Sharon woke to find that ten hours had passed. Forgive yourself, you're only human, let it go, she mentally chanted as she hurriedly washed and dressed herself.
The sickroom was largely unchanged from the day before: bed, Leo, machines, chair, Jemma. But, she was happy to note, Jemma looked much stronger and was reading aloud from a tablet. "Madame de Chevreuse, whose name appears so often in our story "The Three Musketeers" without her actually having appeared in any scene, was still a beautiful—oh, hello, Sharon." Jemma actually smiled, to Sharon's happy surprise. "Triplett told me you'd gone to sleep, yourself. It's good you made me get some rest, I feel better."
Sharon could hear the force behind the cheer, but decided to let it pass. My voice probably sounds the same way. "I'm glad, Jemma. When he wakes up, Leo will want to see we stayed strong." She went and kissed her son. "Good morning, Leo, did you miss me?"
"I've been reading to him," Jemma explained, "There's some evidence coma patients may benefit from hearing familiar voices."
Sharon took the seat next to Jemma. "I heard. Twenty Years After, was it?"
Jemma smiled again, "You remember it?"
Sharon couldn't help but chuckle. "Of course I do! Who do you think read the entire series to him when he was small? Dumas is an old favorite of mine. I made sure to share that with my little boy."
"He never told me that," Jemma said, a hint of sadness creeping into her voice. "When I asked why this was his favorite, he told me it was because of the completely implausible plot twists that lead to Raoul's birth."
"When he first heard them, they reminded him of something out of an advanced physics textbook," Sharon remembered, "He joked that string theory would be easier to explain. Other European authors of the time period used similar gimmicks to engineer coincidences in their stories, but I guess Dumas was the first exposure he had to that kind of thing. He's never been one for literature, our Leo."
"No. He hasn't." Jemma's eyes glistened as she looked down at Fitz's hand, lying next to hers on top of the blankets.
In the silence, Sharon heard the little sss—whoo of the breathing machines and thought of the two-year-old Leo with his model trains, puffing choo-choo as he drove all over the flat. He'd spend entire days assembling tracks and wiring up the controls, even laying out small roads and model stations so the wooden people could get on the trains. She'd known he'd grow up to be an engineer when she found him on the kitchen floor with the control box neatly disassembled around him, "Tryin' t'make it go faster, Mommy." She realized she was sobbing again when Jemma turned and reached out for her hand.
Struggling not to break down herself, Jemma searched for something comforting to say. "Listen, maybe you should read this scene to him. That way he can hear his mother's voice. That might help, right?" It will, it has to, he has to wake up, was what she didn't say.
Sharon was crying too hard to respond. Jemma pushed the Kindle into her hands. "We've just come up to his favorite scene. Please, Sharon, try to let him hear you. Leo needs his mother."
After an eternity of choked sobbing, Sharon slowly nodded and blinked at the screen. "Madame de Chevreuse, whose name appears so often . . ." she began, voice cracking. Be brave. He needs to hear you.
Jemma sat back in her chair and settled in to listen to the story of the Vicomte de Bragelonne. She could still remember the day, back at the academy, when she'd referred to a plot point on Doctor Who as "improbable." Fitz had responded, "Aye, but not as improbable as Aramis's cross-dressing ex-girlfriend accidentally seducing Athos while thinking he's a priest, only to have him recognize D'Artagnan's cross-dressing ex-girlfriend and subsequently find an excuse to 'adopt' his own child!"
She blinked back tears at the memory. Oh, Leo. Let me hear you geek out again, just once.
Twenty Years After is the first of several sequels to Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. I am not making up or exaggerating the plot point referenced: the Raoul, the Vicomte de Bragelonne, really is the product of a hookup based on mutual mistaken identity between Athos and Aramis' ex-girlfriend, Madame de Chevreuse.
Hope you enjoy the way the story is going so far. I'm aiming for something of a character study on how people deal with catastrophes like this one. Let me know in the reviews whether you think I'm succeeding.