The Hour and its lovely characters do not belong to me. I just move them about sometimes, with my mind.

Bel stood in her quiet flat, feeling empty. She stared in the general direction of the kitchen, unmoving. Her arm went limp of a sudden, and her stylish red jacket fell to the floor. What was she here to do?

Oh. Oh, yes. The jacket's matching skirt was crusted with dirt and grass stains. Her hands were still smudged with blood.

"ontoa man who had fallen among thieves lay by the roadside on his back"

Freddie. She had left Freddie. Bel gathered up her jacket and kicked off her shoes. She opened her tiny closet, quickly undressed, then tossed skirt, blouse, slip, and stockings after the jacket into the hamper. She'd deal with them later, when seeing each small stain upon them didn't bring forth the urge to scream.

She scrubbed at her hands and arms, using nearly half a bar of soap before moving onto her shins. The mud had bled through her stockings. How long had she stayed by him? It had seemed like so short a time, yet her skin was brown and red and angry.

She'd left him at the hospital. X-rays had revealed a severely broken leg, arm, and several cracked ribs. They thought there was likely internal damage, but didn't know how much. Freddie was in surgery now, and there was nothing she could do. Nothing but wait and worry and think the worst, over and over again. Hector had promised to wait, just in case, but had sent her home with Marnie. She was to take a bath, have a drink, and try to sleep.

Wrapped in her robe, Bel wandered into the living room. She should do all of those things, she knew. Being sad and useless would help no one, least of all Freddie. Her brain replayed the moments when she'd knelt beside him and looked into his one good eye. "My girl," he'd called her.

Had she ever been anyone but Freddie's girl?

Her own, of course, she'd always been her own. But she'd been Freddie's, too. Whether he survived the night or not, she'd be Freddie's until the day she died.

She found herself facing her bookshelf, reaching for the slim volume of poetry he'd given her years and years ago. She flipped pages until she found poem number 22, the one that had come to her that evening, which she hadn't realized she'd remembered until she saw him laid out and bloody.

"dressed in fifteenthrate ideas" Oh, how he'd object to that. "Fifteenthrate ideas," indeed. Bel sat on the sofa and let the book fall open in her palms. She'd never really embraced poetry the way Freddie had. She liked e. e. cummings well enough, but would likely had never bought a book on her own. Now it felt like a lifeline.

"Death, Thee i call rich beyond wishing if this thou catch, else missing."

Enough. If she was just going to sit and sigh, she might as well do it at the hospital. Bel called a cab, then threw on trousers and a sweater. She pulled the pins out of her hair and tugged a brush through it. It would have to do. She opened the door, then went back for the book of poems. If nothing else, it would give her something to dwell on while she waited.

"You're still here."

Hector looked blearily up at her. "I sent you home."

"I came back."

"Yes."

They were both exhausted, and their conversation reflected it.

"You can go, if you'd like. I'll stay, and call if they tell me anything."

Hector was shaking his head before she'd finished speaking. "I'll stay."

Bel sat. "Have they said anything?"

"No. But no one's come by for awhile, either."

"Hector. You are the face of The Hour. Go flash that smile at some unsuspecting nurse and see what she knows."

He started to stand.

"No need, Mr. Madden." Randall Brown appeared on Bel's other side. Both she and Hector came to their feet. "I just spoke with Mr. Lyon's surgeon. They're moving him to a room now."

"But he'll be alright?" Bel asked.

"He's alive. According to the surgeon, his spleen was ruptured, which likely would have killed him if he hadn't been brought in so quickly. Cilenti's need to flaunt his power likely saved Freddie's life. It looked as if he'd been kicked. Repeatedly."

"Bastard," Hector growled to Bel's right.

Bel shook her head impatiently. "What aren't you telling us?"

"The main concern is his head. Mr. Lyon has a concussion, and with the trauma surrounding it, they're not sure exactly how much damage his brain suffered. There will probably be swelling, and possibly bleeding, as well. At this point, they're not sure what his condition will be when he wakes."

He didn't say it, but "if he wakes" was in the air and they all heard it. All told, it was the longest speech Bel had ever heard Randall deliver, in that crisp, oddly accented voice. It was terrible, terrible, and yet somehow manageable. It wasn't over yet. Freddie was breathing still, and he'd spoken to her, he had! Surely that was a good sign.

Bel didn't realize she'd swayed until Hector caught her. They retook their seats. Randall stayed standing, and Lix walked up.

"I needed the air," she offered in explanation. Presumably she'd already heard the news. Apparently she'd never left, either, and Bel suddenly felt wretched for having gone.

"Will we be able to see him?" Bel asked.

Lix spoke up. "Not until tomorrow, I'm afraid. They have him under close supervision tonight."

"Go home, Miss Rowley, Mr. Madden," Randall commanded.

This time, Hector nodded wearily, but Bel couldn't think of it. Lix seemed to read her mind. "The studio is closer."

Randall dropped them both off there. Lix strode off to her office to sleep, but Bel hovered uncertainly in the hall. Eventually, she went to her desk. Her unsent letter to Freddie lay where she'd dropped it, hours before. She picked it up, folded it carefully, and slid it into the book of poetry she still carried. She drifted back out into the hall, then into the next room.

A shaft of light from a nearby street lamp shone through the windows, illuminating Freddie's desk. Bel laid the book she held atop it, then sat down. At first, she just surveyed it. The untidy stacks of papers, the typewriter sitting with its carriage half-off the base. She opened a drawer. Bel had no real intention of snooping. As with the book of poems, she simply wanted to feel closer to Freddie. The contents of the drawer were no neater than the desk surface, and she was about to close it when she spotted the book.

Casino Royale, she realized as she drew it out. The same battered copy he'd always had. Bel felt herself smiling. "Oh, you foolish man." She flipped the pages idly, and her thumb caught on something. A photograph. One of them, of Freddie and Bel. She remembered it being taking vaguely, so long ago. She was looking off to her right, and Freddie...Freddie was looking down at her.

How long had he looked at her like that without her realizing it? How long had she been in love with her best friend and ignored it, frightened of change?

What a coward she'd been! And then she cried, really cried, and searched his drawers in vain for a handkerchief. Eventually, she laid her head on her arms and let her tears soak his stacks of scrawled notes, until she was too exhausted to do anything other than sleep.

"we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis"

A/N:
Bel's book of cummings is the same one I have, 100 selected poems. My copy dates from 1959, but it's been reissued repeatedly since 1926, so I've decided it's entirely possible that Freddie might have picked it up and given it to Bel at some point in their friendship. The new verses in this chapter come from "Thy fingers make early flowers of all things" and "since feeling is first" (numbers 1 and 28 in my and Bel's book).

I admit to being largely ignorant of the state of internal medicine in the late 50s in Britain, so forgive me if I've gotten anything wrong. Hammersmith Hospital has been around since 1912 and though it's small, today accommodates emergency patients, so I assumed to might also have in '57. My limited resources showed it to be nearest the old Lime Grove Studios, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

This is the only chapter with a wholly unconscious Freddie, I promise.