~ Part VI ~
~ The Wounded Heart ~
1.
~ "Ow." Eames hissed as the car jerked over a bump in the road.
"Sorry." Ariadne whispered as she tried to drive more carefully.
Eames let out a pent up breath as pain visibly shook him.
"Didn't the give you anything for the discomfort?" she asked him.
He shook his head.
"I didn't want anything." he explained. "The medicine they give you, they always gave me funny dreams. I never knew what was real and what wasn't. There was no way to tell if I was dreaming of awake sometimes."
"Eames, you have no fat on your body, that's why it hurts so much." she told him as she slowed the car to avoid another bump in the road. "Didn't they feed you in that army?" she asked.
Eames let out a groan as he tried to sit more comfortably.
She had helped him dress for the trip home and couldn't shake the image of his rib cage showing. His whole skeletal frame on display as his once strong, fatted body was now disgusting and sickly. Not even when she had rescued him from Fischer's charity hospital, had he looked so near death.
"We're almost home." she told him. He nodded and tried to give her a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Don't let mother know I'm back." he groaned.
"Why not?" Ariadne asked. "She's your mother, she needs to know."
He gave her an annoyed look.
"If mother knows I'm back, she's going to get upset at the state of me, and I can't face it just now." he told her. "You've always been the only one I trust, Ariadne."
She shook her head.
"You may as well know, Fredrick is back." she said sadly.
She shifted in the driver's set as she could feel her friend's eyes on her.
"You don't sound all that happy to have you husband back in you loving arms, Mrs. Hays." Eames observed.
"He was wounded." she snapped. "The gas... it left him blind and he's in a lot of pain."
Eames was very quite.
"I'm sorry." he said. "I know you cared for him."
She let out a laugh.
"I hardly know what I care for these days, Eames." she admitted. "Sine you left, it's like I'm not even here. It's like I'm a ghost; just haunting the halls."
"Be sure to write that down. We can turn it into a story." he offered.
"Don't kid." she whispered.
"You look well." he offered as an apology.
"Do I?" she asked in surprise.
She didn't feel like herself. She felt like an imposter floating around Blue Rivers.
Eames gave her an indifferent shrug.
"I've always been a little biased about you, however. Can't trust my opinion." he added.
She tried not to smile. The ability to smile had been forgotten for the past year in a world of responsibility, rejection, heart ache and trauma. Her face felt strange at being forced to smile again.
"So, you want me to hide you until you're better and then let Juniper know you're back?" she asked as she accidentally hit a bump in the road and Eames hissed in pain.
"Yes, if we can ever survive the trip." he told her.
~ Sneaking Eames into the house was not as easy as she thought it would be. Miles had the ability to be everywhere at once and the always annoying habit of popping up unexpectedly.
"Did you have a nice drive, madam?" he asked as she tried to sneak down one of the less used halls. Eames hiding in her wake.
"Very nice. I won't be needing anything, thank you." she said curtly as Eames ducked down the hallway just out of the butler's sight.
As soon as Miles was gone, he came out and huddled beside her like a pair of guilty teenagers.
"Think he knew I was here?" Eames hissed. A touch of humor in his voice.
Ariadne rolled her eyes.
"I should have told him you were hiding there and let Juniper hold a parade for you. I still might." she threatened.
"You wouldn't." Eames teased.
"I would."
"You wouldn't."
"I would."
"Just take me to our conservatory. I can hide there. No one can go in there except you and I." he said.
"No, the house is boarding the girls who work in the phone hub for the war effort. They use the dinning room to eat and the family uses the conservatory to eat.
"Well, where then?" Eames demanded. "The servants are all over the house and with more people, I won't be easy to hide."
"We can keep you in my rooms. Only Maura is allowed there." she told him.
"Why Mrs. Hays, I never would have guessed you would hide a scoundrel like me in your bedroom." he said; scandalized.
She looked at him as if for the first time. Past the emaciated, broken body, the burns to the face and the sever limp that made him use a cane, his eyes still held the same mischief they had since the day she met him.
"Good to see the war hasn't changed everything about you." she whispered.
~ Eames had a great deal of difficulty climbing up the stairs. Ariadne was glad that the girls were at work, Lady Percy and Juniper were in the parlor and the children were playing in the nursery. No one was around to see the wounded, skeletal man climbing up the grand staircase to the upstairs rooms.
He was breathing hard as she shushed him to be quite.
"My head hurts." he hissed back.
"Well, you're head will really be hurting if Juniper finds you." she scolded as she helped him to his feet again.
Her friend wincing in pain from his knees hurting.
~ Eames was finally stashed away in her rooms and wanted a bath before eating.
"I hate that hospital smell, I want it off me." he explained as Ariadne ran a bath for him and helped take off the clothes that were too big for him now that he lost so much weight.
"I don't blame you." she said in her normal voice. Happy they didn't have to whisper anymore.
She felt his eyes on her as she pulled off his shirt and shoes.
"I can manage the rest on my own." he offered as he sat a bit on the edge of the bathtub. His breathing coming hard from walking and climbing the stairs.
"And have you faint on me? Never." she told him. "Besides, I've helped you bathe before."
He raised his eye brows in surprise.
"Yes, you did." he told her.
He suddenly took hold of her hand. Her doe like eyes met his and for the first time in a year, they were truly alone in the world.
"Ariadne, I'm sorry. For what happened that night. What... what almost happened." he said.
"You were drinking. Charlotte had left you. You were mad at me. You've nothing to be sorry for." she said and tried to avoid his eyes.
"Look at me." he demanded and she was forced to meet his eyes again.
Eames took a deep breath.
"There is everything to be sorry for. If you hadn't kicked me... so... well, something terrible could have happened to you. I couldn't have lived with that." he tried to explain.
"Is that why you kept trying to die in the war?" she asked.
He finally broke eye contact.
"The officers, the ones who came to get me. They said you ran the suicide missions. You always volunteered to go." she said as the water in the tub was almost full and she turned off the faucet.
Eames was quite.
"Were you trying to kill yourself?" she asked. "Because I told you to?"
"I won't deny I wanted to carry out your orders, darling." Eames said.
He meant it to be a joke, she was sure, but his smile didn't reach his eyes again.
"I'm just glad you're home now." Ariadne whispered as she helped him stand to remove the last of his clothing.
Got my computer back. The techs scrubbed it clean including all my settings, so I was busy today putting it all back, BOO!
I'm doing well at my job. I feel like it's really going to work out for me there. Its a nice place to work and my boss is good guy and my dad told me he's proud of me, which ROCKS!
The people at my bank are assholes, who shut down my account and told me to take my money elsewhere.
Still, life is good.