STAVE 9
As an acting nurse for the morning; that morning in particular, I seemed to be emphasizing the "acting" part of the phrase acting nurse. For like a young girl, I was acting out the events of New Years Eve seamlessly to the amusement of everyone. And the funny thing was, I could still hear the violins sweeping through my head, as if they were still playing. Yet still, omitting small sweet details of scattered conversations that were so trivial and yet meant so very much.

"Oh how romantic!" gasped one of the actual nurses snapping me back to reality, throwing a bed sheet up and letting it fall airily down to its target. "But did you ever find your shoes?" the question hit me suddenly and I laughed at myself. "No as a matter of fact." I say. "But I know where I left them and that I must get them or mum will have my hide." I trailed off as I tended to one of the patients who was finishing up their soup.

Suddenly my younger-self and I jumped in unison as the door to the ward flew open and in skirted the head nurse flustered and giddy beyond reason. She fluttered about the room holding a note in her hand laughing, practically kissing the face of anyone she passed. "He's done it! He's done it! A small fortune! A small fortune he's given us he has! Lord love me! a small fortune my dears! And he says there's more to come."

My younger self took the note and blushed at the amount. I stood handing it back and having little wonder who the generous donation was from asked with no hesitation. "Is he still here?"

"But I haven't told you who he is."

In a haste I untied my apron and without any knowledge of my senses primped like a small schoolgirl. "You don't need to. I've guessed and there's only one man in London with that kind of money." – and the true heart to donate it with a promise of more.

I ran into the front room and caught him just as he was about to quit the hospital. "Mr. Scrooge." I called out to him mildly and it was enough to reach his ears. He turned to me and welcomed me with a smile. "Ms. Cratchit! I was not expecting to find you here." Momentarily his smile fades into concern. "You are not ill? Tim is well?" there was a trimmer of panic that laced his voice and I reassured him with a smile of my own.

"All is well, I volunteer here when I can."

His eyes brighten at this and a light chuckle leaves his thin lips. "That is very kind but I am not surprised by the prospect, not a bit." He says this tenderly and we both stepped gravitationally closer to each other.

"Are you well today Emma? Only, I was just thinking of you not long before this." his voice is that calm hush that I (looking back with Fan) was accustomed to, it had a non-frivolous earnestness that I trusted. It told me that his inquiry of how I was and his thoughts of me were truthful and thoughtful, not simply gentlemanly decorum and duty

"I am sir, quite well." My eyes met his unwittingly as I thought of what he had just done, not only for my family but now for the hospital; another place where my heart was solely invested, and a sudden pride washed over me that I knew such a man. The words came passionately without warning. "You have no idea what your donation will mean to everyone."

He is taken aback. "My donation?" he presses with a moment of fane surprise before disappointment gave way. "It did not remain anonymous then?" he chuckles slightly shaking his head. " I had so hoped it would. You would think I would be used to it by now all my donations seem to come with a hullabaloo no matter how much I plea for secrecy. I suppose the gossip is too much of a temptation."

"Its certain to build notoriety." I reply with half a smile of my own, but he only frowns. "But that is what I do not wish; Emma, I do not do what I do to receive accolades and gain reputation. At least, not in the way it appears. I wish only to be known as the man people can come to in strife. Not some flashy banker who has decided to flash his wealth." He says the end part with a mixture of disheartenment and disgust as he looks away onto the old wood floors. Of course as with anything some of the masses and gossipers had marred and twisted the sudden change in him into something sinister and ugly. Heated whispers that the miser had a greater scheme in mind behind his smile. Something that my heart knew then even as I knew it now not to be so.

I touch his elbow with courage to bring him back. A soft, gentle touch as gaze met gaze. "It is not by the seal of your name that I knew it was you, it was the amount that revealed the kindness…that revealed the man."

His countenance lightens and he takes my hand with equal gentleness of a friend who sought understanding and found it. "Oh but you are good to me, I thank you." He kisses my knuckles lightly and then goes to leave again. An idea hits. "Sir."

He turns at the door. "Yes Emma?"

I swallow hard to clear away any nerves. "You said last night that you felt your failure lied in not having any confidences with anyone."

He affirms with a nod. "Aye, I did. What of it?"

Ringing my hands and biting my lip slightly. "Only, with as great as your financial donation was, I can't help but think a donation of your time and of your company would be equally as beneficial not only to the patients but to you as well."

"Heavens, the impish pixie conspires." He grins. "You have my full attention, go on." He comes towards me and the foolish impulse to smile takes hold and I quickly remove it as not to look a fool. "These people." my eyes motion back to the main room. "are in need of more than just medical treatment or financial donation of money. Some of them just want to feel like they haven't been forgotten. They want to feel validated sir- they want to feel…." Either for lack of vocabulary or lack of thought or nerve the sentence would not form. My eyes searched for any part of the room that would give me a clue, a hint as to what in the blazes I was trying to say. He stepped closer still and my heart lurched in an unusual, wonderfully agonizing way that startled me.

"Love, Martha." He concluded in a tone just above a whisper but yet still even. "I dare say they want to feel loved…even if they don't rightly know it."

I drop my eyes and then meet his gaze again with new purpose even though the strange new pulsation of my heart was beginning to frightened me. I cleared my throat and shoved it away. "Aye sir, you've hit the nail on the head, and with you reborn and all I figure who better than you who has just endeavored to donate such a sum to validate them as well. If your going to rejoin the world why not rejoin all of it, even the sad parts. They will be glad for the effort." I saw the hesitation flicker in his eyes and I unwittingly held out my hand. "Please, if nothing else- if not never again at least trust me in this."

The moments of him just staring at my out-stretched hand were perhaps the longest I had ever experienced. Was it brazen? was it forward for me to suggest when he had just said the night before he was like a new babe to the world entirely and that he would seek in me a confidant, was an adviser not a part of it? Or had he not meant it? Had he made too merry on New Years Eve and drank himself silly? God was I out of station, out of rank and out of my head to address him so? My fathers employer! A gentleman no less and only recently former miser. What was a matter with me? all these thoughts and more raced through my mind in a matter of a tick of a clock as I looked at his expressionless face.

"How passionate you are." He finally said. "Do they know what a dear, dear advocate they have in you and I have in you." His eyes softened and I breathed at last, he took my hand and the grasp was warm and earnest as it had been since Christmas. "I take you at your word, lead me onward, Emma." And so I did.

I turned to Fan distinctly to explain how well he got on with the patients and how he had made a habit of donating and visiting twice a month but before I could something happened. The earth begun to stir as if in an earthquake yet it did not affect the surroundings, only Fan and I. by the expression on the angel's face I could tell whatever this occurrence was good or bad had not been anticipated and for the first time since I learned that I was in the balance between life and afterlife I felt afraid.

There was a clap of blinding white light and suddenly I felt a new acute sense of my faculties. My limbs felt slightly heavier and weighted, I had a dim inkling that I was two people at once and an agonizing pull that I should become united as one. I felt…I felt that my soul and body were all at once near to each other, aching for me to either rejoin or depart.

When the light dimmed; all this was confirmed. I found myself back in my bedroom in our current house on Lobs Street. The curtains were drawn save for a slight opening in which dust particles danced in the streaming light almost mockingly. I could feel my own sickness looming in the room like Damocles' sword, vile and thick without being visible. And there I was in the midst of it. I looked down upon myself as a puppet-master looks upon its fallen doll; inanimate; looking putridly ill with skin the color of parchment, dark circles under fixedly shut eyes, gaunt cheeks, pale lips, frail form. And yet I looked strangely beautiful in my nightgown with my hands at my side, main of hair somehow well tended to and cascading off the pillow. I looked more like a cursed princess in a fairy story waiting for the kiss of a prince rather than death.

I was tempted to touch my own hand and reunite the two elements that made me as a whole but something that blocked the stream of light coming from the window stopped me. a long exasperated sigh. "Ebenezer." I whispered as I drew away from myself to fixate upon him.

He looked quite as wretched as the girl in the bed. His clothes were wilted and by the look had been for a long while, he wore only his vest, no cravat, no elegant cufflinks, the sleeves were half-heartedly rolled up to the elbows and even so the blue vest was unbuttoned without a care. He looked pale and tired, more tired than I had ever known him to look. Like he had not been acquainted with a bed in a good week or more. my heart went out to him. With his hands behind his head in a stretch, elbows at an erect point and tall form at full height he paced the room before running his hands down his face.

I tried to speak to him only to realize that I was still a spirit and could not do so.
he slowly sunk down to the edge of the bed with something like a contented, doting smile resting on his lips as he whisk away a strand of hair from my forehead. "A moment of peace for you at last my love." He muses. "I am glad. Your fits are becoming less and less."

He clears his throat and reached toward the night stand and into a silvery bucket where a soft crunch of ice is heard, he looks at me thoughtfully as he withdraws a single chip and manages to hold fast to it. He inches closer to my weak form and gingerly cradles the back of my neck with his free hand to lift my head from the pillow and places the ice between the chapped lips. He gently rocks the crystal back and forth and I can almost feel the relieving cold and the tips of his fingers. "Your lips are so very dry my dearest." He muses. "So very dry and we musnt have that."

The look in his eyes… if I were a fool I might have mistook his tenderness as a little more than a paternal love for a friend. There was a small inkling in me that secretly hoped,…that sensed that it was more, that hoped somewhere that it had always been more between us than an adult playfellows love and regard. But that was misguided, stupid even. It could never be more. There never could have been more, that fact had always been cemented in my mind; just as I knew the sky was blue. And it had never bothered me. you cannot expect the sun to admire you back.

I half wondered how many hours he had wasted on me in such away, being newly engaged to Nora Ashton. Not many, I hoped. He put the ice back and looked upon me with something kindred to a gaze as the clock struck twelve. "they should be back soon." He says looking at the mantel. "In the meantime we should go over our books." He pauses as something side tracks him as his eyes suddenly become distant. "Tim will want to see you." My heart panged at this, my dear little brother; I hadn't even thought of it… it all seemed so real now… so dreadfully, awfully real. He continues

" We all thought it best for him not to see you as you know not to chance him catching it, but he finds it so very hard without you. We all do, the days just drag on; without meaning, without answer-" there was more but he didn't say. He must have been thinking of the loss of his own sister in this, of poor Fan who I left behind.

Mr. Scrooge then leans forward with determination as if to propose a business venture. "Come through, come through for Tim's sake if not for mine! Or Belinda, she will have callers soon and she needs a sister to confide her romantic schemes in without prejudice."

But there was no reply from the still form on the bed. He sighs miserably and reached for the ledgers on the floor and futilely attempts to keep up our luncheon tradition. He opened his and rested it upon me as he took my own in his lap. He turned back a few pages to the month of December 24th 1843 when I had last made an entry, then I glimpsed the heading on his book and nearly cringed, February 21st 1844. I had been ill and unconscious for two months, but in the spirit world it had only felt like two hours in which I had recounted and relived the last 23 years of my life, one must truly marvel at the cunning deception of time and how it has no true definition. But now I wanted only for my family and him.

Mr. Scrooge looked at the ledger and frowned as he always did, held the book at several distances, squinted and then pursed his lips in defeat as he dug in his pocket. "Blast how I hate your handwriting." He withdrew the round spectacles that he had hated most utterly and put them upon his nose. "Tis equivalent to chicken-scratch, and I know you only do it so I put on these confounded goggles! For I have seen you write notes to Belinda or Peter as clear as a picture." And he was right, I wrote in that way just for the sport of seeing him frustrated.

Then he sighs and it was laced with sorrow that had up till now maintained itself beautifully. "But it always made you laugh my dear, and my heart would soar at the sound of it." He then reached down and clasped one of my hands and spoke to me very seriously. "Emma, Emma listen to me, your laugh was my music, your eyes were the star that led me, your words my gospel. To know that we two treaded upon the same earth was my reason for wanting to wake in the morning." He inches closer to me with a kind of urgency. "Martha, open your eyes. let me hear music again, let me be guided. Martha, I'll not survive it if we are parted, I'll not .Not as the man I am now, the miser perhaps shall but I shall not." I knew he spoke true and hot tears leaked from his eyes despite his best efforts. "Damn it, Emma open your eyes,…come back to me."

And then the broken words that made my world turn round more than once. "Please, I need you here with me." Then, my world near stopped. He said those words to me? After everything? Nora Ashton, Tom, the scandal that near ruined everything, I did not understand. I could not hope to understand unless I questioned him which I so dearly yearned to do. To feel his mortal touch as a complete person, look into his cornflower eyes with all my harbored affections and question him with the benign, wonderful mystery of it all.

I went to rejoin my body again but once more sound drew me away, the click of the door. Mr. Scrooge stood up with an almost savage look glinting in his eyes as my parents entered with another man, a doctor. "No." he growled simply. "I will not allow this to happen." There was venom in his words as he glared at my father and dad glared back. It was such a violent change between the two men I had thought I had known so well. Then I recounted his words "the miser would survive…"

"Step aside Mr. Scrooge." Dad hissed, body completely tense. His fists clenched. What had come to pass? Where was the father I knew? Resigned and calm; even in Tim's worst, even in poverty. What was this? what was happening. Fred stepped in behind dad with an almost reinforcing look as mum suddenly begun to weep, Belinda taking her into her arms.

"Robert, it will end her, despite what this quack promises, it will end Martha forever." Mr. Scrooge had a mild shake in his stance and yet he stood firm at my side. The doctor a mousey, pimple of a man skirted unnoticed by him and started tending to me. taking my arm and examining it before placing a water basin under my arm.

Horror stricken I watched with bitter realization. Bloodletting. They were going to bleed me. I turned back frantically to the argument. "What gives you any authority here? Any right to decide what is best for my lil girl? You are a creditor not a doctor!"

"The authority of experience, Bob!" retorted Scrooge before looking to his nephew who was approaching him like a zookeeper attempts to approach a wild animal to calm it. "Fred this is the means in which we lost your mother, my dear sister; would you have this poor girl suffer the same fate?"

"Bob-" mum entreated but to no avail. As I watched the doctor's diligent, slow preparations it made me recount in sickening dread how Ida was taken before her time in the same ghastly way. How a little fever had turned into an agonizing, weakening death that I could have stopped but hadn't the knowledge to until he told me what he believed to me the fatalness of it. I had been prepared to die if it was natural, but not indirect murder! Not when there was hope, which my soul's presence told me there was.

"I will not stand by and do nothing!" Dad cried, the knife glinted in the corner of my eye and I gasped.

"But by doing this you hinder her further!"

"You're not a father you don't understand!"

"I could be. Believe me she would not want this!"

"Listen to him!" I plead unheard by all but going to my father with my spirit in hopes that I might have effect on someone. "Please listen to him!" I was desperate, desperate to be seen, desperate to be heard. I reached out and touched nothing. I was crying now, slipping away again. "My God why won't anybody listen to him!"

But then with a kind of unbridled strength I had only seen once before Mr. Scrooge grasped the doctor by the shirt and wrenched him over the bed to the other side, the basin shattering and with the wrath of the lord almighty pinned him to the wall. "No! I will not have you take her from me!" he snarls. "Not another woman that I love. I will not! Not again!"

"Uncle!" Fred cries drawing him back by the arms and trying to drag him away but still he advocated for me fervently; my friend, my benefactor, and my champion. Ever my champion. "Dear God I cannot be parted from him again!"

I begin to fight, even as I was fading back to the place I was before, even as the blood was beginning to drain I fought to get back to myself, to get back to my family, to get back to him. Even as Scrooge- Ebenezer, my Ebenezer fought against the restrains of his nephew to get to me. But I was slipping, farther and farther, and it was like running against the tide…another flash of white light…I was back with Fan.

"No!" I cursed as tears ran hot down my cheeks. "No, No! Ebenezer, no." the last part was in a tremulous whisper. I had missed my chance, as with so many times before I had missed my chance on a stupid whim. I sank to my knees.

"What happened?" Fan asked coming toward me.

I stared off into the blank white space with jaw hung slack. Finally I drew my limp arms in to hug myself. "I had a chance to rejoin my body; I was strong enough, well enough but I forsook it. Just as I did all the chances I had with him, I forsook it. Denied it and now I'm heartily sorry." I looked over my shoulder and marked painfully that she had his silver-blue eyes. "Oh, I really do love him, but I wasn't brave enough." I shook my head completely defeated. "Can you tell me if this is heaven or hell, I know not anymore."

Fan pursed her lips. "As I have told you before, you are in nether place. This is the realm in between life and death and all you can do here is remember and dream while you wait if you so choose."

She held out her hand awaiting my answer. I took it brokenly with little to no other choice. "Let me live in memory then, lead me on."

And the mist of memory swirled once more.

its soo good to be back, I may be a little rusty on writing romance but my recent real-life romance disappointments have really shaken me, so hopefully its not too soon or mushy, I was going for the beginning hints of a confusing friendship/crush for Martha, and yes she is still dying and is looking back on her life leading up to her death with fan, we'll see as this progresses if I can still make the relationship believable in the beginning stages.

I wanted to take a break from the past and show what was going on in the real world and maybe have character development from where they were to where they are noww, hopefully that wasn't a mistake, if it is i'll cut the chapter and go back to the flashbacks if not i'll jump off from here with more flashbacks in stave 10

comments please, I really need the boost