Toddler

A Mirror, Mirror fanfiction

Part One

~1919~

"Begging your pardon," said Mrs. Whitelaw, not as though she was really asking – let alone begging – for anybody's pardon, "but the oval mirror in Miss Louisa's room, ma'am – have you removed it?" She'd gone in to check Ani had dusted properly, and seen it was gone.

Primrose Iredale's eyebrows were coolly arched. She stuck her darning needle into a pincushion. "Louisa has – with my full permission, so you needn't be concerned, Mrs. Whitelaw – gifted the mirror to someone who had need of it."

Wiping her hands on her apron, Mrs. Whitelaw asked, "And who might that be?"

"Oh," replied Mrs. Iredale, a hint of ice in her voice – the cook was too apt to act as if Primrose, having only married into the family, being only Joshua's wife, not a born Iredale, were remiss in any changes she saw fit to make in the household, even something as simple as allowing her daughter to give away what – as far as Mrs. Whitelaw could be aware – was naught but a simple mirror, and she had been increasingly passive aggressive since Bellamy Frid's dismissal. "Just a friend. A very good friend."

Very good friend, indeed! She sniffed. "That Tiegan ragamuffin, the one with the shorn hair – no doubt."

Primrose smiled.

After all, in a way, Mrs. Whitelaw's guess was not entirely wrong...

~1995~

Smiling, Jo carefully positioned the mirror in the overflow supplies room, knowing that – in 1919 – Nicholas was doing the same, with Louisa's mirror, inside of the bedroom where Sir Ivor had kept him a prisoner but which he was now free to come and go from as he liked.

It would be lying to say she hadn't been crushed when – looking from the ring, to the mirror, to her, knowing he couldn't take the proof he was the Tsar of all the Russias through with him – he'd chosen to go back to his own time, but they'd found their solution, even if it was – very likely – only a temporary fix.

Something more permanent would have to be decided, eventually.

It might come down, in the end, to – once the poison was neutralised in the past – whether Nick found it worthwhile, with his expanded knowledge of the stronghold the Bolsheviks had on his country, to retrieve it and try to go back to Russia or not.

She truly might never see him again, if he did that; it would alter history afresh. If he took the ring out back then, albeit still years in the future for him, then Jo and Tama couldn't have ever retrieved it in the present.

Who knew how severe the ripple effect of that change would be?

Since he'd left it behind, going back to 1919, Jo had taken to wearing it on a chain around her neck.

For safe keeping, of course, but also – mostly – to reassure herself she hadn't lost Nicholas.

At least, this way, with the mirror freshly aligned, they could still visit one another.

It didn't have to be goodbye forever – not yet.

Her smile widened as the silver surface shimmered.

Nick came through, also smiling, looked briefly around the altered room – the same in shape and size, but entirely different in content – with mild wonder before bending forward and kissing Jo on the lips.

"Hi," she said, as they broke apart and his fingers threaded through hers.

~1995~

Two weeks later

While doing some research at the library for a class project, Jo had, with one wrong click, looking for a completely different historical personage, stumbled upon a old photograph with a familiar face. A sepia picture of Nicholas in 1907, as a child of three; he was wearing what in modern times would have definitely been considered a dress and his hair, hanging in an abundant array of handsome curls, almost reached his broad little shoulders. Suppressing a giggle, when she realised it was in fact him and not one of his sisters as – for a moment there – she'd almost assumed, she asked the librarian to print it out for her so she could show it to Nicholas when he came through the mirror to visit later.

"Thanks," she told the librarian when she handed her the page – still warm from the printer – and reminded her they closed in five minutes.

Preparing to fold it and stuff it into her backpack, Jo suddenly decided against doing so – she might smudge it by mistake.

The corridor was almost empty when she got back to the school, but she still checked over her shoulder as she turned the old-fashioned key in the lock before entering the supply room. Jade had been spying on her a lot lately. She didn't appear to entirely remember the incident of coming through the mirror and shouting for Nick to choose the other neutralising agent, but she clearly knew something out of the ordinary had happened recently, that it had had to do with her school rival, Jo Tiegan, and Jo often felt her suspicious, reptilian gaze on her back and shivered. The last thing she needed was Jade Coigley telling her parents how Jo Tiegan was meeting up with boys in a room that was supposed to be restricted and kept locked – the Board would have a field day.

He wasn't there yet so – the printed picture in hand – Jo leaned against an old file cabinet to wait for him.

When she thought she heard feet on the linoleum on the other side of the door, she started to her own feet in a flustered hurry and – for lack of any better idea – tucked the photograph of Nick as a toddler into the mirror's wooden frame before darting behind a box of busted old cymbals and damaged triangles which were no longer triangular after years of abuse from clumsy teenagers.

At the same unnerving moment, not quite simultaneously but near enough, Jo heard the door rattle and the gentle swish of someone coming through the mirror. She inched forward from behind the box, still not within view of the mirror or the door, wanting to warn Nick somehow he should hide, too, if somebody was trying to get inside the room.

Why hadn't she locked it on this side? She could have kicked herself for being so incredibly stupid.

"Jo? You in here?"

A sigh of relief burst out of her. Tama. It was only Tama.

Straightening her knees and standing up, Jo nodded at Tama, in the doorway, and then turned – expecting to see Nicholas standing in front of the mirror – only to see...

Nobody at all, just some swirling dust motes – and a blank piece of paper where the photograph had been, where she'd just set it less than a minute ago.

Jo felt a hard shove near her right calf.

"Boo."

Looking down, she saw a stocky little boy with bright blue eyes and tousled burnished curls staring up at her. He shoved her again, with both hands – "Caught you" – and made a pointed run for an inch of open space between two other boxes.

It began to sink in, the impossible transformation that must have occurred – blank page, child-Nick, magic mirror – and she groaned.

"No way" – exchanging a glance with a stunned Tama, who was watching all this unfold in silence – "this can't be happening."

The little boy was frowning at her from his hiding spot, wondering why she didn't know how to play right. What was taking so long? He'd caught her, tapped her, so that she was it – she was supposed to find him now. What was the matter with her?

"Jo..." Tama asked, slowly. "Is that...?" He gestured at the hiding toddler. "Nicholas?"

Jo sucked in her lips. "Mmmm-hmm."

As briefly as she could, she filled Tama in on finding the picture, printing it out, and leaving it – because she heard him coming in and didn't know who it was – on the mirror.

Apparently, since Nick came through at the same time, the photo stuck to the mirror, it had changed him...somehow...

Jo's face drained of colour. Her tan cheeks went ashy. "What are we going to do?"

"We?"

She glowered, folding her arms across her chest.

Tama held up his hands in surrender – truce. He'd help her get him back to normal. Of course he would.

Nick crawled out from his space, charged forward, and – evidently deciding this was the best means of gaining her attention – headbutted Jo in the kneecap.

"Ow!" she swore, arms dropping to her sides. "You little–"

"Find me!" he demanded imperiously, before waddling off across the room in search of another hiding place.

"This is a nightmare, Tama!" She was bent over, rubbing at her sore knee.

She couldn't have a three-year-old boyfriend! Their relationship, stretched over nearly a hundred years through time, was confusing enough – it was already the ultimate long-distance relationship.

They had to change him back. They just had to!

"Lighten up." He shrugged. "It could be worse."

"How?" demanded Jo, looking up sharply. "What could possibly be worse?" Than this?

"Think about it this way: at least he's big enough you don't have to change his nappies."

Yeah, small blessings.

"Up!" Small Nicholas had returned to stand in front of Jo and was holding his arms upward and bouncing. "Want up. Up up, Jojo."

Jojo! This was too much for Tama – he turned his face away, but not quickly enough.

Jo squatted and picked up small Nicholas, glaring over her shoulder at Tama as she hoisted him into her arms and straightened her back. "Don't even."

Now that he was being held, Nicholas was much happier. That is, he seemed relatively contented, at least, since he no longer felt ignored. He caught a faint silvery glint sticking out from under the back of Jo's collar and brightened; he often played with the bright chains or creamy ropes of pearls his mother and sisters wore when they held him.

Sometimes, Anastasia would take her necklaces off and put them around his neck instead, laughing merrily.

Making a grab for the chain, realising there was more to it than was originally visible, he plunged one of his tiny hands down the front of her jumper – making Jo let out an involuntary yelp of surprise – and gave a shriek of delight when he discovered the ring.

Whether he actually recognised the seal, realised it was his, or was just happy to have something to play with, he was nonetheless thrilled.

Tama was still struggling to keep a straight face.

Jo sighed that at least the ring was keeping Nick occupied while they worked out what to do. "Come on," she urged. "You're the brilliant one. Your IQ is like ten million. Think of something!"

"Well, I mean, maybe if – if – since he changed when he came through to our time... You went back to 1919, with the blank paper still on the mirror..."

"Good thinking, 99!" Jo exhaled in relief. "That's gotta be it."

Tama wasn't so sure, it was just the first thing to pop into his head, but he forced himself to smile encouragingly.

"Okay, mate, everything's gonna be just smashing," she said to small Nicholas in her arms, rocking him slightly – he really was an extremely pretty kid; if she were less freaked out, she'd have wanted to pat his curls to see if they were as soft as they looked – "now prepare to go through puberty in a hurry."

"Jo, aren't you forgetting something?" Tama asked.

"What?" She'd been inching towards the mirror, still carrying Nick, his fingers still curled rightly around the ring on her chain – he was choking her a bit, but she was ignoring that for now.

Tama came forward and tried to pry the ring out of Nick's iron grasp.

Small Nicholas let out a high-pitched shriek so piercing Jo would have covered her ears if she could have done so without dropping him. "Nyet!"

"Come on, mate, let it go – you can have it back later, I promise."

"Nyet! Mine!"

"Wow, he does not want to let his ring go."

Some things never did change.

What followed was a wordless wail. Tears were streaming down his face as he hollered until his face twisted and turned purple.

"Tama, ease up – don't upset him – the whole school'll hear him screaming if he keeps at it much longer." Hell, there was probably more danger of her dad hearing it next door, a bemused Andrew Tiegan looking up from his typewriter wondering who on earth was murdering a cat, since the building was mostly deserted now, but she thought the point was still relevant. "Just let him hold it – he's not bothering me."

"The ring can't pass through the mirror – it's already in 1919 – remember?" Tama raised his eyebrows.

"Oh." Jo bit her lip. "Right. I forgot."

Finally, Tama got the child's fingers unwound from the ring and Jo was able to slip the chain over her head and pass it to him.

Nick wouldn't stop crying. His face was streaked with tears and snot. "Mine. Mine. Mine."

"I know," sighed Jo, patting his back, a trifle awkwardly. "It isn't fair. People are always taking that away from you, aren't they?"

"You'd better set him down before you go through."

"Why?" Her tone was impatient.

"Because, Jo, if he does change back, he's going to be a whole lot heavier on the other side."

She started to put him down, which small Nicholas apparently liked about as much as he'd liked being forced to let go of the ring. "Nyet!"

"Be a big boy, Nick," she begged, painfully aware of the irony of that statement as she struggled to make him stand up on his own – while he, in turn, angrily refused to cooperate, bending his knees and flopping around, whimpering and whining – so she could take his hand and go through the mirror. "Quit it! Nicholas, I mean it – stop!"

"You've got make him behave before he hurts himself!" They couldn't forget he was still a haemophiliac, and if he gave himself a bad enough jolt through all this kicking and fussing...

"Yeah, I know," she huffed. "Thanks. Ugh! Nicholas!"

"Does he even know you're talking to him?" Tama asked. "He might not realise he's Nick."

Jo's arm was being twisted into an unnatural position by small Nicholas squirming and refusing to stand on his own feet. She wanted to start screaming herself at this point. "What are you on about?"

"Think about it," he pressed. "Didn't he have a different name at this age? Wasn't Nicholas his dad?"

Her eyes widened. "It's worth a try." She pulled up on his hand, yanking back on the wrist small Nicholas was twisting in his tantrum. "Alexis!"

He paused, though only for a second, a sign of recognition.

"Hey, no – wait a sec." A lightbulb went off in Jo's mind. "What would his sisters call him?" She remembered him telling her his nicknames had been Baby and Sunbeam, but she didn't think those were his names for when he was in trouble – when someone wanted him to behave. How would his sisters have talked to him, if he were acting up in Russia? She made her face hard and stern as she barked down at him, "Alyosha, you behave yourself right now, or else!"

Although he was still sniffling – had also apparently given himself a nasty, uncontrollable case of the hiccups, the result of which was wedged firmly between kind of cute and downright pitiful – and his face continued to stream with tears despite the fact he was no longer actively sobbing, his little legs straightened, and he stopped thrashing almost immediately. His mouth hung open and he stared at Jo as if the file cabinet had just talked to him. It was difficult to guess if he was offended or simply surprised. At three, Alexis Romanov – sickly and one of the bluest blooded royals in the world – probably didn't have a whole lot of people in his life who dared talk to him that way.

His protruding bottom lip trembled. Jojo was mad at him.

Jo knelt and reached in her pocket for a crumpled tissue. "Hey."

Hiccup!

"Hey. It's okay. I'm not mad." Trying not to think too hard about it, she wiped his nose – handing the used tissue to Tama, who made a face and muttered, "Gee, thanks."

Hiccup!

"We're trying to help you, Alexis." She gestured at Tama. "We're your friends. You've got to listen to us. I need you to take my hand like a good boy and come through the mirror with me now, okay?"

He nodded and squeezed her fingers.

"Good luck," said Tama, as Jo stuck her other hand into the mirror and disappeared.

~1919~

"Nick?" Jo whispered hopefully – her eyes were shut; if he was still a toddler, she didn't want to see it.

She felt him let go of her hand, but the shuffling close to the floor made her heart sink as she slowly opened her eyes and saw him rushing over towards the bed – his older self's bed – and lifting the coverlet so he could crawl underneath.

"Come find me!"

"Shit." She could have wept. She wished she could cry as freely as he'd been crying on the other side of the mirror – it would have been a tremendous relief.

Even at three, Nicholas clearly understood enough English to know Jo had said a bad word and began giggling.

Ugh. This had been such a stupid idea. Even if it had sounded brilliant when Tama said it. What had she thought, anyway? That the younger version of Nick would get caught back on the blank sheet in the mirror like it was a sticky piece of flypaper? And older Nicholas would just magically appear on the other end?

Maybe Louisa would have some idea what to do. If she brought him next door, explained what had happened... Not that it would do any good. Louisa wasn't a magician. She couldn't exactly wave a wand and turn Nick back into a sixteen-year-old.

Jo sighed. Rather than drag him out from under the bed and risk him throwing another tantrum, she tried playing along, pretending she couldn't see him and making a slight fuss over peering around the other side of the bed and searching by the window, before peeling back the coverlet.

"Boo!" she said, and laughed in spite of herself. It was impossible not to laugh – or at least smile – at the face he made. "Found you." She offered him her hand and wriggled her fingers. "Come on."

He followed her very nicely, with beaming compliance, out of the room and down the stairs, brightening when he saw they were going outside by the front door. She had to grab him by the back of the neck at one point to prevent him taking off after a yellow butterfly that flew past them, fluttering off in the direction of the well, but otherwise he didn't leave her side.

Small Nicholas seemed so excited to be out on an adventure with her that he suddenly started talking non-stop. She couldn't understand a word but wasn't sure if it was because he wasn't speaking English – if he'd reverted to Russian – or if it was because he was prattling on too rapidly.

Once she was on the Iredales' property, Jo hesitated.

She'd meant to just walk through the front door – only she didn't want to spring a toddler version of Nicholas on Louisa's parents, and poor Ani, if she didn't have to. It was probably better to go around and enter by the kitchen door.

Small Nicholas plopped himself into a kitchen chair.

"Yeah, okay – I guess it's fine if you wait here," Jo said. "I'll just go upstairs and find Louisa."

His eager blue eyes fixated on the pantry door behind her.

"Oh." He must be getting hungry. Jo opened the door and stuck her head into the pantry, looking for something a little boy would want to eat. A hambone, something pickled in a gross-looking brine... No, no... "Ah-ha. I struck gold!" A porcelain jam jar. Little kids loved sweet, sticky things. "Here you go."

Sticking his fingers into the jar, he looked over at her anxiously as she turned to go. "Jojo?"

"Be right back, promise. Just stay here."

"Da." He grinned and returned to poking around the jar, scraping his tiny thumbnail along the rim.

~1919~

Louisa was perched at the foot of her bed, reading The Magic of Oz, when the door swung open. She hurriedly closed the book – innocuous title though it was – and sat on it, a practice she'd adopted ages ago, as a much younger child, when she realised Frid wasn't going to knock before entering and was always looking for something amiss in her doings to tell her parents about, hoping to curry favour, and had not yet successfully abandoned despite his dismissal.

"Louisa!"

"Jo!" She brightened, drawing the book back out from under her skirts, blushing at her own silliness. "What are you doing here?" Nicholas hadn't said she was visiting their time today! Usually, they went to 1995 to see her – Jo's dad didn't like her running around 1919.

"Big emergency. I need your help."

"What is it?"

There was a crash downstairs and, as both girls scrambled to the landing, they could hear Mrs. Whitelaw demanding of Ani who the devil this little boy in her kitchen helping himself to her prize-winning plum jam like he was the bloody prince of Wales was.

"That," Jo groaned. She leaned over the railing and called, "Sorry about him, chief – he's with me."

"And who do you think you are, then? You can't just bring grubby little brats into my–"

"Oooh, who's this?" cooed Louisa, rushing forward and cutting the cook off, when Ani brought out the offending child and led him – by a very sticky hand – to the foot of the stairs. She was already melting like a pat of butter left out too long. "He's just precious."

Jo cocked her head. "He's Nicholas."

Louisa's eyes went huge. "What? How?"

"The mirror," she whispered. "It changed him – I still don't get why."

When they'd ushered him as far away from Mrs. Whitelaw as possible, the cook still having muffled hysterics downstairs, herding him towards Louisa's room, small Nicholas held out his hands to Louisa, palms up. "They get sticky."

Louisa drew out her handkerchief and attempted to clean off the jam.

"I thought bringing him through again, to 1919," finished Jo, who was explaining it all as quickly as she could, "would change him back."

His hands cleaned, small Nicholas went over to Louisa's bed, climbed up, and started jumping.

Louisa winced at the loud squeaking. "Nicholas, no. Papa will hear that in his study downstairs. He'll be furious!" Not to mention, he could get hurt and then what would they do with him?

He slowed, but only for a moment, considering, before shrugging and carrying on as before. It wasn't his papa who was going to be upset after all, and he was having fun jumping.

"Little stinker," muttered Louisa, wondering how she could have thought he looked so positively angelic mere moments ago.

"I got this," sighed Jo, sucking her teeth and turning slowly to face small Nicholas warningly. "Alyosha, you sit your bum on that mattress before I count to three – you hear me? One... Two..."

He flopped down with a final squeak, hands folded.

Louisa sighed in relief. "Goodness! Well, he listens to you, anyway."

"God, I sounded like I was possessed by my mum just then," groaned Jo, mortified.

Payback for her own tantrums when she was small – infrequent they might have been, but they'd, each one of them, been magnificent enough to drive poor Catherine Guthrie Tiegan around the bend.

"So, when you came through," pressed Louisa, "did you put another photograph of Nicholas on the mirror?"

Jo frowned. "Of course I didn't. I left the blank paper from the printer there – I thought... Wait, you think the mirror needs an actual picture to–?"

"I don't know, but if a copied photograph of Nicholas from 1907 is what changed him in the first place..."

"Then maybe a picture of him now would change him back!" finished Jo. "Why didn't I think of that!" Then, heart sinking, "Oh no."

"What?"

"I don't have a recent picture of Nick!"

Louisa considered. "I bet Sir Ivor did – Nicholas was worth a lot of money to him; he must have kept a photograph somewhere to show to a potential buyer."

"But why would he need that? He had Nick's ring as proof, didn't he?"

"Yes, I suppose he did; but it wouldn't count for much with the Bolsheviks if the boy he was keeping in his house didn't look like a Romanov, would it?"

Louisa might be onto something, Jo had to admit – even Anna Anderson, the most famous Romanov impostor, had to pretend to be Anastasia because she was too short to be Tatiana. If Nick had been short with dark eyes, no one interested in paying Sir Ivor for him would have believed he was the lost tsar. Not for a minute.

Only, if Sir Ivor had burned the paper trail which would have documented his smuggling Nicholas – under whatever alias he'd used – into New Zealand by The Neptune, he might have burned up any pictures he kept of the boy, too.

"If he had some, do you think they'd still be in his study?" Jo asked.

Louisa glanced out the window – the sky was almost completely dark now. "Why don't you stay and have dinner with us? We can make up a story to explain who Nicholas is. We'd be eating in the kitchen with Mrs. Whitelaw, anyway. My parents wouldn't even have to see him unless she complains to them." She thought her mother might be sympathetic, but even after everything, after helping Nicholas establish a temporary home next door, Papa hadn't quite wrapped his mind around the intricacies of magic mirrors and time travel; he still went a little grey in the face whenever his daughter brought the subject up. "Then you can go back to the house afterwards and search in Sir Ivor's old study."

Andrew and Catherine were probably starting to worry, but hurrying home – rushing back through the mirror into a closed school – on an empty stomach, with an unexplained toddler in tow, wasn't likely to make the situation any better.

"All right."

~1919~

Mrs. Whitelaw, tight-lipped and sullen, picking up her empty plate and sniffing, "Pray do not mistake my absence for carelessness; I'll know if you take anything out of my pantry" (here, a hard, long look at Jo), left the children alone.

Small Nicholas dragged a spoon noisily across his plate, playing with his peas, while Titus watched him with puzzled fascination.

Unlike his sister, Titus had actually recognised Nicholas straightaway and was awestruck – after Louisa did her best to explain – that the mirror, in addition to being able to let real-life genies from the future into their world, could turn big boys into little ones.

Just then, however, he had a terrible thought. He spun round in his seat and looked anxiously at Louisa. "Does this mean he won't remember how to play Cricket? I've only just taught him to bowl a googly!" This was no longer fun; his mood darkened. "Your silly old mirror always spoils everything, Louie!"

"Don't worry," said Jo, even though she was. "We'll change him back." Her eyebrows waggled pointedly at Louisa. "Won't we?"

"Of course."

Jo's eyes drifted over to check on small Nicholas, assuming he'd still be pushing around his peas, alarmed to see his seat empty. "Aw, come on!" This couldn't be happening. "Where'd he go?"

"Ahhh!" Louisa jumped, her knee colliding with the underside of the table.

"Louisa?"

"He's underneath the table – he's just stolen my left shoe!"

Sure enough, a second later, small Nicholas emerged, lifting the tablecloth, and trying to make a break for the back door with Louisa's shoe before Jo swooped down, grabbed him, and made him give it back.

"Whoa there, mate. You tell Louisa you're sorry," she urged. "Go on. You can do it."

"Nyet."

"Alexis..."

"Don't want to," he mumbled sulkily.

"Apologise."

"So-ree." He didn't sound it. And he wasn't really looking at Louisa when he said it, either, but Jo was running low on the energy required to keep arguing with a stubborn toddler.

She regarded the door over her shoulder. "Maybe he should stay here while I go look for a recent picture in Sir Ivor's study. Could you watch him for another hour or so?"

To her surprise, the little boy latched onto her, clutching at the new pinafore she'd borrowed from Louisa before dinner. "Go with Jojo," he insisted. "Not stay here. Go with Jojo!"

Louisa giggled into her palm. "I'm so sorry – it's funny, that's all, how much he still likes you," she gasped out, when Jo glared and muttered, "Geez."

~1919~

"Hey! No! Gimme that!" Jo wrenched a paperknife out of small Nicholas' grasp. Luckily, he'd been holding it by the handle and had managed not to slice himself open with it. "You're too little for sharp objects, okay?"

He pouted and babbled something she thought might have been Russian – and possibly an insult.

"I need to go through Sir Ivor's desk – don't touch anything."

Small Nicholas obeyed for about twenty seconds before getting hold of some of Sir Ivor's papers that had been under the knife and gleefully ripping them into little pieces. Jo decided to let it go – as far as she could tell, they were just letters to people Sir Ivor knew in England and detailed laundry lists. She had more important things to worry about. Let the kid trash the place, if he liked. He owed Sir Ivor one.

Although she rummaged eagerly through all the open drawers, and broke into the locked ones as well, Jo couldn't find a single picture of Nicholas as he'd been before. Either Sir Ivor had burned them, or given them to the Bolsheviks, or never kept them to begin with.

"Damn." This was hopeless.

Suddenly, she felt the heel of her sneaker slip – something was stuck to it.

Bending over to see what it was, she discovered the page she'd ripped from the encyclopedia and let Nicholas keep – the page about his family. The family portrait had a much younger Nick (though considerably older than the one she was stuck with now), but he was almost the same age as he'd been when she met him in the one of himself alone.

This might work – if she cut it out with a pair of scissors and set it on the mirror.

"Yes!"

Crash!

"Uh-oh," said small Nicholas.

She whirled around.

Nick had broken a glass inkpot, spilling ink all over the place. But that was hardly the biggest problem. A shard had ricocheted and cut his hand. Blood was already beading on his skin – soon it would be gushing.

A little pathetically, he pointed with his uninjured hand to the spreading stain the floor. "Carpet," he said. Tears – of a different sort than those big crocodile ones he'd been shedding all day, whenever he wanted something he wasn't given – were filling his eyes and Jo wanted to cry right along with him.

"The carpet's okay," she choked out. "Give me a look at that hand."

He shook his head, tossing his curls. Whether the gesture was directed at her assessment of the carpet's present state, which he deemed incorrect, or because even at the tender age of three Alexis Romanov knew he wasn't supposed to let anyone outside of his family know about his haemophilia, she wasn't sure.

She guessed the latter. "I want to see it."

He hung his head.

She crouched in front of him, even though kneeling there meant part of her school trousers were in the ink puddle. "Don't worry, I already know you're a bleeder." He lifted his head to meet her eyes. "You told me before; you probably just don't remember."

He gave her his hand; it was already stained a dripping scarlet.

Luckily, the layman's research she'd done on haemophilia since getting to know Nick had informed her a small cut, though it might look bad, because the bleeding just kept on going, wasn't as dangerous as a bump or a large wound.

"It's not so bad," she half-lied, trying to reassure the scared child. "We just have to get a bandage and tie it up real tight."

And that's what she did. When she couldn't find a suitable bandage anywhere else in the house, she just ripped up a linen bedsheet and made do, wrapping the scrap of cloth tightly around Nick's haemorrhaging hand.

She felt shaky – lightheaded and frightened – when she saw the blood soak through it almost instantaneously, but after a while it did seem to finally clot.

Hopefully, Nicholas wasn't feeling too woozy from the loss.

Anyway, it was nearly over.

She just had to cut out the picture and take Nick through the mirror and hopefully – once he was himself again – he'd be able to tell her if there was anything else his hand needed.

Hell, if there really was a problem, maybe she could take him to her doctor in 1995.

"Jo!"

She started, putting a hand to her heart. "Tama! What are you doing here?"

"You've been gone for hours! Your parents are going to start calling everyone's house, asking where you are! What happened?" He saw Nicholas was still a three-year-old and winced. "It didn't work."

Jo explained, as brightly as she could, about the photograph. Then she showed him the encyclopedia page.

"If Louisa's right about the mirror needing a recent photo, that's not going to work," warned Tama.

Jo was about ready to smack him. She didn't want to hear that. Not now. "Why not?"

"Even if that's the last known picture of Nicholas – it still had to be taken before Sir Ivor rescued him. In Russia. It's got to be at least a year or two out of date."

It began to sink in. She swallowed hard.

"So that isn't Nick at sixteen," he continued. "That's Nick at thirteen. You put that picture on the mirror and take him through, and–"

"And Nick loses two years of his life," Jo finished.