continued from yesterday:
It was clearly evident that Sara had forgotten that she hadn’t got dressed yet. One bare leg slid from the flannel folds of the robe as Sara’s fingers hovered over the memory of his kiss.
One eyelid fluttered, causing the cheek muscle to twitch. Then her whole head *jerked* to the side.
Her upraised hand curled slowly in on itself and lowered to her lap.
“Oh… d-d-da-d-d-da-d-arn…” a shoulder took up the flailing as she struggled to her feet. “P-p-p-lease exc-c-c-use mmm-e…”
What in the blue bloody blazes?
No kiss in the history of humankind had done *this* to a person.
Maybe it was him.
He watched in anguished confusion as his saviour made her twitching way to the only other room in the flat, and vanished behind the door.
Mort wanted to get up. He wanted to rush to her side. Offer what help he could, or at least a punching bag for being so fucking stupid.
Bedsprings creaked in the next room. Garbled half-words and ugly noises of pain slithered out of her room and into his ears.
And all he could do, with some effort, was observe the toes of one foot through the gap… in a mirror on the closet.
_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorry…_ Mort curled in on himself as Sara’s noises subsided. An old, old remnant of the orphanages.
When things got too much, he’d curl in on himself and try to vanish into the wainscotting by sheer force of will.
And the only thing he could control was his breathing, because if his eyes leaked, he was as good as dead…
And then she was there. Beside him. Comforting. Touching.
Touching *him*. Voluntarily.
He looked up out of his huddle. She was dressed and groomed. Mostly groomed - little could be done about the affliction invading her face. "There, now,“ she cooed. "See? All over. Nothing to fret about, dear. It’s just… something that happens. You weren’t the cause, I promise." Her gentle hands invaded, soothed the moisture from his eyes without comment, straightened him out of his curl by careful pressure. Guided him into her robe and helped him cover up.
He could smell her on the garment. Warm, clean woman and a faint hint of lilac.
He went sort of numb, after that, just letting Sara check his IV, change his catheter bag and discuss a trip to the bathroom as if it were the first excursion of a housebound, yet recovering invalid.
She brushed his hair.
Mort remembered actually finding a pre-Disney version of _Peter Pan and Wendy_ in one of his many quests for isolation in the orphanage's attic. The dusty volume had been his friend for days, taking him away into a strange world where fairies were real and you could fly if you had a happy thought. What he remembered most was thinking it was ridiculous for grown men to want a slip of a girl like Wendy for a mother.
Now it wasn’t that ridiculous at all.
~
It was a long trip from his matress on the floor to the bathroom. One that left him surprisingly winded.
A trip that gave him a long time to think.
_You’re gettin’ confused, Morty,_ he told himself. _We never had a Mum. Magneto was never our Dad… much as we wished it._
He remembered being a starving kid, filching the keys from the wrong man’s pocket… and meeting the man who both saved him and doomed him at the same time.
Saved him from starving on the streets.
Doomed him to determined subservience in gratitude.
_We’re old enough to be her *father*. Assumin’ we’d find someone willing to breed with us._
He remembered the initial comfort. The subjective luxury. He remembered weeping into the man’s arms, so *thankful* for the care and attention he’d never had, before.
_And we’re thinking of ourselves in plural again. Dangerous sign, laddy-o. We’re one person. One. Mortimer Toynbee. We are Mort._
Sara arranged him on the commode with the professionalism of a nurse and the warm companionship that lead Mort’s thoughts towards increasingly wrong paths.
Lucky for him the flesh was weak.
"And here’s a bell, if you need me to help you stand, again. It’s a nice, loud one. Once we’re certain that you can get up and down all right, I’ll take the catheter out for you,” Sara was prattling. “You have to go every couple of hours until you feel used to yourself again. You can see why I want to make certain of things. I’ll be online in the next room if you need anything. Okay?”
Mort nodded.
Another warm smile. She lit up when she smiled. Sara backed out and almost-closed the door. Giving him privacy.
The last time he’d needed medical care, Magneto had been - cold. There was no privacy. Just the invasion of what his body needed… and nothing for his mind and heart.
No comfort.
Was there a motive behind this succour she gave him? Did she want a grateful subservient to do *her* bidding?
Was he, in short, about to be used again?
There was only one way to find out… but would he be able to monitor the situation, whilst also being in it up to his eyebrows?
He hadn’t been able to, last time.
~
Mort blinked. Judging by the chiming of the clock, he’d ‘missed’ half an hour. There was hot chocolate and a warm coat over clothes - proper clothes!
He sipped. Still near-scalding and almost too sweet.
“Ah, you’re back,” noted Sara. “Though barely, I think. You went a little… automatic, for a while there. I was worried.”
She was *worried*? About ugly, toady Mort?
“But then again, I can see why you didn’t want to be at home, as it were. Best not to delve into unpleasant things, eh? It’s better forgotten… than haunting one.” She sighed. “Wish I had that knack.”
He found the marker and the small whiteboard. _It’s a curse as well, luv,_ he wrote.
Since he was on the only chair, Sara half-leaned, half-sat on the table. She sipped at her own mug. “I suppose all blessings carry a curse. The gift of having a phenomenal memory… has the curse of having a phenomenal memory. Being able to willingly forget… it must be annoying, afterwards. Trying to figure out if you *should* remember or not.”
Just like that, she’d nailed it. He scrubbed out his previous message and wrote, _You sure you’re not a telepath?_
“Positive. There’s no more room in here–” a tap to her temple “–for anyone but me and my psychoses. Promise. It’s just that you have a very animated face… and your body language is more than eloquent.”
A deeper chill. She wasn’t reading his thoughts. She was reading *him*. What sort of nutcase was he staying with? What did she want him for?
Sara was taking deeper swallows of her drink, almost like she *needed* it, but was too refined to gulp. “Trying to figure me out again? Look around, dear. Does it seem to you that I would possess the resources for a dastardly plan?”
Once again, the sparsity of the little flat made itself known. One chair. One table that had obviously had a rough life. Improvised shelving and storage. The objects that were out in the open were either handmade or extremely cheap.
This kid was dangling on the end of the poverty line.
Mort shook his head.
“Good,” Sara announced. “Now, perhaps, you can work on the idea that I did this out of the goodness of my own heart?”
Mort shrunk in on himself… but carefully, since his body ached.
“Oh, it’s all right. I’m not mad.”
Something flickered into his peripheral vision. He flinched.
Sara’s gentle hand eased down his cheek. “You’ve been in a very bad place. It’s only natural to suspect what you’re not used to. Something we have in common.”
Which lead to the question… what was she un-used to, that she suspected?
~
Mort watched. He was good at watching. It had helped his survival and most of his education to learn by observation rather than by tutor.
Sooner or later, he would get his answers.
Sara’s skin rash - due to the spreading growth of her new scales - was routinely concealed when she journeyed outside the apartment building for her numerous job interviews, and on one occasion when the CPS inspector came by to see how she was doing.
The crisp woman raised an eyebrow at Mort, but accepted the explanation that he was someone in need that Sara had elected to help.
The girl’s words remained in his head. “There have to be good Samaritans,” she’d said. “If we don’t help somebody, how can we be sure that somebody won’t help us?”
The illogic was impeccable, Mort knew, but he also knew that there were many who took and very, very few who gave in return.
Inspection passed, including the repeated importance of finding permanent employment - or at least long-term - and the crisp woman went away to inspect others.
Alas, long-term employment was hard to come by. Sara juggled part-time temp-work, babysitting for fellow denizens of the building, shopping and dog-walking. Sometimes, she’d gain a commission from somewhere, but most of the time, she was doing things for other people for fairly low benefits - or managing several small web-based companies.
Anyone else wouldn’t have had the hours in the day to manage. Sara fit it all in by apparently being awake longer than anyone else on the planet. She only needed a small collection of hours on his ex-mattress - she’d given him her bedroom in deference to his infirmity - and she was back to her permanently energetic self.
In daylight hours, the mattress made an impromptu couch for the both of them and any small visitors who also spent their time there.
Meals - such as they were - were filling fare that warmed body and heart without paying very much attention to a properly balanced diet. Most of them were heavy on the calories when they weren’t brimming with protein.
And through the passing weeks - during which Mort became more of a help in this tiny world - no disaster large or small ever phased her. Sara was automatically prepared for doom. She expected the dire and prepared for it with an almost eerie prescience.
But when he kissed her… when he flirted or managed to rasp a compliment out of his burned and blistered throat… she would twitch. Her peculiar little seizures would begin and - if he persisted in showing concern, care, or a natural desire to embrace her until it went away - they would have to be ridden out in seclusion.
The longest time he spent tying his guts in knots over those seizures was fifteen minutes.
Then it came to him in the cold of night.
*
She wasn’t used to being loved.
*
That singular epiphany held him sleepless until dawn brought her little song through the walls to his ears.
Knowing what she was doing out there… was only a slightly worse torture. To think. Once, he’d wished to God that he could find someone just like him.
_I take it back. I take it all back._
Nobody deserved that much pain.
~
He’d reached the grand maximum of being able to speak three words in a row when Mort decided to riffle through Sara’s things while she was out. It wasn’t an invasion of privacy… Not exactly.
It was investigative… wossname. Investigating. Yeah.
He already had access to her room, so he started there. Practical cotton undergarments. No lace. No naughty implications. No expectations of finding a mate who would appreciate any effort in the unwrapping department.
_I *really* take it back…_
The kid had more T-shirts than she had underthings. Most of them pledged allegiance to some fandom or another. Weird critters abounded on each and every one. There were a sparse few that would pass for a job interview.
The closet held three dresses in anti-dust shrouds and an eye-boggling stack of boxes. Surprise, surprise, they contained T-shirts. An assortment of sizes. All blank.
There were photo albums under the bed. Snapshots of informal moments that were the antithesis of the studio photographs containing herself and a much older man who Mort presumed to be the girl’s father. Or the completely separate portraits of a smiling woman who much resembled Sara as well. When he reached the third framed portrait, Mort noticed the glaring error.
Sara and her mother were never in the same frame, despite the fact that both her parents were still alive.
The snapshots now had a bigger meaning. They were, he realised, the shots that didn’t make it into the *better* albums, the ones that were offered to guests.
The ones placed in the front were those of Sara and her mother.
Treasured, rare moments. Captured and rejected.
Flotsam.
Sara’s treasures were kept safe in hidden corners. Kept away from everything else by one barrier or another. The rest… was stuff that ultimately didn’t matter because it was cheap scrattle.
A thief desperate enough to break Sara’s locks would find a bare apartment and a lot of debris before they discovered anything of significant value… like the jewellery box concealed in the far back of the bottom drawer of her dresser. One of those little chintzy ones that eight-year-old girls favoured.
And just like the girl who owned it, appearances told exactly nothing of the story inside.
_Maybe I ought to find out where her old bird lives and rip the bitch off,_ he thought. He didn’t even consider hocking Sara’s little valuables. He owed her that much, at the very least.
All of her jewellery was finely-made. Expensive make, without being brash about it. This was bought with old money. So relaxed about its decoration that it didn’t *have* to brag.
He put the box back exactly where it came from. He didn’t even touch the letters that were reverentially saved nearby.
Which left, in this sanctuary from the outside, the hope chest.
It had been decorated by a much younger Sara, embellished with unicorns, My Little Pony portraits, fairies, elves and dragons. The words “Hope Chest” were professionally lettered on the top.
An older Sara had written the word “Lost” above those words in some kind of marker.
If anything was going to tell him about the inner workings of Sara's mind, it was the contents of this box.
Mort picked the lock anyway.
Top layer, ribbons from beauty pageants… junior beauty pageants. Kept on the top so that the ruffles wouldn’t be damaged by the weight of other objects. These, too, were the edits. Second places. Third places. Most Winning Smile.
Underneath these was a trophy - Best Effort - and a studio portrait. All three Adriens together. The two ladies wearing duchennes smiles. The younger’s eyes were tinged with sorrow and fear. The older’s - pure venom.
Sara was six.
Mort knew that this was the last portrait that Sara’s little family had shared together.
There were books, next. Chronologically arranged in bundles. The earliest ones were diary entries and, judging by the dates, young Sara had been a precocious prodigy. Some of her entries at age four were book critiques.
It was when she turned five that trouble started entering the picture. There were detailed analyses of the competitors, the competitors acts, their scores and their totals… plans for costumes, outfits, and acts that should have blown the judges out of the water.
And again and again, entries about Sandra Lee Merriweather. According to the pictures, she was a bubbly little blonde with ringlets and a cuteness factor fit to rival Shirley Temple. She could tapdance.
So, evidently, could Sara.
Mort found the entries for Sara’s final competition. Sara was alarmingly cute in a pseudo-military outfit - replete with a swagger stick - and had evidently sung the entirety of _A Modern Major General_ in full patter mode.
The total scores reasoned that Sara should have won, yet Sandra Lee had beat her hands down.
The very next page was full of one word. “Why?”
_Because she was cuter than you, pet,_ reasoned Mort. _You were gangly and she was petite. That’s all there was to it. You’d lost before you started._ Poor girl.
More pages obsessed about Sandra Lee. A full bio. Classes taken. Grades achieved. Beauty secrets.
Sara had even attempted to go blonde. *That* had been a resounding failure, judging by the picture of Sara with bleached hair. She looked like some kind of forlorn creature from an underground civilisation. Sara with bleached hair and a fake tan looked even worse. A lesson underscored with the words, “Artifice is not our friend”.
Sara had tried to defeat or equal Sandra, and broken her heart in the effort. People forgave Sandra identical flaws to Sara because the former was so much more… huggable.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Sara attempted to be smarter than Sandra. Again, the precociousness blossomed, and young Sara far overtook her lessons.
She was doing high school problems in the elementary grades… and told by various teachers that she needn’t worry about such things.
Later books were encoded, to increasing degrees of complexity. The images embedded in the increasingly microscopic texts were awesome. Fibonnacci numbers inside a daisy. A spiral galaxy. The solar system expressed as atoms.
He put everything back the way he’d found it and re-locked the chest.
Lost hope, indeed.
Could he give it back to her?
Could he even try?
~