Sorry, everyone. This is the last piece I have of this fic. This time, I know I wrote more, but it’s just… not there.
Continued from yesterday:
“Mort might object.”
Sara surfaced from the depths of her book. “Hmmm?” She looked up. Oh. Kurt. “Hi. ‘Sup?”
“Did you think about what would happen if he heard you’re letting people sniff you?” teased the big blue elf.
Sara grinned. “One, I have complete faith in Mortimer,” she bookmarked her place with her finger again. “Two, I thought the best way to deal with rampant curiosity is to sate it. Three… the boy is *ten*. I’d think he’d lack the *wiring* to make the situation suspicious, anyway. And four - people are going to sniff, regardless. I might as well let them borrow my hand and get it done with.”
Kurt frowned as if he were dealing with complicated math. She’d been getting that expression a lot. “Some people… don’t always think of such things as harmless, fraulein…”
Sara blinked. “Oh, poot. I completely forgot about the Jerry Springer angle.”
“Uh… Was?”
“The original salacious talk show. Every other week, there was at least one show featuring a stripper and her husband who wanted her to quit. Random lovers optional. I didn’t think sniffing was a big deal… but the strippers had the same POV on the stripping. Although… mine’s just 'I smell like lilacs, deal with it’… Mortimer might be upset.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kurt. “I’m not following, much…”
“I get that a lot. Could you do me a favour and get to Mortimer before the rumour mill does? Explain I thought it was harmless? Don’t - don’t wound him?”
“But of course.” {Bamf!}
Sara sighed and bit her lip. What if she’d just done exactly the wrong thing?
~
{Bamf!}
Mort coughed and gagged. “Ugh. Could ya not fuckin’ do that upwind? …auchkthpt…”
“Etschuldigung… but I thought it would be better to get to you before the rumour mill did.”
He torqued the last bolt and wheeled himself out from under the car. “Eh? Who’s Sara happened to, this time?”
“Nein, it’s about the smell of lilacs.”
Mort glared at him. “Drop the other soddin’ boot, then.”
Kurt dropped into a crouch. “Sara’s let one of the boys sniff her. Jamie. He’s *ten*.”
Mort threw his head back - a bad idea when he was lying on a dolly[1] - and wailed, “It’s not fuckin’ *fair*!” He rubbed the back of his head. “Calm down, Morty… look at it all logical-like. Y’ get t’ sniff 'er day after tomorrow. An’ all the other tomorrows you can get. So fuck 'em. Fuck 'em right in their ears. Who cares, righ’?”
“Mort?” Kurt said.
Mort opened his eyes. Blue-boy was looking confused. “’S awrigh’. We do this, sometimes,” he soothed. “Got a long 'istory of bein’ fucked over th’ bad way.” He steadied himself and managed to sit up. “We’re not completely fractured. No’ yet. Sara’s been… *good*… at keepin’ us together. I can keep us distracted… I can keep us busy… but *Sara*…” He sighed. _God, this is dangerous…_ But he had to say it to *someone* or he’d fucking explode. “She’s got this… *way*. Every little crack just - heals.”
*
Kurt blinked. _The way I’ve been attracting confessions, I may as well be a priest…[2]_ He’d heard of people 'cracking up’ and of others 'going to pieces’… but he’d never thought he’d witness someone on the verge of doing both at once.
“You’ve been hiding this for a very long time,” he said. Nothing more than a statement of fact. A simple observation.
“You *think*?” Mort slapped a paranoid hand over his mouth as his last, squawked word echoed a little in the otherwise empty room. He let the hand peel away from his face. “I *can’t* let this out. You think stick-in-the-arse Scooter’s gonna even let her within spit o’ me if he knew?” panic now filled his eyes. “I can’t stand thinkin’ o’ her hurtin’ 'erself 'cause of some bugger-arsed, stupid-fuck thing we let slip an’–”
“Mort,” Kurt whispered.
The sound of his name worked.
“It’s all right. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Panic eased into vague worry. “It’s not… dangerous, is it? When you know? When you can feel it happening?”
“Your being aware is a good thing,” said Kurt. “You should know when it gets dangerous. For you - or for anyone you love. And you know what you need to do to protect them.”
“…so scared of hurtin’ 'er…”
“And she sent me down here because she was scared of hurting *you*. That says something, ne?”
“Yeh. We’re both fuckin’ nuts.” He laughed. A sound so close to sobs that it hurt to hear it. “Out of everyone else… out of all th’ people who could’ve been better for 'er… she goes an’ picks on me. *Why*?”
Kurt smiled at the echo of his own logic in Mort’s words. “I’ve found that it’s best not to ask. Just enjoy it.”
“Lie back an’ think of England, eh?”
“Or of how lucky you are… and how grateful… and how you could never take such a wonderful miracle for granted.” A more devious smirk. “The ladies are completely into such things.”
A raised eyebrow. “An’ you know everythin’ about this… why?”
Kurt tried and failed to look innocent. “Let’s just say I never really got my official room…”
[1] What *is* the technical name for those wheelie-boards that mechanics use?
[2] Side-fling to the worst possible decision in comic history *EVER*.
~
December 11
Jubes was fascinated. Sara was standing in an otherwise blank spot and cooking in and with thin air. Her eyes were closed shut and her demeanor was almost that of a sleepwalker, save for the muttered instructions that were clear and precise.
She knew that, somewhere below in the big kitchen, Betsy was learning to cook through a mental link.
_Damn, *I* could learn just by watching,_ she mused. She could clearly picture the utensils 'held’ by Sara… and she was certainly picking up technique, if nothing else.
It didn’t even matter that her prime seat to view it was right next to Dead Fred - a decoration that had previously squicked her out to the ultimate degree.
Sara smiled again. That shy little smile that implied warm thoughts.
_Yo, Bets… Is she sneaking peeks at her SO?_
_You bet your ass she is,_ Betsy 'replied’. _Now shut up, this is a tricky bit._
~
It was possibly the creepiest thing he’d witnessed in his life. There was Betsy. He *knew* Betsy. She did some modelling work when school allowed and was a very lovely lass who did exactly nothing for him… but when she made herself a puppet for Sara, moving *exactly* like her…
It squicked him out, to use a Jubillee phrase.
On one hand was the essence of Sara… yet held in a body that was decidedly *not* her. And on the other hand… it wasn’t Sara at all.
Just a puppet.
Mort satisfied his need for distracting work by contributing to the organized chaos of the kitchens. He stuck to stuff that he knew he’d be careful with. Hot things, mostly. Which meant frequent trips to the fridges to rehydrate. Frequent passes by the Betsy-puppet, glimpsing at him in Sara’s way… and the wrong-coloured eyes.
Sara’s words - and the wrong voice.
Sara’s moves in the wrong skin.
And somewhere far away - her room, most likely - the real Sara, the pure Sara, was operating Betsy by remote and sneaking little peeks of him.
So close, as they said, and yet so far.
Even though it deeply disturbed him to be close to someone inhabited by her ghost , he couldn’t truly stay away.
Because there was *just* enough of her for him to picture her there.
He could see her. But only if he didn’t really look.
~