"Are you scared?"
He turns to me, his eyes half-closed. He would look content, and a little sleepy, if not for the sickly pallor.
"What?"
I struggle to move forward on my hands and knees, my skirt getting caught up in my legs. "Are you scared?" I ask again.
"Of what? Dying?" He gives a weak laugh. "No, not of dying. Are you?" For a few minutes I can't form the words, and then…
"Yes. Well…. Not of dying. I'm afraid of dying here." I rest my back against the wall, next to him. His breathing is ragged… but then again, so is mine.
"I wish we could have buried them."
"With what, our bare hands?"
"I know, I know… Moth is dead." He looks at me, and I wonder for a minute what he must have looked like before he was burned.
"Is she now?" he sighs after a pause.
"Mm-hm. In the Lounge." I'm annoyed at how emotionless I sound. Someone who was practically a friend has died and I barely care. I'm too tired to care. It hurts too much.
"Oh, well." He shrugs "Not like she had much to live for anyway."
"You don't care, do you? You don't give a damn that she died all alone in there." I say huffily.
"Well, neither do you. Don't try to lie."
"I do care!"
"You mean you should care." I hate him when he does this. He can read everyone, myself included, like a book, and doesn't mind letting everyone know about his evil little insights. Bastard. Still… he's right. He knows it and I know it.
We're sitting near a pile of rubble that used to be a whole wall in the Shock Therapy room. For almost two days he was smashing at it with a bit of piping. Bricks and mortar lay in a sizable pile, but he never managed to break all the way through. By all rights he should have been able to… it's like this cursed building is plotting against us, trapping us here, giving us nightmares…
"Where were you born?" I ask suddenly.
"Excuse me?"
"Tell me, where were you born? I've known you for over a year and I still hardly know anything about you." I have to take a minute to breathe. Even talking is tiring now. He sighs and rolls his eyes, but eventually he answers.
"On a farm about fifteen miles outside the city."
"What kind of farm?"
"Poultry, mostly. Chickens, ducks, pheasants…"
"Who were your parents?" He suddenly glares at me.
"What do you care?" he snaps.
"Well, it's not like we have anything better to do!" I really, really wish I could yell at him. To wheeze slightly when you're trying to sound impressive just makes you sound like you have a pompous cold. He cough/laughs at this.
"My father was Edan; my mother, Clothide."
"Do you now where they are now?"
"For the love of hell, Frederika…"
"It won't kill you to answer a few questions." He stays silent. I decide to appeal to his masculinity. "Look at you. Unafraid, so you say, of death, but too scared to talk to me."
"I'm not scared." He says coldly.
"Then answer me!" I chirp. He groans, whether from his illness or irritation, I can't tell.
"Both my parents are dead." He says finally.
"See, that wasn't so difficult."
"Fine, fine." He mutters. We sit in what is almost a companiable silence. There is another question gnawing at me, and I think it's rather pointless to hold it back any longer.
"Are you at all sorry?"
"For what?"
"You are- were the Tallow Man. You killed people. Are you sorry?" Much to my surprise, there is no hesitation in is voice when he answers.
"No." he turns and looks at me again and says in harsher voice "I suppose you don't think it's fair that you should die alongside me." I frown.
"I don't think it's fair that any of us should die."
"Why?" I hissed at him, out in the exercise yard. "How… how could you do that?"
"Oh? And where does this sudden loyalty come from? You were never so fond of them before." He snarled. Anger snapped between us like sparks, but we dared not raise our voices. We were, as per usual, being watched.
"It doesn't matter! They were people, 'King' No One" I snapped, my voice heavy with sarcasm. "What do you think you are? Some kind of God? Who the hell are you to decide who lives and who doesn't? They were only doing their jobs!" Behind that damn mask, his metallic eyes narrowed dangerously. If there's one thing I'd learned about No One, it's that he doesn't like anyone hurting his pride. Faster than my eyes could track, his hand whipped out and viciously took hold of my wrist. He wrenched my arm up so that he was holding my own palm in front of my face.
"Look at yourself Frederika!" He said in a voice that was deceptively smooth and calm "Look at your hands! 'Only doing their jobs'? Their 'job' is doing this to you, to all of us!" I wanted to cry, to clench my fist so that the twisted burn scars were no longer visible. "Admit, Frederika, for all your little affected high-born niceties, you are no better than the rest of us. You hated them too. Admit it; you liked it when you heard about what I did to those little-"
"You're evil! You're a monster!" I struggled to keep my voice steady. He pulled me towards him rapidly. I tried to break away but he was stronger than I. He released my hand and wrapped his arm around my waist in a painfully tight grip. Suddenly I was suffocatingly close to him. It had been so long since I had really touched another person, and this close contact made me want to cry and retch and struggle and give into it all at once.
"You would have done the same thing, given half the chance." He hissed in my ear, while softly, gently, menacingly running a long finger down my cheek. My resolve broke.
"SHUT UP!" I screamed finally. He released me and I stumbled backward into the wall, unable to stop sobbing. I buried my face in my hands, so that only his feet were visible through a blur of tears. I heard approaching footsteps. I glanced upward and saw Dr. Pettihue and two orderlies, one of which had No One by the arm. No One didn't struggle or try to shrug him off, but just stared at me like a hawk.
"What is all this!" blustered Dr. Pettihue "Mr. Poshtoll, have you been harassing Mrs. Elliot, here? Such brusqueness towards a lady is simply unacceptable. Mr. Poshtoll, are you listening to me?" Pettihue sighed when No One didn't respond. "Fine, No One, are you listening?"
"Most attentively, Doctor." No One said politely.
"Alright, then." Pettihue cleared his throat. "I will not have discord among my patients."
"My patients, actually." Sandbridge, alerted by my screams, had come from the balcony to investigate "Thank you, Allen, I'll take this from here." Pettihue straightened his white vest with great aplomb and strode off. Sandbridge smiled in what I suppose he thought was a comforting manner. "Now, Mrs. Elliot, Number One, what seems to be the problem?"
"Ah, no problem here, Doctor. Mrs. Elliot just has a weak constitution. It's very common among the Hyper-Emotive." No One said easily, almost brightly.
"Very amusing, Number One. Mrs. Elliot, what happened here?" In a rush of will power I forced my tears to stop.
"It… it was nothing, sir. I'm fine now." I murmured. Any sign of distress could be met with treatment, which I avoided at all costs.
"I see." He said predictably. He gave me a long, examining look and then turned to No One. "I shall speak with you this evening, Number One."
"I look forward to it, Doctor" answered No One, giving Sandbridge a leering grin. We watched the Doctor stride off towards the balcony. I, too, turned on my heel and started to walk away. "Very clever, Frederika." He called after me "Pander to the norm and escape punishment- I mean 'treatment'. That's a strategy." I turned suddenly and hissed at him.
"You. Are. A. Bastard."
"I know." He quipped, smiling a little.
I hated him then. I hated him because I knew he was right. When I heard the news about what he did to those two nurses, I felt… vindicated. The one that lived, Lovewell or Lovelace or something, often attended my 'Heat Therapy' sessions, looking on with bemusement as I suffered. The other one, Sorrell or something… she laughed. Not necessarily at me but, still… She would giggle when one of the others came back from the Shock therapy room, hardly able to move. She laughed at Matthew whenever he was having one his 'fits', as they called them. It was as though I had lost a limb but I could still feel its weight. I knew I should have been horrified at No One's gleeful sadism, but I felt nothing. Rather… I was scared. That first day in the Lounge, when he told me who he was, I looked at him sitting by the hearth with the flames lending that mask porcelain sheen, and I felt smaller and emptier than ever… He looked like a beast; like something that lived under my bed as child and slunk around in the shadowy corners of my dreams, waiting for me to drop my guard.
Slowly, oh so slowly, he had worked himself into my good graces. He did it with such subtlety that I hardly noticed. I found myself depending on him to be sane, to be stable. He was one of the few I could talk to, who I could look to for a sense of sanity. It was exactly what he wanted. But when I heard what he did to those two nurses, I realized what he had done to me. He had made me comfortable, and then ripped it all away. I was losing my mind.
"Do you know what I miss most?" I ask idly, not really expecting him to answer. "I miss being a mother."
"You mean you miss you husband and your daughter." He says, and it occurs to me that, for once, he isn't quite correct.
"Well… yes and no." I continue, not really caring that he's only humoring me. "I do not miss Edward, my husband. My daughter… I missed her for a long time. I still do, I suppose… but I miss just being her mother more. Just the little rituals of caring for her."
"If you ever got out, would you go back to her?" I'm struck by the sincerity in his voice. I respond carefully, slowly.
"I… well, I guess… No. I wouldn't. When I... when I left, she was six years old. She's about eight years old by now. She probably doesn't even remember me. I've changed too much. If I ever did get out, I would… I would have nothing. I wouldn't be able to take care of her." I sigh, and pass my hand over my eyes. Like so many other things, I don't want this to be true, but it is. I turn and notice he's looking at me. Not his usual glare or with sarcastic questioning in his eyes. He's really looking at me, as though he's trying to memorize every bit of my face. Unnerved, I turn away. "What about you? If you ever got out, what would you do?"
"Get as far away from here as I possibly could. Farther than Cyric or Blackbrook, even."
"Where would you go?"
"I don't care."
It happened so fast.
The riot… it… Cogs started it. He screamed out vulgar curses and threats. While the orderlies were distracted, we attacked. Well… they attacked. I ran back to my room and gathered up my things. I was getting out while I could. He was gaining control, but I was determined that he would not get me.
"Why didn't you fight with us?" He says suddenly. Jarred by this abrupt change in the subject, I snap at him again.
"Because I'm not like you!"
"Oh really?"
It was when the orderly was chasing me, to what purpose I don't know. I had hidden in the attic with my things, but he found me and tried to grab me. I snatched up my viktrola and ran for it. Halfway down the stairs, I tripped. I caught myself before I could fall, but I dropped the viktrola. It clattered and banged down the remaining steps. Horrified, I shrieked and ran after it. It lay at the foot of the stairs, the needle permanently warped and bent. I bent to pick it up, but the orderly had caught up with me and took me cruelly by the hair.
"Yes, really." I snarl.
"That's funny, because I seem to recall a certain-"
"Shut up."
We were locked in. I sat in my cell, listening to sounds of the others do away with any survivors they found on 'our side' of the lockdown gate. I just knelt on the floor, my skirts spread around me like the petals of an overturned flower, staring at my bloody hands. I don't know how long I stayed there. Long enough for Cordelia to become worried and try to tempt me out with her little presents. Time meant nothing. The others were overjoyed with their newfound freedom. I spent my time in my cell, dancing to the crooked songs I played on my warped viktrola. After a while I couldn't dance anymore...
We sit in silence for a long time, tired out by all the talking. One hour, two hours, who can say? Finally I turn to No One.
"I think I… No One?" His eyes are still open, but his uneven breathing has ceased. I frantically try to remember when he stopped breathing as I take him by the shoulder and shake him as I hard as my weak arms can manage. "No One!" I hear myself cry out. My voice seems to have taken on a life of it own and I hear it screaming, begging him to wake, to not leave me here by myself. His body slumps over almost into my lap. I choke, so afraid that I almost retch. With quaking hands, I take hold of his painfully thin shoulders and turn him over so that he's lying face up on the cold slate floor. Gently, I close his eyes. I let out a heavy sigh that makes my whole body hurt. I'm so tired, so tired…
I find myself backing away from him. I am frantic. I force myself to my feet, I stumble and fall. I drag myself away from his body. I hear his death rattle, a long, ugly sound, and shivers race down my spine. I crawl into the narrow passageway connecting the shock treatment room to the lobotomy theater. I am dying too. My body gives out as I reach the alcove in the center of the back wall of the theater. I can't move anymore. I just want to rest. I need to rest. I collapse, staring at the ceiling. Somewhere, far away, or maybe in my head, I hear distant, tinny, warped music…