"Tie"
"Aunt Ann," Lizzie says, "can you teach me how to save a life?"
They are in the sitting room of the Burnett town house, taking tea next to the fire as snowflakes flutter against the windowpanes. Lizzie's mother and father have gone to Weston to collect Edward for the winter holidays, but Lizzie had decided she'd rather skip the trip and visit with her aunt until their return.
Angelina Dalles sets her teacup down.
"What are you asking me?" she queries.
"To…to teach me how to help people." Lizzie's fingers trace the rim of her cup, and her aunt frowns.
"Can you tell me why?" she asks, one delicate eyebrow arched.
"I…" Elizabeth hesitates, trying to find the words to express the resolution that had been forming for months only to coalesce all at once.
"Because it's hard," she says firmly, and Aunt Ann looks confused.
"It is," the baroness agrees, "and it's not that simple, either. There are an very many of things that can go wrong in the human body, and almost as many techniques to combat them. Lizzie, I can't teach you any universal way to heal someone. If you've decided to follow in my footsteps and become a doctor, I can help you learn, but that endeavor is beyond me alone."
Lizzie looks up at her aunt through pale lashes, and resists the urge to bite her lip.
"I'm not asking for the whole world of medicine," she says, "just…just something. A way to save a life. You've taught me so much before, and I know that this is…different. That it's complicated; it's not ladylike, or an innocent sort of ambition, but Auntie, the person you teach me how to be is so different from who you are. And if I could leave everything behind and choose to do what I want, I would become a doctor." She pauses in her tirade to catch her breath, and sees the way that her aunt's eyes have widened, her arms fallen limp on the rests of her chair; when Lizzie continues, her voice is softer, gentler.
"But I can't, so instead of societal niceties and life lessons, could you…tutor me in medicine?"
And Angelina Dalles still looks bewildered, and slightly awed. But Lizzie is asking her unconventional aunt for some unconventional lessons; teachings that are more real than the flowery values that she's spent so long instilling in the girl.
And Lizzie waits, a completely foreign desperation clawing at her lungs, because she can't keep going like she is: causing harm after effortless harm with no end in sight—no balance—and the means to make up for it all, in some tiny, infinitesimal way, lies just beyond her fingertips.
Then Auntie Ann smiles.
"I can teach you first aid," she says, "It isn't how to save a life on your own, but it is the first step in a process that someone like me can finish. But!" she says, and levels a sparkling gaze at Elizabeth, "I'm not going to let you fall behind on fashion or gossip; you'll drown at the next ball you attend, no niece of mine is going to flounder in society! So in exchange for lessons, your free time is mine. We're going to go shopping, and I get to dress you up however I want!"
Angelina grins, and Lizzie can't help but giggle.
"You say that as if it's a punishment," she laughs. As if spending more time with her aunt could ever be anything but a joy.
A/N: *sigh* You know, in my word doc I have about 19,000 words written for this fic. As opposed to my, what, 9,000-ish words posted? Ugh. Like, I know this isn't linear, but I have complete chapters written that I can't post because they take place too far ahead to make sense, or won't be meaningful without some build up.
Aaaanyhoo, I'm still swamped IRL, but this chapter was easy. The themes were all there; I just had to rewrite it because the first draft was utter garbage. Uhhhhm, what else? This one takes place shortly after "Slip."
...Thank you all for reading, I'll keep on writing as I can, and good luck in whatever you all have going on IRL. I know it's midterm time for me.
(Also, I can't remember if I've mentioned, but I did some art for this fic a while back. It's posted on AO3 if you're interested.)
"Tie:" a bond, a match, a parallel, a balance