VIENNA, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, FEBRUARY 3, 1922
Bovril liked this room. Bovril liked how the carpet went stritch-stritch when Bovril crawled over it. Bovril also liked getting fur all over the carpet.
Something Bovril didn't like was how Mr. Sharp looked right now. It wanted to comfort Mr. Sharp but Mr. Sharp was busy talking to the man with the squishy-green repeat thing.
Bovril was a good loris, though, and Bovril knew when it was a good time to curl up in a corner and sleep, especially when Mr. Sharp was just a little bit tipsy on the good scotch.
"I'm telling you, I don't want to give an interview!"
"You don't have to, la- look, Mr. Sharp-" an exasperated huff from 'we've-practically-known-each-other-for-years-call-me-Eddie' Malone, and Deryn just had to throw herself into the nearest chair in 'Eddie's' hotel room. At least the man had the dignity to rent a room in the good part of town. "- you just looked damn lonely in that bar, so I bought you a drink- and why were you even in a hole like that?"
Deryn huffed, slouching lower in the chair. "No-fucking-one was supposed to know who I was, you twit."
"Well, I did," Malone continued bravely. "So, where was I- I bought you a drink, which is, by the way, illegal for an upstanding American like me-" Another huff from Deryn, though this one contained more of a hiss. "- and I must admit, Mr. Sharp, that I was a bit shocked to see your face in an American tabloid with the label 'Austrian Emperor a Little Too Light For His Loafers', end quote." He embellished himself with a little gesture, and his frog croaked.
"You were likely damn ashamed you hadn't written it." Deryn let out a harsh laugh, and crossed her legs.
"Well, yes," Malone admitted, crossing the room to find his own, personal doctor-prescribed supply of gin. "And then I wondered why a good Scottish?- girl such as yourself was, apparently, the homosexual partner of a man. Parts just don't match up, really." He shrugged. "So, from the beginning. I see the article, I decide the news over here's getting good, and I get where the good's at. I stumbled around this forsaken place for two months without seeing hide nor hair of the chance of an interview or any good news, and out of nowhere, bam, lookat what happened with our friend Alek."
Deryn sat back up suddenly. "Don't call him that."
"All right, all right." Malone waved his hands around, trying to dismiss her like the angry bee she was. "So I haul myself over to Trow-pow, or whatever it's called, and I snap one picture, and all of a sudden I get this letter thing from this Count Volger or something, saying I have been banned from the palace and palace ground and pretty much every event where His and Her Majesty are present-" He caught how Deryn wilted at that, and her feeble protest.
"Not yet. She's not- she's not his yet."
He nodded, willing to indulge her. "Well, anyway, long story short, my visa's been looked over and my press pass was confiscated, so hey, what else can a good boy like me do but hang around here, in Vienna's famous red-light district until they kick me out?"
Deryn didn't respond, and drew her legs up into the chair.
"Why do you care about him so much anyway? He's going to get hitched, it looks like he's left you in the dust." He busied himself with pouring a good drink. "I saw the way he looked at you, before this, and all those photos those two-bit photographers took, even after it was announce he was going to marry Miss Romanov. So that's not true, he's not abandoning you like a scumbag."
Deryn cleared her throat. "Eddie, I need to leave the country, and you are the only one I can ask for help."
He stared at her, stopping in his mixing for a moment.
She just shook her head. "Alek- he won't let me go. Barking spiders, he- he loves me, or thinks he does, and I don't even know why I'm telling you, you're a reporter-"
"Ex-reporter, I don't have my papers."
"Fine, ex-reporter. But the point is, you know people." Eddie was curious as to what she meant, and nodded for her to continue.
"-and I won't force someone to share Alek with me, she deserves better." Deryn shook her head. "He deserves to fall in love with her. I've seen her, she's cultured and polite and fills out a dress nicely. And he can love her and not be-" Her hand curled over her stomach just slightly, unconsciously.
"What?" Eddie couldn't help it, questions sprang from his lips like water from fountains.
"I love him. I have to let him have his life. I'm baggage, extra things on an airship that need to be thrown away so it can fly properly!"
"Your metaphors are astounding, Dr. Sharp- I'm going to call you that now, it's nice and safe and gender-neutral, a nomenclature Swiss, if I might."
Deryn sighed and wilted in her chair. "I'm not trying to be funny, Malone, I need help and you're just the man to help me. As I was saying, you know people that could- could get me out of here. I would- I'd need to be going to somewhere Alek wouldn't look like- like Germany, maybe." It was a split second decision, and already her plan began to form. "Germany, yes."
"You are completely insane, and I am sure I could find someone to certify you."
Sensing a challenge, Deryn slid her spine back up the chair. "I am deadly serious, Mr. Malone, and if you can't man up and help me I will find someone who can."
Eddie rubbed the back of his head with his free hand.
"Y'know, are you really sure about... Germany? It's not bad there, persay, but, uh, they do have reparations payments that are doing a number on the economy, if you'll excuse my pun."
"No. It has to be Germany. My Clanker's okay, and I'm sure I could find work. I'll fit in, they have a bunch of refugees coming back from the war."
Eddie shook her head. "No. No, this is silly. I am not taking you to goddamn Germany- excuse my language, miss-" a bark of laughter from Deryn. "I- no. They won't like me there- you know, they're saying Jews started the war. I thought that was why I couldn't get an interview with the Emperor, I thought he believed that nonsense."
Deryn looked curious, but Malone didn't offer an explanation beyond that. He took a nice, long drink from his glass and his frog tried to get its tongue in too.
"Why d'you wanna go, anyway?" Deryn pretended not to notice his accent slipping back in. "Is it because you don't want to share?"
"Yes you twit- that was the whole point of my conversation- blimey, weren't you listening?" Deryn was angry, but it faded a little. "Besides, he won't need me around. I'll just make everything complicated."
Eddie rolled his eyes and sat loudly in the chair across from her, the frog almost falling off.
"Like you haven't already? It sells papers, but your personal life must be hell."
A pause, and Deryn looked away, rather ashamed.
"I'm pregnant."