Downtime

by James Allen

  She closed the door, but her shadow remained in the glass. Derry noticed it too. "She'll distract them for a bit."

  "Think so?" I tilted the wheelchair to get Ezra down the steps. We reached the lawn and took off, the wheels running slick on the damp ground. Afraid the cab hadn't waited so long for us, I nearly gasped aloud at the sight of it looming in the lingering mist. The eastern sky glowed with the first touches of sunrise. I looked back to see no one yet following. Mrs. Lougheed had done right by us in the end, with a little nudging from Alexander.

  We made the station with minutes to spare. A stumbling Ezra propped between us, we hurried down the platform, Derry's eye out for our compartment, mine for any sign of trouble. The stares we got from the few people waiting on the early train were either disapproving or amused. No one stopped or questioned us. But I couldn't relax until the train had pulled out of Northampton. As picturesque in the morning light as I'd imagined, I watched without regret as it receded into the distance, gold-tinged fields taking its place.

  We were hardly thirty minutes out of town when Derry drifted into a well-deserved snooze. As the train took us further from St. Andrews, I let him sleep and Ezra as well, thinking that maybe it would help him distance himself from the nightmare he'd been through. As I had on the first night we'd bunked together, I got him into a comfortable position, curled up on his side, head pillowed on my lap. It was the best we could do on the train, but he wasn't complaining and neither was I.

  A little more than an hour and a half later, I woke disoriented to find the train was slowing along the platform of a much more crowded station. I woke Derry and together we roused Ezra. He couldn't manage much more than a dazed awareness of his surroundings, but he trustingly followed my instruction to walk beside me, holding onto my arm as he needed to. We flagged down a cab and in seconds he was asleep again.

  Not sure that anyone would be up greet us, I was pleased as hell to see the anxious faces crowding for a peek through the parted curtains as the cab rolled to the curb. Everyone in the house poured out onto the steps and, as Derry and I maneuvered a drowsy Ezra to the sidewalk, ran down to help us bring him inside. A flurry of questions went along with the help and I let Derry tackle most of them, my sights set on getting Ezra into bed before he collapsed. Dr. Gilbride's cursory examination confirmed what I already knew, that Ezra needed to sleep off the morphine and he would be all right, at least physically. The rest I would worry about when he was awake enough for conversation.

  After a tiring trek upstairs, Derry and I sank onto Ezra's bed with a near simultaneous gasp of profound relief. We'd done it. Sure, it had taken threats, blackmail, long miserable waits and the occasional flight in panic, but we were finally home. Between us, Ezra slumped, awake but none too focused.

  "The poor lad could sleep on a two-penny rope. We'd best get him out of his clothes and into bed."

  "I hate to complain, Derry, but your century sucks."

  Discerning from my tone what he might not from the words, he smiled sorrowfully. "Is life so much easier in yours, then?"

  I had to admit it wasn't. Institutional life might be less of a horror, but generally speaking, there was as much to bitch about in my own time, if not more.

  Derry helped me get Ezra undressed and into a nightshirt before leaving him in my care. As I buried him in blankets, he opened his eyes and blue gleaming like a starry twilight drank me in for the longest minute. "You're here."

  "Right here. Try to sleep." I drew the curtains tight, plunging the room into a peaceful gloom, and crawled into bed. All but asleep, he turned over and plastered every warm inch of himself against me. If he needed something to hold onto, something solid after all those ghosts, it was okay with me. Nuzzling disheveled hair, I kissed his forehead and whispered a good night.

  But that was not to be. He slept peacefully for a while, then the nightmares kicked in and he was tossing and turning. I held him and talked to him, so sleepy that I hardly knew what I was saying; but it worked. He went back to sleep for a few hours, until the nightmares started again. I woke at three in the afternoon and got up and dressed. Finding something to read, I settled in a chair by the window, but kept one eye on Ezra until the smells rising from cooking going on downstairs started making me squirm and, to my relief, woke him too.

  I could tell as he sat up that despite the nightmares, he had no idea why he was in bed at such a weird hour. He glanced toward the window and the afternoon light streaming in, then at me in blank confusion. "Morgan?"

  He wasn't as hoarse as before, but the rough edge surprised him. I moved to his side, an explanation on my lips, but suddenly the confusion cleared away, disquiet taking its place. He looked at me and I nodded. "If there's anything you don't remember, I'll fill you in, if you want. Talking about it's probably a good idea," I added as the disquiet only seemed to deepen.

  "Perhaps a little later."

  "Want to go down for some supper?"

  "I'm not particularly hungry."

  I might have attributed that to the morphine but I knew there was more going on. He wasn't ready to face everyone yet, whether it was their sympathy he dreaded or their doubt that he was sane after they'd seen him dragged off by the asylum goons. I didn't want to push him, though I knew everyone had to be anxious to know how he was doing. "The drug may have killed your appetite, but you should eat a little something, anyway. I'll bring you some tea and cookies," I said, keeping it light and cheerful. "And you'd better eat it or Kathleen will be up to feed you herself."

  Satisfied with the flash of wry amusement that got me, I went down to find dinner spread out in the dining room and nearly everyone in the house just sitting down to it. At my appearance, they perked up and I stopped the forthcoming questions with a shake of my head. "He's not ready to come downstairs just yet. The morphine's worn off, I think, but he's tired and not in a frame of mind to talk about what he went through."

  "Then I shall bring his supper up," Kathleen said, starting to rise.

  "No, let me do it," I said, waving her back to her chair. "He's not really up for visitors yet, either."

  "You may take it up," she allowed, bustling around to overload two plates with food.

  "And something for yourself, as you'll want to stay with him, I suppose. And I meant to tell you, I've aired Mr. Cotton's room, so you may move upstairs when you like. I do understand you may not be much longer with us, but I will have you comfortable while you're here."

  Henry bowed down further over his soup to hide whatever expression was in danger of getting us all into trouble. But Derry couldn't hide his commiseration. He shook his head with an unspoken promise to help me deal with Kathleen later on. I let the matter drop for now. I wasn't leaving Ezra alone tonight. He might not be ready for a flood of visitors but he wasn't ready to face the night alone yet either.

  Near staggering under the weight of the tray Kathleen put in my care, I hiked back upstairs and peered past the door I'd left ajar, to see Ezra where I'd left him. His thoughts had wandered to some place not so nice, judging by the pensive turn of his mouth. Uneasy, I went inside and depositing the tray on the window seat, dropped there myself, energetically enough to rattle the cups and wake him from his reverie. "Chow time. Shall I pour?"

  A pale imitation of his exasperated smile touched his lips. "If there is anything left in the teapot, you may."

  I dared to hope that he was coming back out of himself, ready to face the world and all the dead and living in it. I couldn't talk him into eating any more than tea and biscuits with his favorite strawberry jam, but he chatted as if all was right with the world. I was getting my butt kicked in a game of chess when Derry came up to see how we were faring. Ezra got up to greet him with a hesitancy I'd never seen him show around Derry. Even Derry looked taken aback by it.

  "I'm flesh and blood," he teased, with an affectionate muss of Ezra's hair. "No proof you're needing of that, eh?"

  "If I require it, I shall borrow a hatpin from Kathleen," Ezra responded
, warming to Derry's good cheer.

  "Aye," Derry agreed ruefully. "She wreaks swifter vengeance than the Lord Himself for the sin of napping through Mass." He looked Ezra up and down, his expressive face twisted in an outpouring of sympathy. "It's good to have you home where you belong."

  Ezra's smile was still a little too hesitant. "I've caused you and Kathleen some embarrassment. I know you are too kind-hearted to ask me to leave, but I also know that lodging houses live and die by reputation and I will not do more harm to yours--"

  "Are you saying you're nothing more than a lodger here? That you don't know you're as dear to us as any kith or kin? Don't say as much to Kathleen. You'll break her heart."

  Ezra looked stricken. "I do not mean to break yours."

  "Well, then, say you're staying here with us." Derry blinked against the moist gleam in his eyes. "Did I not just say it's where you belong, you great damn fool--" He choked off the sentence as he smothered Ez in a fierce hug and kissed his cheek. Ezra hugged him back as hard and wheezed out an agreement to stay put. I couldn't help marveling at the sight; it was something all too rare in my own time, fearless physical affection between guys. In trying to label each other and the whole world, we'd lost something precious that I wondered if we'd ever get back. They looked around at me and I flashed a hopeful grin.

  "We finished with the chess for today?"

  Derry, with a quick brush of a sleeve across his face, looked the board over. "You're teaching Morgan to play?"

  Ezra cleared his throat and I noticed he was fighting down a smile. "No, apparently he already knows."

  "Ah," Derry said, taking my seat as Ezra mercifully eliminated the evidence of my defeat. I watched the two of them at it a while. By the second game, Ezra was nearly asleep in his chair and I decided to nix my plans to attend the Stride funeral tomorrow or to do any investigation at all. Ezra needed a distraction, a healthy one, and I talked it over with Derry who came up with half a dozen suggestions that no doubt sounded like fun to him even if they didn't sound that way to me.

  What the hell, maybe an afternoon in the park would be good for me. More importantly, it would be good for Ezra. I virtually sleepwalked him from chair to bed and asked Sully to keep any wayward spirits from disturbing his sleep. But it wasn't long before Ezra started tossing and turning again. I hung onto him through the rough spots and soothed him back to sleep when he woke. By three in the morning, an afternoon in the park was looking better and better. We'd both be too tired to do anything but lie in the grass and soak up the sun.

  "And there'd better be some goddamned sun," I muttered, giving Ezra a little squeeze as he relaxed against me. I wished I could get in his head and chase away whatever or whomever was haunting him. I'd leaned on him more than I'd even realized since I'd come here and now, when I couldn't, I felt the loss. Worse, I couldn't provide the same comfort he'd provided me. I couldn't make him stop doubting his own sanity. I couldn't help him escape the visions that made him doubt it to begin with. All I could do was hold him, which seemed inadequate, to say the least, when he was caught between this world and the next and moaning fearfully in his sleep.

  But as terrible as the tossing and turning and moaning was, it had nothing on waking to find him gone.

  "Ez?" I jerked upright and looked around the dimly moonlit room, to find he hadn't gone far. Still in his nightshirt, he knelt over a small suitcase into which he was stuffing his possessions. He worked with a speed bordering on panic and I hated to imagine the nightmare that had led him to this. "You going somewhere?"

  As I sat beside him on the rug, Ezra continued to throw anything at hand into his suitcase. "He will not be done. When he knows I've gotten away, they'll come again and I'll be locked up some place where no one can find me." Eyes bright and anguished fixed on my face. "Not even you."

  "Ez--"

  "Come with me. We'll run away, to Paris or Naples. America, if you like. He'd have no hope of finding us there."

  Goddamn, I wanted to kick someone's ass and I knew just whose. I caught the feverishly moving hands, putting an end to the packing for our new lives as fugitives. "Listen to me. He's not going to come after you. It's over."

  "You don't know that. You can't know."

  "I do. He won't because..." I sighed. I hadn't wanted to tell him, at least not until he was a little steadier. "Your dad was the one who signed the papers for your release." I gave him the truth, without quoting dear old Sir William; that shit, he didn't need to hear. Ezra let me get it all out, seeming too dazed to interrupt, anyway. An uneasy corner of my mind wondered if he'd hate me for what I'd done. He didn't seem angry. I wasn't sure what he seemed. "You okay?"

  "You blackmailed my father."

  "We didn't know how else we'd get you out of there as fast. Or even at all," I added, reaching for any points I could.

  "You blackmailed him." He couldn't seem to grasp the concept. His eyes rose to mine. "For me." He said it as if it were a revelation beyond all imagining.

  A teasing response came to my lips and I swallowed it back. His eyes were gleaming with the tears he hadn't so far shed. I couldn't brush off a reaction like that. "I hated to do it that way. He's your father and should love you unconditionally. If he can't do that, at the very least he owes you the simple respect to let you live your life as you want to live it. We all owe that to each other."

  There was a soft hitch in his breath as he spoke. "Didn't you..."

  "Didn't I what?" I prompted gently when he couldn't seem to get the words out. He was tired and chilled and I was getting a little cold myself. Pushing away the suitcase, I got up and led him back to bed. Once we were comfortably entangled, he relaxed against me and I wondered if I should just let him sleep while he could. But then, with his head tucked against my neck, he got the question out.

  "Before Sully came, you thought I must be mad, didn't you?"

  It wasn't a question I really wanted to answer. But I couldn't be less than truthful with him. "Once I was pretty sure you weren't a conman, yeah. I figured if you were seeing something I couldn't, you had to be hallucinating. But I was wrong. If anything, you're holding yourself together better than the rest of us."

  "Why would you think that?"

  "You've been stuck down here with the rest of us but for some reason, you can see beyond the veil. You're living in two worlds and I've gotten a good idea lately of just how hard that is. I don't think a weak mind could handle it. Look, if you were the big guy upstairs and you needed a little help sorting out the recently deceased, you'd want to give the job to someone who had his shit together, right?"

  Ezra's expression was tinged with the wry humor conversations with me seemed to provoke. "Are you trying to say that God has given me the ability to see spirits because I am, in fact, not insane?"

  "Well, yeah."

  He didn't seem to know whether to laugh or give in to the still-threatening tears. "That is a specious argument for my sanity."

  "Maybe it is. But I believe it." And I hadn't believed in ghosts two weeks ago. I wished like hell I could persuade him beyond a doubt that he was okay. Then again, maybe a grain of doubt about one's sanity was safer than cocksure certainty in this world. "You all right?"

  "I shall have to be. And you? Are you all right? I saw the blow you took for me." He threaded fingers gingerly into my hair. "I think I felt it, myself." His voice dropped. "All during the ride to Northampton, I prayed someone would come to tell me that you were all right. I cannot seem to recall what happened after that. Your Mr. Sullivan came briefly, but I do not remember that he spoke to me. So many others were begging and crying..."

  He closed his eyes, fighting to keep his composure, and I pulled him hard against me. "I'm sorry. Sorry they put you through that. Hell, I'm sorry for everything I've put you through, too." I remembered the look on his face when he'd first set eyes on me at the asylum and the way he turned away. I hadn't given it much thought then. I hadn't had time to. Now I knew what it meant. For an instant, he'd thought he'd
seen a ghost--mine. I'd been so wrapped up in my worry for him, it had never occurred to me that out of all the terrors he'd faced, the one that would stick with him was the fear that I'd been killed. "I've really complicated your life."

  He shook his head. "I've never been so free before. I owe you more than I could repay in a lifetime. So perhaps in the next one." Fingers intertwined with mine and squeezed lightly. "I will hope for that."

  The ache in my throat made it a little hard to breathe, let alone talk. "You changed your life. I think you're the bravest damned son of a bitch I've ever met. And I've met a lot of them."

  He looked rueful and a little embarrassed. "Let us hope it is not only some sort of Dutch courage stimulated by your presence or I shall have a devil of a time of it when you leave."

  "Trust me, it'll be for the best. You haven't known me long enough to know what Reese and the other guys I've dated eventually figured out. I'm too much of a pain in the ass to keep around for long."