Summary: Movieverse, post twitches II, Aron/Miranda, angst, continuation.
Disclaimer: I do not own this. If I did, it would not be a kid's movie. This is not a kid's story. I have not read the books and do not intend to because I like messing with the movie characters. The books may well be better than the movies, but since it is the movies' faults and inaccuracies that inspire my subplots… being too correct would destroy my material.
He must have fallen asleep, because he opens his eyes to find her awake. The air is cold with a clear deepness that only comes when the rest of the world is long asleep. She is breathing quickly, if not quite too quickly, and the corners of her eyes are tense.
"Hi," He ventures, "How are you doing?"
"Aron?" She asks in a voice just shy of breaking.
"Yes, Miranda, right here."
Her mouth contorts and she jerks her head. "You're dead!"
"No love. I'm alive, remember?"
Her chest rises and falls sporadically "You're dead! Oh darkness, he will be here soon. I have to compose myself. You're dead!"
"Thantos isn't coming love, he died. He fell off the North Tower. He will never hurt you anymore." Oh light, he thinks frenetically, she does not know where she is.
"You're dead!" she shouts back half hysterical "And you've got some nerve telling me who is and isn't alive."
"Ah love, can't you see I'm alive? It's me."
Her face grows suspicious, "If it's really you, then what is the watchword?"
"Coram populo," He whispers to her.
"In the presence of the people…" She murmured. "You're right."
"Yes Miranda," He answers gently "I've remembered the watchword from the night I saw you last for 21 years."
"How hard is it really?" She asks angrily. "Two Latin words! I spent hour after hour scrying desperately, hoping, and praying. I would have risked anything to bring you back if you had sent me so much as a stick figure man, anything like the sign we agreed on. I thought we were so clever, with passwords like children playing at castles and dragons, and all it did was kill my hope every time I saw a sign that couldn't have been you."
"I know, Miranda. You have no idea how much I wanted to give you a sign."
Her eyes dart back and forth, frantic, "Thantos will be here soon. He will hurt me, Aron."
"He'll never touch you again, Miranda. He's dead and buried." Aron wills her to believe him.
She whispers, "If I make him angry, Thantos won't support us. And if he doesn't fight we'll be overwhelmed."
"He's dead Miranda, and I'm alive."
She thinks for a moment, "If that's true, I am surely dreaming." She closes her eyes and her voice gets softer. "Please light, don't let me ever wake."
She seems to drift back into sleep, and Aron lets her, dipping the cloth into the icy bath yet again and beginning his cooling cycle. The ice is no match for her fiery brow.
The next time she wakes hysterical, thrashing and crying. He curses and tries to hold her still, knowing full well that anything he does is worse than useless in the face of this fevered delusion. Even from the grave, his brother is still torturing his wife.
"Let me go!" She screams and it hits him in the heart.
She stops fighting and lies there sobbing. "Please don't." She whimpers, as she twists convulsively.
He takes his hands off her, fearing that he is only feeding her delirium.
There has to be some way….
Any way…
Without touching her…
To let her know it is just him…
To calm her…
Desperate, he searches the room for any hint of a solution, however futile, and his eyes light upon a bookshelf in the corner of the room. Randomly running to it, he seizes the first book he sees.
The book has an old leather mark in it from light only knows when. He spells light onto the pages.
"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world," He reads slowly and clearly. The words seem ridiculous considering his present situation, but he can think of nothing but this to attempt.
"Only the comparison of one state with another." It seems to him that Miranda's sobs are slowing.
"He who has felt the deepest grief," he continues, sure now that she is calming.
"Is best able to experience supreme happiness." He finishes, as her sobs trail off and she watches him with confusion.
Wondering what light-sent, if idiotic, work he had chanced upon, he glances at the cover The Count of Monte Cristo.
Even in the brief time he takes to make this observation, however, he can see Miranda straying back towards mad panic. Therefore, blindly, he flips toward the beginning of the book and continues reading.
It seems to him unfortunate and ill conceived his choice of book. The whole thing is almost too ironic.
The protagonist, like Aron, has been betrayed by his friends, sent to imprisonment for decades for a crime he had not committed.
Aron, as he continues to read, feels a strange empathy for this fictional character, locked away and forgotten in a cell, with no knowledge of his family or friends.
His heavy voice grows dark when he reads of what the Count finds upon his escape from prison. His beloved father, dead. His fiancée, believing him dead, married to his betrayer. His friends, scattered and poor. His enemies, rich and exalted.
He begins to question the wisdom of choosing this text, as he reads of the Count's choice to take revenge on his enemies. However, every moment he stops, even if Miranda appears asleep, she begins to twist and cry in anguish again. He dares not choose another book when these frail pieces of parchment are protecting her from Thantos, however metaphorically.
Aron loses all empathy for the Count, as he reads of his revenge, and its decimating effects on his once fiancée. Once convinced of the justice of the Count's cause, Aron now feels nothing but contempt for the fictional man
Nevertheless, Aron has no choice but to keep reading.
So, he reads.
Through the night.
Through the next day.
While Adelais and others pass through like shadows.
Into the night again.
Until the first signs of morning appear.
Until the sun rises.
As he realizes he is on the last chapter of the book, Aron feels hopeless and terrified, bereft of the only thing that seems to be helping.
As he finishes and lays down the book, he feels despair in his heart, and reaches out his hand to gently smooth Miranda's hair.
Then he realizes her skin in cool.
"The fever," he whispers hardly daring to believe, "It's broken."
His whisper swells to a jubilant shout, bringing Adelais and Este at a run "The fever's broken!"
The next few moments are an insane whirlwind of healers, but it settles down surprisingly quickly. Aron is still left alone, standing over his wife, still half-laughing from relief.
Throughout the entire series of healers, Miranda has not opened her eyes. Now she does, and looks at him impassively.
"He was too merciful to her." She says casually.
"Who?" He queries, confused.
"The Count" She clarifies darkly "He was too kind to Mercedes."
"What?" Aron feels confused, recalling that the Count had emotionally destroyed his ex-fiancée, which did not come near to constituting kindness.
"He should have killed her. She deserved to die." Miranda tells the ceiling.
"No, he says passionately. "She thought he was dead. There was no way she could have known. He should not have harmed her at all."
Miranda turns onto her side and looks at him sternly. The slight twist to her mouth indicates that she has not missed his metaphor. "That's no excuse. He should have killed her." She states with emphasis.
The joy drains from Aron, and he feels a chill run through him, as he meets Miranda's merciless eyes.