front of him, sobbing, and it seemed as though it really was the end of the infamous English thief, Eroica.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

His dreams that night were horrible. Blank and empty and white. Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach walked through the vacuum, dressed in his uniform. His Magnum was clenched in his hand, but when he raised his arm it turned into sand and slipped through his fingers.

Stupid dreams. What's the point of the damn idiot things, anyways? He scowled.

The figure appeared in front of him much the same way that people in the waking world don't; long golden curls, and that infuriating red sleeveless shirt… The Major swallowed. Just the person he didn't want to see in his dreams—ever—but least of all tonight.

"Eroica! What are you doing in my dreams, you stupid bugger? Do you have to harass me even here?"

"Pardon?" the Earl turned to face him, the blue eyes annoyingly wide and frightened. "Excuse me, Major, but this happens to be my dream you're interrupting!"

"No," he retorted, rolling his eyes, "this is my dream and you are a very unwelcome guest! Now get out of here so that I wake up. And it had better be morning when I do!"

The thief looked at him for a moment, and then laughed, "Oh, my dear Major, you're always so perfectly yourself. I suppose that's what I lo—"

"Shut up! Not a word of that foppish nonsense! I won't have it here. This is MY dream!"

"No, it's MY dream, so I'll say whatever I want, thank you very much!" Eroica replied stubbornly, placing his hands on his hips. A sly smile slowly crossed his face. Klaus most decidedly did not like the look of it. "In fact…" the Earl said slowly. "Maybe I'll even kiss you!" he leaned forwards suggestively.

"NEIN!" the Major shouted, jumping backwards. "What do you think you're doing, you degenerate?"

"Hey, it's MY dream, I can do whatever I want!"

"Like hell you can!"

Eroica regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, before sighing dramatically. "You are always yourself, Major. So wholly insensitive. But then, if iron stopped being iron I suppose it really would be the end…"

"Stop spouting that tripe and get out of my dream, you bastard!"

The blue eyes widened in surprise. "But this is a bit…too like you, even for a dream."

Klaus felt a headache coming on. Why hadn't this stupid dream ended already? Why couldn't he dream about tanks?

"You would rather dream about tanks?" Eroica asked incredulously, then he smiled. "Well, I must admit that's not very flattering…but very entirely like you, Major."

"…You heard that?" he asked in confusion.

"This is a dream, remember?"

"Ja…Yes, but…" he closed his eyes, not that it actually blocked anything out.

"You do really seem to be here," the Earl continued. "I mean the real you. Really."

"Stop saying 'really,' this is confusing enough as it is. God damn dream!"

The thief smirked. "Aye, aye. Captain."

He glared back at him. "I'm a Major."

For the first time he felt a twinge of pain at the stupid dream. This man he was looking at, talking to…this wasn't real. He would never have these stupid conversations again. Ever.

Hell, he would have to explain to the Earl's men when he got home. If he got home.

The Eroica that stood before him looked confused. "What…Explain what, Major?"

He found himself staring at the stupid dream in surprise. This shouldn't be bothering me. I shouldn't care. I spent the last nine years wishing this man would vanish off the face of the Earth.

"Major? What's going on?" Eroica walked towards him. "Tell me!"

He found himself staring at the dream with sudden sadness. But it was stupid. It was just a dream.

You're already dead.

Before his eyes, Eroica's expression turned frightened, terrified—as vivid and clear as in the real world. The blue eyes widened, growing round and scared, and he looked up at the Major, who found he suddenly couldn't back away. Not because the dream wouldn't let him, but because he felt—what? Guilty? Sad?

"Don't say that, Major! Even in a dream, it isn't funny!"

"Gott…" This was horrible. Why was he dreaming this?

"And—and I can't be dead. I mean, I'm right here, aren't I?"

"You idiot, you're a dream," he said, though it lacked his usual vehemence, and he knew it.

"But I'm…I'm not dead. I know I'm not dead. Can't you do something, Major?"

"God damn it, Eroica! What do you expect me to do?"

Eroica looked up at him, suddenly looking far more helpless and scared than he ever had in real life. The Earl, for all of his annoying perversions, was not a weakling and he had never allowed the Major to see him so frightened.

It troubled Klaus more than he wanted to think.

So maybe he did feel guilty.

"You're a civilian. And a NATO contractor," sort of, he said slowly. "And no one under Iron Klaus' protection dies! And I still have to yell at you for ruining my wedding, and getting us lost in this stupid world. You can't get off so easily just by conveniently dying! I won't allow it!"

Lord Gloria smiled slowly, his eyes lighting up, and Klaus felt another stab of the now-familiar pain of loss. "I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Tank Commander!"

"It's Ma—"

Before he could get out of the way, Eroica had flung his arms around his neck, and laughing, kissed him on the cheek. Flailing in panic, Klaus reached up to push the thief away from him, but his hands felt only air.

The next moment, he woke up.

He woke up. It was still pitch black, but he stumbled out of the narrow bed anyways, shivering, and dressed. He lit a cigarette almost immediately, which for once failed to help, so he went ahead and did more exercises, until he finally realized that the unpleasant feeling of the dream was not going to go away so easily.

Blindly, he stumbled through the dark hallways, trying to remember everything he had seen the day before with the boy Liir. The day before…it seemed so much more distant.

Eventually, he made it to the room. His heart racing, he stepped inside.

They had not moved the Earl's body. Through the light of the full moon that spilled in the window he could clearly see the familiar face, framed by long golden curls. The Countess was still there as well, he noticed with surprise, curled up on the floor, as though she had come to see her son again and collapsed there.

He slowly made his way around the narrow bed towards her. He didn't even particularly like the woman, she was an annoying idiot, much like her son, but still, it seemed disgusting to leave her in the room with the…body.

Feeling the cold grip of the dream seize him again, the Major stopped, his eyes falling back to the still figure on the bed. The image of the dream Eroica haunted him, unsettling with its realism. Without quite knowing what he was doing, he had stepped closer to the bed.

Studying the face again, the Major felt something else tugging at his mind. It seemed…off. The face was pale, it was true. But it wasn't quite the same sickening grey-blue of a corpse. It was wrong, somehow, he felt, frowning. Iron Klaus was no stranger to death or dead bodies, and something about this one was definitely, definitely not as it should be. The longer he studied the body, the stronger the feeling became.

Finally, he reached out and touched one of the Earl's hands. The coldness sent a jolt of surprise through him, but he ignored it. The hand was cold, but there was still something strangely off about it. Slowly, he lifted the arm.

And realized what it was.

"What are you doing?" a strangled voice gasped behind him.

Great. The Major turned his head slightly to see the Countess rising shakily off the ground. She looked horrified, and perhaps not without cause, after all, the Major himself could not entirely explain his actions.

He shook his head. "I don't know. But I do know that something about this isn't right."

The Countess' face changed from disgust to confusion. "What do you mean?"

He turned back to the Earl's body. "I've seen a lot of dead bodies. This isn't what they look like. The skin colour changes more dramatically. It isn't just pale—as the liver decomposes the skin becomes bluish…and rigor mortis ought to have set in two or three hours after the death, but it hasn't. And…it doesn't smell like a dead body."

Glinda had gone from looking confused to looking vaguely ill. "I don't understand. What are you telling me? Are you saying Dorian isn't dead?"

He shook his head. It would be needlessly cruel to raise her hopes. "I don't know."

The dream came back to him. Eroica, Lord Gloria, in his dream had seemed so real. But that was a dream, it was absolute lunacy. Dreams were dreams, sometimes they were vivid and lucid, but they still meant nothing…

On Earth, he reminded himself. But this wasn't Earth, it was Oz. The rules were different here. And as much as he loathed it with every fibre of his being, he had to recognize the differences. He still had to learn the rules here.

"I had a…" it was going to sound idiotic. Like something Eroica would say, and he stopped himself, but now the Countess was looking at him, watching him carefully. He turned and glared at her. "I dreamt about the Earl. Does that mean anything?"

She seemed surprised. "I wouldn't know," she said in a tiny voice. "Maybe that you're grieving…?"

He sighed in aggravation. That wasn't it! The dream had been different, strange. It bothered him in the same way Eroica's body did. It wasn't right. "Listen, I didn't like your son. I wasn't his friend, despite whatever lies he may have told you. I've spent the last nine years wishing he would just disappear!"

He saw the tears welling up in her wide blue eyes, eyes that were far too much like the Earl's for comfort, and looked away, but he couldn't afford to waste time trying to think of some 'nice' way of explaining himself.

The Countess looked to her son with an expression of such sadness that the Major was momentarily startled. "He told me he loved you," she said softly.

He groaned. "He tells everyone that, the damn pervert!"

Tells, not told.

Damn it, you can't afford to loose your mind like this. There could be other explanations. It could just be a stupid dream. Rigor mortis might take longer to set in on Oz. Maybe it hasn't even been three hours, you don't know how long you were asleep.

But no. He knew what he felt. What he knew. And besides, what he had told the Eroica in his dream was right. He didn't let anyone who was his responsibility die.

The Countess looked at him, then at her son. "If you really think there's something wrong…I'll go and get Elphie."

Once she had slipped from the room, Klaus found himself alone, again, with the perfectly still body. But the more he looked at it, the more he was certain what he felt was not his imagination. He snorted. "Bloody idiot, can't even die right."

A few minutes later, Glinda returned with a very puzzled Elphaba. The green woman looked at him curiously. "I don't understand you," Elphaba said. "One minute, you're calling the Earl all sorts of nasty names and raving about how much you hate him and how he's the scum of the Earth…and the next you're obsessed with bringing him back from the dead!"

He glared at her, but she didn't flinch. It would be so much easier if he were among his subordinates. He could send them to Alaska. Here, there wasn't even an Alaska to exile people to!

"I do not believe the Earl is dead," he said flatly. "As he is merely a civilian thief and has a record of co-operating with NATO operations, it is my responsibility as an officer to ensure his well being."

She gave him a dubious look that he would have banished one of his agents to Alaska until the end of time for. But alas, no agents, no Alaska. He pulled out a cigarette and smoked furiously for a moment, trying to concentrate on something other than the present situation.

"So you don't think he's dead?" she looked at the body on the bed again. "He looks dead to…you're right, there is something off about this."

"What?" Glinda asked, looking around in confusion. "What is it?"

The Witch looked at her steadily for a moment. "Glinda…how many dead bodies have you seen?"

The blonde was startled for a moment. "Um…well, not many. I saw Nessa…'s feet," she said meekly. "And Chuffrey, at the funeral. And…and that soldier we passed, on the way here."

The Witch only nodded. "And what did that soldier smell like?"

The Countess paled. "…bad."

"And what does this smell like?"

"But—Elphie—that man was all cut up—"

"That was part of it, but trust me, Glinda, death has a smell…a feel…" she paused, walking closer to the body. "This doesn't feel like death."

"What then?"

"I don't know. Perhaps the potion I mixed, when combined with the soldiers' poison, induced a coma with life signs so low we can't feel them. I've heard of such things."

The Major nodded. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility. There had been cases of poisons on Earth that had similar effects, especially in the middle ages when technology had not been advanced enough to detect weaker life signs. Besides, stranger things had happened.

This week, mostly to him.

"So if that's the case what do we do about?" Glinda asked in a sort of awed whisper. "How do we wake him up?"

The Witch was only able to shrug helplessly. "I don't know. I don't know…" she paused for a moment, then looked up. "But Nanny might."

"Your old Ama?" Glinda asked in surprise.

"That old crone?" the Major scowled.

She glared at them both. "Nanny may be near her centennial, but she does have her uses, you know. She's saved Liir's life when I thought he was dead."

"Well what are you waiting for?" the Countess asked. "Go wake her up!"

"Nanny's an old woman, she needs her sleep!"

"She needs her sleep? This is an emergency!" Glinda exclaimed.

The Witch sighed, sounding supremely tired and annoyed.

But she went to wake the old woman.

An hour later, the room was crowded once more, with Nanny seated on the small wooden chair, the full story and all of their thoughts on the matter having been related to her. Klaus didn't put much faith in the old hag, but as he could think of no other way to get help for the Earl outside of returning to Earth, he remained silent. And glared.

Nanny scowled at them. "It shouldn't take me to do all this," she said, yawning. "Nanny's far too old and senile to be resurrecting people left, right and centre."

"You didn't resurrect Liir, we just didn't realize he wasn't yet dead, and that's what's happened with Glinda's son…we think."

"Your son?" the old woman asked, looking from the Earl to the Countess suspiciously. "He looks a bit old to be your son, doesn't he?"

"It's complicated..." the Countess said evasively.

The old woman sighed huffily. "No one tells Nanny anything." Slowly, she got to her feet, which much support from Elphaba, and shuffled over to the bed to get a closer look at the Earl. By this time, it was near sunrise, and the sky outside was a lighter shade of dark blue. Several candles had been lit around the room, almost giving it the feel of a some sort of medieval wake.

"I have been immersing myself in Renaissance culture and loving it," Eroica had told him in Rome. The Major swallowed and turned away, lighting a cigarette as Nanny felt for the Earl's pulse, and bent low over his chest, appearing to listen intently. Then she lifted one of his arms and watched how pliant it was, as he had done early.

"Hm. Yes, yes, its Nanny's opinion that there's some question about this one, that's for sure. Back in Rush Margins we used to bury this sort with bells hooked up above their graves, and tied with a string that went into the coffin so that if they woke up, they could pull the string and we would hear the bell ringing and dig them up again."

"D—Did any of them wake up? Did the bells ever ring?" Glinda tearfully asked.

"Oh yes," Nanny replied simply, appearing to not notice the mother's overwhelming grief. "Lots of times."

"So what do we do?" Elphaba asked, finally.

"What do you think you do?" Nanny replied, scowling at them all. "It shouldn't take Nanny to tell you this. Why does no one know anything these days? You wait."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The next two days were spent waiting. Elphaba watched it all from a distance, preferring to remain isolated in her tower, working on finishing her winged monkeys, who had been neglected as she concocted her 'antidote' for Glinda's son. They were still rather clumsy at flying, but improving with surprising speed, all things considered, and seemed much more willing to learn how to use their wings than how to speak.

Glinda spent the time sitting beside Dorian's bed, growing paler and sadder every hour that rolled by with no change in her son. She chattered away constantly for the first day, as though that might help, which seemed to annoy Klaus as much as it annoyed Elphaba, and he spent large portions of the day with Liir, which pleased Elphaba although she barely paused in her work to recognize the feeling. As he had with Nanny's arrival, Liir seemed to enjoy the attention, but she had no more time to feel regret over the years that had gone by since she had come to Kiamo Ko.

Although he seemed slightly annoyed by Liir's presence (then again, Elphaba reminded herself, Klaus seemed slightly annoyed with anyone's presence) he appeared to tolerate the boy. If he recognized him as his half-brother, the Witch could not say, for she never spent enough time watching them from the shadows to hear what they said.

Nanny checked in on Dorian from time to time, always with the same verdict: not quite dead yet. She spent the rest of her time dozing in her chair by the window, and concocting a frothy stew-like substance she planned to feed Glinda's son when and if he should recover.

What had seemed like joyous news to Glinda at first, slowly seemed to be turning into a sort of torture for her, Elphaba noticed. At first she ignored it. She was still angry with Glinda, and didn't largely care what happened to her son, but eventually, and despite herself, she asked Nanny to take the Countess of Red Gloria back to her room and get her to go to sleep.

When the so-called 'good witch' finally slept, Klaus took her place, watching the Earl. Elphaba noticed this with some interest, although she did not wish to devote a lot of energy to the puzzle that surrounded the relationship between the two men.

Since Dorian had been at the Major's wedding, she had at first assumed they were friends. But that no longer seemed the case, even with only one of them conscious, as the Major's comments about the Earl, when they came, failed largely to be anything other than insulting. Nevertheless, he refused to leave the man's side when Glinda or Nanny was not there to watch him. It was puzzling, and Elphaba found herself wishing that Glinda's son would recover just so that she could observe more of the strange relationship.

She got her wish at midnight on the second day.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Klaus sat back in the small, uncomfortable chair and fought the urge to light another cigarette. He only had a few left. He hadn't really slept since his dream two days earlier. Each time he tried, his sleep was shallow and unsatisfying. Eventually, he had given up trying.

Dorian lay in the bed across from him, perfectly still. Would he wake up? Or would he starve to death before he had the chance? This wasn't twentieth century Earth. There were no hospitals, and the closest they had to a doctor was a crazy old crone who, according to Elphaba, was almost a hundred years old and liked to pretend she was senile when she clearly wasn't.

Bloody madhouse. Bloody idiots.

He looked back the Earl's still form and growled angrily. "You're supposed to wake up now, you bloody idiot!"

Impossibly, he heard the faintest groan of response from the figure on the bed. He paused, alert, unsure if he had heard or imagined the sound. Then, as he watched, Eroica's fingers twitched. It was incredibly little movement, but incredibly more than the Earl had moved in the past forty-eight hours, and the Major quickly lit the candles closest to the bed and watched.

The Earl's eyelashes fluttered weakly, and he made a very quiet, almost inaudible, groaning noise. Klaus felt his heart thud annoyingly loud with relief, but even as he watched, the Earl seemed to be slipping back into the grasp of the death-like sleep.

"Damn it, Eroica!" he shouted as loudly as he could, reasoning that it couldn't hurt, and if Eroica did die now, he wanted a last chance to yell at the thief, "You're supposed to wake up now, you degenerate! You've just been lying here for the past three days! It's indecent! It's despicable! And after you got us into this mess, too! I said wake up!"

He heard a noise at the door, and was aware of Glinda standing there, eyes wide with shock. She almost ran over, but he yelled over his shoulder. "Get the Witch, and the old hag!"

Eroica's eyes were almost fully open by this time, looking hazy and unfocused. He heard the Countess hesitate in the doorway, and then the sound of her shoes hitting the castle's stone floor as she ran towards the Witch's tower.

He concentrated on the Earl. Should he be keeping the man awake, or would that make things worse? The thief was evidently trying to say something, but was too weak to work his mouth properly. His hands twitched slightly where they lay on the covers.

Despite himself, the Major was glad, and couldn't help smiling ever-so slightly.

"I knew an annoying wanker like you wouldn't die so easily."

Glinda ran back into the room, followed by Elphaba and tired-looking Nanny. "Nanny always has to do everything around here," the old woman complained, then she saw the Earl and hobbled forwards. "Glinda, your son is recovering. I'm glad dear, you know you and Elphaba were always so close in school, I felt like your Ama as well. Well, don't just stand there, Elphaba, go and get that stew I was making!"

There was chaos for the next several hours, of which Klaus remained carefully distant. Once it became apparent that Eroica was going to recover, he silently left the room, as Nanny was going to feed the Earl and he didn't know what else, maybe bathe him? The Major shuddered, he really did not want to know the details, so he strode along the fortress' parapets and smoked the second-to-last of his cigarettes.

Afterwards, the Countess found him and told him that the Earl had fallen back asleep, but that Nanny said it was a regular enough sleep, and that he was on the way towards a full recovery. The Major didn't entirely trust Nanny's diagnosis, but said nothing. The Earl slept for the rest of night, and all of the following day, waking only for a few moments at a time.

Nevertheless, the Major was more pleased with this turn of events then he would ever admit.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Glinda sat with Elphaba in an uneasy silence. She looked at the teacup resting in front of her, it was beautiful, delicate, an antique with an intricate pattern. Clearly, it had belonged to the castle's previous owners. Glinda admired its loveliness and delicacy and silently pitied it for having to belong to a woman who would never appreciate—or even notice—it's beauty.

The ornate teacup made a good distraction. A part of her wanted to run back to Dorian and make sure he was really okay. Again. But another part of her told her to leave well enough alone, for the moment. Elphaba seemed to think it was wise to leave Dorian with the Major for the time being. She would think about that later.

There were other things that demanded her attention at the moment.

"Are you going to tell Liir?" she asked at last.

"Tell Liir what?" the Witch asked.

"That the Major is his brother…half-brother," she said quietly.

Elphaba shrugged. "I can't imagine why I should."

"But…he should know," the sorceress continued, then stopped.

The Witch arched one thin eyebrow. "What, you think I'll just tell him and all of a sudden we'll be one happy family? I'm not even certain Liir knows I'm his mother. At times he seems to know it, and then he'll go and call me 'Auntie Witch' no matter how many times I've told him not to. That was what Sarima's children called me," she added by way of explanation seeing Glinda's confused expression. Elphaba sighed.

"He's never had a family, really. He' made it clear to me many times that he wants a father. He has no idea Fiyero was his. Well, he said once that a magic fish told him. But, you know… He's never really had a mother, either," she added, with only the slightest sound of regret, Glinda noted. "But there's nothing that can be done about that. I've never liked children, Glinda. And as for telling him about Klaus…what good would that accomplish?"

"It would be admitting you're Klaus' mother," the blonde said quietly. "Forgive me for saying so, but you don't…"

"Act like it?" the Witch finished. "Why should I? He's a thirty year old man for Lurline's sake! He hardly needs a mother. He didn't even know who I was until five days ago!"

"But still…" the petite sorceress struggled to press on, unsure herself of what she wanted to say. "But still…it would make Liir happier. He's an awfully gloomy child, Elphie," the Witch grunted noncommittally, "and it would be a step in the right direction."

"And who are you to tell me what the right direction is, Glinda? Didn't you abandon your son on Earth too for the last—what was it, twenty, Earth years?"

Glinda bit her lip. She didn't want to think about Dorian at the moment, or talk about what had happened with her family, least of all to this Elphaba. It had already become apparent that the Witch who sat across from her had no desire to become acquainted with her estranged son, and from what little she knew about the German officer she doubted he would care.

Maybe it was for the best. They had to be the two most difficult people to deal with in all of Oz. Or Earth. Still, she couldn't help thinking that the frosty indifference with which they all seemed to regard each other wasn't quite right.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Klaus looked over at the sleeping figure on the bed.

Dorian was curled into a ball like a cat, and perfectly still. One couldn't even be sure he was breathing, just at a glance. That thought sent an unwelcome shiver of unease through the Major. His mind was already racing with a hundred things that could have happened—most of them being "you can't really bring someone back from the dead—even if they aren't quite dead yet—he's—" so that he wasn't even conscious of crossing the room until he was standing right over the thief.

It's nothing, he's fine…God damn it, why did he care so much about the damn bugger anyway?

Oh give it up, Major, another voice inside his head taunted. He shut that one up quickly enough. The Earl was still lying there, perfectly still and silent.

Just…

He moved one hand slowly towards his neck, to feel for a pulse, just to reassure himself. It wasn't like him to be this worried, the Major frowned. Wasn't like him at all. But he hadn't exactly been himself lately, had he? He mused, feeling the soft curls brush against the back of his knuckles. Coming through those damn "Mirrors." Coming to this "other world." That had been his first mistake.

Eroica made a small pleased sound when he brushed his neck—which was more than enough proof of life—and the Major quickly pulled his hand away. The Earl drew himself into an even tighter ball and seemed to sink deeper into sleep.

The Major felt another in what had been a long series of pangs of uneasiness that seemed to stretch back—how many years?—at least as long as he had known the Earl. Maybe even more. And he still hadn't left the damn thief's room!

Well…what if something happens in the night? What if the poison resurfaces? What if he falls back into that limbo state? What if he wakes up and panics at being alone in a strange place—Christ, the idiot's afraid of the dark, for crying out loud!

What if he dies?

"Yes…definitely not myself," the Major murmured. Now he was starting to get a headache, and he was exhausted. Slowly, he sank to the floor beside the Earl's bed and lit his last cigarette. Dorian murmured something incoherent in his sleep.

When had he started thinking of Eroica as "Dorian?" He held his head in his hands.

This was bad.

To be Continued in Chapter Nine: Unlikely Assassins