Downtime

by James Allen

  "Hey." It was not much of a greeting, in a voice too weak to be reassuring, but they seemed to find reassurance anyway. "Scared you guys, huh?"

  Derry brushed his sleeve across his face, wiping away tears to make room for a fresh batch. "Thought you'd hopped the twig, old man." His voice wasn't much better than mine. Cradling my head in his hands, he leaned down and kissed my cheek, then hugged me. I could see over his shoulder that the others hadn't had much better success keeping the tears in check. Henry contrived to look annoyed despite a moist gaze and Kathleen's face crumpled as our eyes met.

  "You're purely a trial, Morgan Nash. The Lord has put it upon me to inform you of that. Purely a trial." She smoothed a damp handkerchief and pressed it to her mouth as she tried to compose herself. Hannah, practically falling across Kathleen's lap, managed to finally get to me and wrap her arms tight around my neck. I felt warm tears on my skin and I put my arms around her.

  "Sorry, Hannah. I'm so sorry."

  She tried to help me up and Derry got behind me to assist with a pair of strong arms when it was clear I wasn't managing it even with Hannah's help. I looked around for the missing member of the party...

  And a memory that hung just off the edge of my rattled thoughts pushed itself forward. Something was wrong. Very wrong. "It's--morning?" They nodded and I tried to grasp that my trip back through time had taken hours instead of minutes. Necessary, maybe, to keep me from ending up in the hospital again...

  "Ezra is back at the house." Kathleen had caught the look in my eyes. "He doesn't know we're here, nor that we've come for days now to try to bring you back. I can hardly dare believe it's worked." She looked to Derry, anxiety still bright in her eyes, and he laughed aloud and clapped my shoulder in sheer triumph.

  "Kath, we've done nothing wrong. 'Tis just as we all agreed, that it would happen only if the Lord willed it should. You could not bear another day of the poor lad's grief, any more than I. It was the only thing to save him."

  Save him. Oh goddamn. The hideous memory seemed to suck the heart out of me. "The fire. Jesus. I forgot--the fire."

  "Fire?" Kathleen whispered as the rest stared at me in burgeoning horror.

  I climbed to my feet a little too fast and clenched my jaw as the room tilted and spun around me. Between Derry and Henry, I stayed on unsteady legs and got the story out even more succinctly than that damned newspaper had.

  Derry turned a white face to Henry. "The steamers. Quick. We'll catch up as fast as we can."

  Henry, just as shaken, didn't argue but pounded out, the thud of his boots echoing down the corridor. Derry looked me up and down, trying to determine if I could keep up with them. I wasn't about to be left behind. Fortunately we were able to flag down a cab before I collapsed on the steps of the museum. Derry got Kathleen and Hannah into it, then hailed another cab for the two of us. The combination of sick fear in my gut and a sharp wind in my face kept me holding on as the cab lurched through the foggy morning, following faint paths between the ghostly glow of street lamps.

  Past the benign yellow beacons I saw a hellish red flickering through the fog and through the black air, blacker smoke billowed outward. We turned into the street, where people on their way to work had gathered to stare up at the burning building, and our cab halted yards from the house, leaving us no option but to run the rest of the way. I heard a bell ringing somewhere down the street and wondered as I ran if that was the only way to summon help. No matter, because they'd never arrive in time. Fire shone behind closed windows with a nightmarish light, consuming everything within. If he was alive in that...

  He had to be, because I wasn't coming out of that house without him.

  "Morgan!" Derry grabbed my arm and held on. He was in too much agony for words. I pushed him away and ran up the steps and into the house. A wave of heat and smoke met me on the threshold. Choking on it, I went into a room so thick with smoke I could barely see. I knew he might be somewhere else in the house, but I had to check upstairs first, while there was still an upstairs to check.

  Halfway to the first landing I crashed into a cloaked and top-hatted figure storming his way down. He staggered against the stair rail, hat tumbling over the side, and recognition flooded his face. "You," he said hoarsely. "Not gone to America after all, then."

  At the flash of metal, I seized his wrist and forced back the hand holding the gun, the same pea shooter he'd pulled on me before. I got a handful of his cloak and leaned into him to trap him against the rail. "You're going to take me where you left Ezra and if he's dead, so are you."

  The cold refusal in his eyes I expected; the knife was another matter. As it scraped across my knuckles, I let go of his wrist. He pressed his advantage by slamming me against the wall. "You're both dead," he rasped as the knife rose toward my throat. "And no one will notice or care."

  Flames shot up behind him and still he tried to force the knife forward. I twisted his gun hand down to keep him from putting a bullet into me and went for his other wrist with my injured hand. He evaded my grasp and I tried for his instep instead. He grunted in pain but held on, trying to get the knife in near enough to draw blood. He was one determined son of a bitch. The thought of what he might have done to Ezra made me an even more determined one. I jacked a knee up and though he instinctively twisted to the side, I did enough damage to weaken his stance. As I forced him back against the stair rail, he swore with what sounded like his last breath and tried to push me down the stairs.

  The gun went off and the same instant I realized I wasn't hit, I knew he was. His astonished expression glazed over as he sank into the smoke. I felt a stab of regret but only for Charlotte's sake. Leaving him, I ran through a black cloud to Ezra's door. The smoke poured from the doorway, scorching heat beating me back into the corridor, and I tripped and fell--on top of Ezra. He'd been trying to escape...and he'd nearly made it.

  I dragged him up over my shoulder, hanging on tight to both him and the stair rail as I stumbled blindly down to the door. The cool air cooled my stinging eyes and I knew we were out. Out and safe and I couldn't even reassure Ezra of that fact, not while he hung unmoving against my back. Not when Derry draped a coat on the ground and helped me ease Ezra down onto it. Not when I saw Ezra's face, blackened from the smoke and as still as if the man inside had long gone.

  I felt for a pulse as Derry did. Kathleen, Hannah, Henry, and several neighbors gathered in close, too close, watching our faces as we searched for some sign of life. I didn't know what my eyes gave away, but Derry's said it all. Kathleen, on her knees beside him, moaned and put her arms around him as he leaned into her for support. Henry stared at Ezra in disbelief. Hannah clung to Kathleen and wept. They'd all reached the same conclusion.

  He was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Death was a relative term, depending on the century you viewed it from. Ezra may have died in the history before--they all may have--but I wasn't letting him go so easily this time. Slipping a hand under his neck, I tilted his head back, pinched his nose shut, and covered his mouth with mine. One breath, two, and he was unresponsive.

  Ignoring the whispering going on all around me, I started chest compressions, counting aloud to make sure my racing thoughts didn't throw me off track. A fit of coughing hit me and I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep this up alone. When I could speak, I instructed Derry on mouth-to-mouth and told him to get to it at my signal. Kathleen stared at me with grief-stricken eyes. "Can you bring a soul back from the dead, Morgan Nash?"

  "I'm bringing back this one. Okay, Derry, that's enough. Come on, Ez. I know I skipped out on you, but now is not the time to get me back for it." I pumped his chest, then administered mouth-to-mouth again myself. "Ezra, breathe," I told him, nearly out of breath myself. "Breathe, goddamnit."

  "What the devil is he doing?"

  I recognized Dr. Gilbride's voice and ignored that too, continuing compressions. Derry answered for me. "Let him do it."

  So much faith in me. I wondered if Ezra had
any left. "Please," I whispered as I lay folded hands on his chest and pushed. I'd keep going until I passed out, if it came to that. I wasn't letting him go. Breathing into his lungs, I watched his chest rise and fall. About to give him a second lungful, I realized he was taking in air on his own.

  I wasn't the only one who noticed. They stared as if I'd performed a miracle on par with parting the Red Sea. Kathleen leaned closer to her brother. "You're sure he's no demon?"

  Watery laughter burbled from a breathless Derry. "It's that little I care if he is," he declared and seized me in a crushing hug. The wondering look on Gilbride's face should have worried me, I knew; but I didn't give a damn. Ezra was alive. Unconscious but alive. Nothing else in the entire history of creation mattered more.

  I shucked off my jacket and covered him with it. "We've got to keep him warm. How far's the hospital?"

  A horse-drawn cart had arrived for the express purpose of transporting the injured and apparently the dead as well. Fortunately, only the former occupied it, along with several concerned friends who could not be discouraged from making the trip with the patient. At the hospital, we met up with greater resistance and, escorted to a room to wait, we waited, rather than risk being thrown out. Dr. Gilbride checked me over meanwhile and concluded what I already knew; that I badly needed to lie down and rest.

  Mrs. Nisbet insisted on opening her home to us. I didn't want to leave the hospital, but it was clear that if I stayed, Derry would feel compelled to keep an eye on me. He and the others were exhausted and still in shock over losing their home and nearly losing Ezra. They needed the rest they'd sacrificed in trying to bring me back. I couldn't ask them to sit through the day on a hard bench with me. So I went to Mrs. Nisbet's with Derry, Kathleen, and Hannah, while Henry and the other lodgers left to stay with friends. I found myself bunking with Derry again, just like old times. After we'd reassured each other that Ezra would be all right, Derry fell uncharacteristically silent and I knew what else was on his mind.

  "Do you have any money saved?" I asked gently as a low sigh came from under his corner of the quilt.

  "Not the sum that will put a roof of our own over our heads," he said after a minute.

  "How about half a roof?"

  He squinted at me in the moonlight. "Half a roof won't keep the rain out," he said with a little of his old cheer. "Unless you're saying you've the means to provide the other half."

  "I'm pretty sure I do."

  "And just how?" he asked curiously, sitting up. I showed him and he eyed me with outright amusement. "You'll be wanting a better neighborhood and a better class of friends with riches like that."

  I poked him in the ribs. "There couldn't be a better class of friends. We'll split the cost of a house and save something to live on until I find work. What do you think?"

  "And you and Ezra, you'll not mind sharing a home with the lot of us?" he asked with a knowing look.

  "If you and Kathleen are comfortable with it, we will be, too."

  The brown eyes sharpened just enough to let me know he was a little dubious over my ready response. "You're not offering because you've convinced yourself you're at fault for what's happened?"

  I had to assume if they hadn't been going out at every opportunity to try to spell cast me back, they might have been home to stop George. I said as much and Derry sank back against the pillow with a heartfelt sigh. "You don't know how devilish hard it's been for Ezra these past weeks. He's not slept and more oft than not, eats only when someone reminds him he must. He won't come out of his thoughts for so much as a conversation unless it's that necessary. 'Twas but a week after you'd gone, he frightened Kathleen nearly to death on the bridge, staring down into that water as if he wanted nothing more than to slip over and disappear in that cold dark."

  In the midst of recounting it, Derry caught my eye and immediately looked stricken. "Forgive me, Morgan. I don't mean to heap coals when you've grieved yourself. We had to hope you were missing him as dearly as he's missed you--but I don't think we really believed we'd bring you back. We were that shocked that we had, and then it seemed we'd killed you in the doing." He grimaced, the edges of his mouth turning up with faint humor. "I've only just realized we were able to bring you because you wanted to come back."

  "I never wanted anything so much in my life."

  His face lit up. "You don't know the good it does my heart to hear it. Life was too ordinary without you."

  I wondered if Ezra would feel the same way--or come to the conclusion that I wasn't steady enough to be trusted. He might forgive me for leaving him out on a limb, but would he love me the same? The thought kept me awake, as bone-weary and weak as I still felt from the hundred-year bounce back to a world that was mine now, too, whether Ezra took me back or not.

  My need for rest finally won out and I slept hard and dreamlessly until a gentle hand persistently shaking my shoulder roused me to bleary consciousness. It was Derry, up and dressed, his smile sympathetic as he peered down to make sure I was awake. "Kathleen's had a word with Ezra's doctor and says he may be discharged this evening if we will come down and fetch him home. I did not want to go without you."

  I crawled out of the warm blankets and looked for my clothes. "What did the doctor say? How's he doing?"

  "It seems he has little memory of what happened, but his breathing's right and his heart is strong and we've only to make him rest over the next week or so, to be sure he will not relapse."

  "He doesn't know I'm here?"

  "Kathleen said he made no mention of it and she felt the sharing of that little savory should come straight from you."

  I caught the twinkle in his eyes. "Good thing his heart's strong," I retorted, trying to subdue the multitude of worries suddenly cropping up like weeds. "If he takes a swing at me, promise me you'll restrain him for his own good."

  Derry laughed. "If he's truly of a mind to lay you low, it may work like a tonic to let him have at you."

  If it made him feel better, I'd let him yell, cuss, and knock me on my ass. As Derry and I descended from the cab and ran up the steps hunched against the drizzle, I knew I wanted Ezra to do more than forgive me. I wanted him to understand as he'd always seemed to before, that even though I could be the most goddamned stupid man in the world, I was salvageable. I could learn, even if it was the hard way. I could figure out--and had--that I'd handed my heart over to him, same as he'd done to me, in what was a permanent exchange.

  But I was afraid I'd figured it all out just a little too late. In the doorway of the ward, I spotted Ezra a few beds down, on his feet and buttoning his waistcoat. He looked pale and tired, but otherwise well. I lingered behind as Derry went in and greeted him with a cheery exclamation and a near smothering hug. And still I couldn't go in. All I could do was listen, drinking in the sound of Ezra's voice as he asked Derry about the others, if they were all safe. Derry was reassuring as he gently broke the news about the house. "Now you mustn't worry. We won't be homeless for long."

  "How?" Ezra shook his head in distress. "Derry, you're going to let me do something to help. I can get the money, borrow it, from my father if necessary."

  "I won't let you grovel for a farthing from that man. There's no need. We've the assistance of a benefactor and I do believe it will turn out as nice as you please."

  "Benefactor? Someone we may trust?" Ezra fumbled with his tie, then with an exasperated snort, gave up. Derry was smiling as he gave him a hand.

  "Someone we most assuredly trust already," he said, stealing a glance at me as I crept into the ward.

  Ezra glanced around, saw me, and disbelief flared to life in his eyes. Disbelief that I was here--or that I'd had the nerve to come back at all. I desperately wanted to say something, but the power of speech had deserted me. Ezra found his voice first, or at least a faint, wobbly version of it. "Derry?"

  Derry had no trouble interpreting. "He's real, love. As real as you and I."

  I cleared my throat. "Hey." Not my best voice, either, but it would
have to do. His eyes stayed locked on me and he moved like a man in a trance as I babbled on. "I didn't realize, see. I know I should have. You knew and I think deep down I knew but--Jesus--I didn't--I didn't recognize it. I didn't know I was so far gone. It's my first time," I added and swallowed against the lump in my throat. He had his hands on my chest, handfuls of my jacket molded in his grip as his gaze reached into mine, still overwhelmed by the evidence of his own eyes.

  I was overwhelmed, myself. After everything I'd done to him, he loved me. It was there in his face, straightforward and gentle, as Ezra always was. He loved me as if I really deserved all the love that was in him to give. It made me wish I did deserve it. "I'm sorry, Ez. Sorry it took me so much longer than it took you."

  He crushed me to him, burying his face in my neck. Sheer joy vibrated through him at being able to hold me again. Or maybe that was me, shaking like a leaf. He exhaled against my neck. "For keeps?"

  "Forever. If you can co-exist with me that long."

  His fingers threaded into the hair at the nape of my neck. "I'd resolved not to ask if you would stay, or even come to visit. If you'd wanted it, you'd have said as much."

  "I know. I made it impossible to even ask."

  "I couldn't ask you to choose between your whole life and me."

  I drew back to fall into that gaze, that uncommon blue, and combed his hair off his forehead with tender fingers. "I didn't know until I left you behind. You are my life." What had once sounded like a corny line reverberated inside me with the knell of unmistakable truth. "My whole damned life."

  He gave me a kiss that I figured could be measured by carbon dating a million years from now. I knew we were in trouble when I heard a surprised exclamation behind us, but for the longest minute, I didn't care. Chagrin colored Ezra's smile as he ducked his head and I dared to peek around, to see we'd garnered even more of an audience than I thought. A red-faced Kathleen, gaze averted, tried her damnedest to keep her hand over the eyes of a squirming Hannah. I caught Henry in mid-eyeroll, but Derry was agrin with a certain self-satisfaction. Well, he had brought me back, after all. I was home.