The Pretender

We'll find out about how Break lost both eye and partner in good time. All feedback is greatly appreciated.

Chapter 2

The apprentice healer he had met previously was sitting by the man's bed; a book was open on her lap in a manner that she suggested she planned to be there all night.

"You again, don't we employ anybody else?"

She squeaked and jumped, her book falling to the floor. Shooting him an annoyed look she scooped the book from the floor, "That's the second time you've appeared out of nowhere, what, do you come out the cabinet when I'm not looking or something?"

"Now how would I fit in the cabinet?" he asked. "And shouldn't there be someone else here? A full healer, I mean."

"Healer Radsby isn't feeling well," she told him frankly. "So I slipped a sleeping potion in his tea and he's passed out over there." a gesture to the far side of the infirmary made Break turn to glance at the prone healer, who was snoring softly into his thick beard.

"That's pretty devious." he remarked. "What was your name again?"

"Sharon Rainsworth. And I'm a pretty devious person. Besides, Healer Radsby doesn't get enough sleep and a little more when he's sick will only help him. You've come to check on your friend?"

"Not exactly. He's your friend isn't he?" Break raised an eyebrow at her. "You knew his name."

"We were in school together." she explained. "And we were friends."

Break frowned, that didn't quite work, she was a little too young looking for it to work out neatly in his head, he hated when that happened; it meant he wasn't being told something. "You would have been in your first or so year just as he was in his last; it's a little odd that someone in their final year like would be friends with a first year. Did you two know each other… outside of Hogwarts?"

She regarded him with a decidedly cool expression. "I don't know what you're implying."

That hadn't exactly been what he'd meant, but his over-athletic tongue kept on. Had he not been still turning over that thought from earlier he might have thought a little more about going on more to say, "A bit unlikely but I'm not one to judge-"

The petite apprentice proceeded to cut him off at that point by slamming her book into the side of his head. While he was reeling from the completely unexpected blow Sharon snapped, "Liam was my tutor in Transfiguration. We got to be friends though that, you ass."

Break ran the last minute or so of conversation back in his head and internally winced. He should have known better than to let his stupid mouth run without his head to keep an eye on it. From the expression on Sharon's face she looked ready to hit him with the books again. "I apologize." he said, so bluntly that she just blinked at him for a moment. "I meant that I thought you came from the same hometown. I didn't realize that I was… being a bit misleading."

"Oh." she replied, deflating a bit. "Well, you were. A lot. It was rude."

"It's a bad habit of mine," he admitted, fishing in one of his pockets for the other of his bad habits -according to Tamara at least. "Here," he offered her one of the wrapped candies he always had in his pockets. "Have a candy and forgive me?"

With a chuckle for the random gesture she took the candy from him, and then paused, candy still held in mid-air between them. "I've just realized, you know my name but I don't know yours."

"It's Xerxes Break."

"Ah, you're Break." Sharon tapped her eye meaningfully, "Everyone talks about how…" she trailed off as if she realized she had said too much. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

He plastered a smile on his face and made himself not thinking of the burning dungeon, the body, the pain in his eye… "Don't worry about it." Break told her, though his hand strayed up to cover his missing eye. As soon as he caught himself doing it he resolutely put his hand in his pocket and changed the subject. "How is Lunettes? What did he end up breaking?"

Sharon sighed and sat back in her chair. "Two broken bones in his arm, both tibia and fibula, cracks in his shin bone and rib, and a rather nasty crack in his collarbone. And then there's the concussion, the minor head wound, and that hand wound. It's really quite the little list for a simple fall."

"It that unusual?"

"Well, yes, it is. Usually people don't fall that badly, even if they trip and there's stairs. Liam really does have terrible luck." She made a face. "No one wants to have to drink that much Skella-grow in one sitting."

Since he had plenty of experience with the stuff Break too made a face. "It's a good thing he's unconscious then."

"He wasn't when we gave it to him." Sharon said grimly. "I put him out right after though, no one wants to feel that many bones healing themselves."

"What did he say while he was awake?" asked Break.

"Not much. He was a little out of it, since he hit his head it isn't too surprising and once I explained what happened to him he just said something having the worst luck. It wasn't all the coherent though."

"I wasn't expecting coherency, he hit his head on something so hard he was bleeding." Break said, drawing the thing he had taken from his office drawer.

"What are those for?" Sharon asked, frowning at the scissors he held.

He held out his palm and opened the scissors as far as they would go. "I want to test something." And before she could ask what and he could think too much about what he was about to do he carved a cut diagonally across his palm with the scissors.

"What on earth are you doing?" Sharon grabbed his bleeding hand, wrenching it away from the one with the scissors.

"Do me a favor and heal this?" he asked her, nodding at the wound, which was bleeding rather enthusiastically.

"You're insane." She muttered, pulling out her wand and murmuring over the slice. The skin twitched, felt warm and knitted together, leaving only a thin white line across his palm to show it had ever been there. "What was that about?" demanded Sharon finally, releasing his hand.

"Just a moment," he went to Liam and unwound the bandage from his hand. He compared his recently healed hand to the one he remembered had been cut when he'd found him on the stairwell. The wound on Liam's hand was a thin white line, almost identical to the one on his own palm. "Huh." Break remarked to the world in general.

Sharon traced Break's healed cut and then Liam's. "Do you think that…"

Break closed his hand on the cut. "How well do you know Lunettes these days?"

"Well."

"Have you noticed him acting oddly lately?"

There was something, a flicker in her eyes before she replied, "No, I haven't. He seemed his normal self when I talked to him this morning."

'His normal self'? What kind of phrasing was that? "In any case, how about we keep this little bit of information," he held up his closed hand, "to ourselves."

Her look was suspicious and so was her tone, "Right. Of course."

"Wouldn't want to run around making wild accusations, now, would we?" He smiled his most pleasant smile.

She began rewrapping the bandage around Liam's hand. "No. That would be a bad idea. By the way," Sharon tucked in the last and of the bandage and turned to him, "If you really are Xerxes Break, aren't you still supposed to be on medical leave?"

She was alone in the infirmary. "I could grow to hate that." she said.

The secrets that you keep are ever ready

Are you ready?

(The Pretender~ The Foo Fighters)

TBC