The air was musky. I had been sleeping for a while…it was hard to think straight. I coughed.
Immediately, someone was at my side. Cool kisses slipped over my eyes and lips.
"You're awake." James' voice was branded with an agonized relief.
"I am…?"
"Yes, yes. Try and look at me," he urged.
I felt for my eyelids. They pulsed stupidly, and I waited for that hellish flash of red.
Instead I got a somewhat blurred view of James, sitting at the edge if the bed. He looked harrowed and weary, dried salt trails lacing his cheeks. I tried to move, but acute pain reverberated in my skull. I gasped aloud.
"Stay still," he pleaded. He took my hand and held it to his lips, staring out of the window. "My angel…" he murmured vacantly, more to himself.
"What happened to me?" I asked, the question coming out inevitably clichéd.
"I…" James ran a free hand along the bed coverlet. "We're not entirely sure."
"Liar," I muttered, strangely resentful. He looked up at me then, eyes stinging with hurt.
"The physician thinks it was a stroke," he said after a moment. (AN: Not sure if they knew what strokes were back then, if not, sorry for historical and medical crapuracy!)
"You...I don't-" I began.
"A blood vessel-"
"I know what it is!" I spluttered, suddenly feeling hysterical. Tears were welling in my eyes; tears of confusion. I was too young for this! Grandfather…he'd been old…lost movement of the left side of his face…
I burst into a fresh set of tears, which of course sent the pain in my head to giddy heights. I stopped and groped at my forehead, keening incoherently. James allowed me to collapse into his lap.
"Oh help, help me," I babbled. James soothed me with meaningless murmurings. I sat up. "Oh-"
Nausea made me see double. I crashed to the floor and scrabbled to the bathroom, the pain in my head blinding, the nausea screaming.
James held my hair back. He got me some water to clean my mouth out.
"I'm s-sorry," I whimpered. The look on his face was unintelligible; typical Admiral Norrington in thought. He leant down and kissed me carefully.
"I'm the one who should be sorry," he said quietly. He stroked a strand of my hair from my eyes. "Good god," he sighed, shaking his head. "We were all so afraid. You were unconscious for a very long time."
"How long?"
"Three days," he said, jaw setting in angst. I blinked, non-comprehending.
"That long?"
He nodded. "But you've lasted this long-" he broke off abruptly at the terrified look on my face. "I'll take care of you. I promise."
"Is…" I paused, not knowing how to broach it. "Is he here?"
For a moment, James looked lost. Then a shadow passed his face. A shadow cut from the sting of rivalry.
"No, Elizabeth. You know he isn't. Come," he lifted me up. I loathed my dependency on him as I leant into his grasp.
As ever, it was too tight.
That night, the pain came worse than ever. I screamed like a dying thing as my head was crushed, mercilessly and without any hint of letting up. James got up, fetched ice, but eternity stalked past before it was pressed to my forehead. By that point, the physician was there too. He stabbed some strange concoction into my arm and I swam in a half-trance. He and James stood in the soft orange hallway light, murmuring in low, hopeless voices.
"There's no other way."
"Mr Arnold…you cannot…"
"I'm telling you there is no other way."
"Her heart would break!"
I moaned softly, trying to hear the physician's final response.
"Her heart or her body. Break what you will."
2
