thisbluespirit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2021-08-28 09:09 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2021-08-28 09:09 pm
Snow White #13, Twilight #15, Ecru #18 [Divide & Rule]
Name: Rest Cure
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Snow White #13 (crane wife); Twilight #15 (conserve); Ecru #18 (devise)
Supplies and Styles: Eraser + Paint-by-numbers frombookblather (somehow Julia has to survive) + Pastels (also for genprompt_bingo square “the nature of the soul” and hc_bingo square “coma”.)
Word Count: 1902
Rating: PG
Warnings: Illness, mentions of death.
Notes: Magic AU; 1962 (continuing from Serendipity).
Summary: Edward’s got a radical plan to try and save Julia’s life – now it’s time to put it to the test.
***
Mr Harding’s treatments were not having the hoped-for effect. Julia wasn’t surprised to hear it. She had felt the lack of magic in her blood and in her bones. When she finally steeled herself to tell Edward, he clasped her hands and said, “I know.”
He would have sensed any shred of her power restoring itself, too. Julia squeezed her fingers around his. “I shall be careful. Maybe it’ll be years yet before something tips me over the edge.”
The least unthinking, instinctive use of her magic when she had so little remaining to her, and she’d outstrip her strength; burn up with a fever she was too weak to fight. Edward had seen it before, he’d said. There were always either people who wanted to take people’s power, to rid the world of a threat, and people who didn’t want power, unasked for. The end result was always the same.
“Still,” said Julia, when Edward didn’t respond, “we must resign ourselves to it happening sooner or later now, darling. I’m sorry.”
He lifted his head and stared at her. “What? No.”
“No? But you always said –”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You remember what happened to me – that business with the neptin pods? I’ve been working on an idea ever since, and I believe there’s a chance. Harding thinks so too.”
He had said something at the time, but never after, so Julia had assumed that it had come to nothing. Her heart lifted. Even if he wasn’t sure about it, if it was Edward’s idea, she felt certain it must work.
“It won’t be easy – we might not even be able to try in the way that we’d want – and there can be no guarantees,” Edward continued. “You might not be willing once I explain.”
“Try me,” said Julia. She had the feeling whatever it was, she’d find it easier than Edward.
Julia was right. Edward’s proposition was unnerving, but it was perfectly simple on her side. When the time came, all she had to do was kiss Emily and Edward farewell, then lie down on the bed, and manage one last brave smile for Edward as he held out the pod for her to touch. It could hardly be simpler.
“Ned,” she said, when Edward didn’t move, keeping the wrapped pod back out of her reach. “You can’t change your mind now. I’ve worked myself up to the sticking point and I might lose my nerve if you do.”
Edward glanced up at Harding, who was also present for the occasion – it might be only one last desperate stab at saving Julia’s life, but it was also a major experiment for the Department. He then looked at Julia again, taking her hand in his. “I’m not. Just giving you chance to think about whether or not there’s anything else you want to do or say first.”
“You can check in the top drawer of the cabinet for my last will and testament,” she said, and it came out much more sharply than she intended.
Harding coughed. “Do you need me to wait outside? If you’re going to have a domestic quarrel, I don’t think it needs to go in official department records.”
“No, we’re not,” said Julia. “We’ve been over this a hundred times. I’m ready – everything’s ready. It’s Edward who seems to need more time. Mr Harding, you don’t have to observe the actual moment, do you?”
Mr Harding pulled back from the bed and tucked his pencil into his breast pocket. “Provided Ned makes proper note of the exact time, no.”
“Well, then,” said Julia, and turned towards Edward as his superior left them alone together. “Darling. I didn’t mean to sound impatient. I’m not frightened, not truly – but I don’t like leaving you, or Emily. I never have. I don’t want to string this out any more.”
Edward gave a crooked, unwilling smile. “I’ve noticed.” He played with her fingers. “And it was my idea, but there is a risk. It’s unlikely, but if that happened – if you didn’t wake –”
“It’s not worse than having an operation,” said Julia. “A risk, yes, but not your fault if it doesn’t work. Doing nothing only means no hope – this gives me a chance.”
Edward lifted his head and directed a dark glance at the door. “Maybe. But Harding is loving this, I swear. Furthering the cause of human knowledge and all that. If he says it’s a wonderful opportunity one more time, I don’t know what I shall do.”
“Just as well someone’s having fun.” Julia pulled a face. “Let’s get on with it. I don’t think it’ll help either of us to prolong this.”
Edward nodded, but leant over and kissed her forehead first, before holding out the pod carefully.
She made sure she smiled as she placed her fingers on the unwrapped end, like Sleeping Beauty and the spinning wheel’s needle.
It was one thing to come up with this idea, another entirely to try it out on Julia. The moment she’d gone – wherever one went when one touched the neptin pods – Edward knew it had been a terrible plan. At the end of the day, lying next to her unmoving form, he remained tense and wakeful. It was hard to resist the urge to put on the light and check yet again that she wasn’t dead. It was eerily hard to be sure.
The theory was sound, it was true. Harding would never have agreed to it if it hadn’t been, and Edward had gone over it a thousand times before even taking it to him. The theory was that keeping Julia completely isolated and in the unnatural state of suspension produced by the pods, she would have the chance she needed to recover with no danger of trying to draw on her non-existent magic. If they could manage that, she should begin to regain her strength and power.
Once Julia awoke, she could take a large dose of the curative Harding had prescribed, and then as soon as she felt able, repeat the process. Harding would take blood in between sessions to check that it was having the desired effect. And at the end of it, she should be able to recover her magic and health gradually and naturally.
Nevertheless, the effect of the pods was erratic. The Department had found ways of measuring which pods were more potent than others, but they it wasn’t reliable yet. If they’d picked up a less potent pod, Julia might only be in this state for a few hours and then they’d need to repeat the process more than they had intended, which increased the risk. If they’d used a stronger one than Harding supposed, she could be out for years. Some people never woke again.
Edward sat up and switched on the light, his heart racing. He drew in a breath and looked down at Julia. She was utterly still. If she was breathing, it was only barely, and he wasn’t sure she was. She was neither warm nor cold when he put his hand on her arm. She was, in some way that nagged at all his heightened sensitivity to magical activity, not truly there any more. He’d wanted to stay with her in case she woke in the night, knowing that she disliked being alone in the dark, but he couldn’t. The hairs kept prickling on the back of his neck, and he couldn’t even begin to relax enough to sleep.
He wound up tying a piece of cotton around her wrist and fixing the other end to the bell they’d put on her bedside table as a warning system and, with a muttered, sheepish apology to Julia, he retreated to the tiny spare room in the attic, and slept poorly there instead.
It didn’t feel as if she’d been asleep. Julia sat up, last tendrils of memory of a dream of somewhere green and golden slipping away. The bedroom looked the wrong shape, and too small, lacking a light that only existed elsewhere. She put her hand to her head, and something fell off the bedside table, clinking and startling her fully back into the here and now. She leant over in alarm, even as she discovered the string tied around her wrist.
“Did you tie a bell to me?” she asked, as Edward ran in through the door.
He halted sharply, and coloured. “I suppose I did, yes. You’re awake.”
“I know,” she said, still tugging at the string. “Where’s Mr Harding’s potion?”
Edward crossed to the bed, picking the phial and glass up off the bedside table and pouring a dose out for her, before handing it over. “Take that,” he said, and while she did, undid his handiwork around her wrist.
“I’m, er, sorry about that,” Edward said, gesturing to the bell on the floor. “I didn’t want to miss it if you woke.” He hesitated, and then perched on the edge of the bed, his forehead furrowing. “How are you?” he said, and then, distracted, “I must telephone Harding.”
Julia clutched at his sleeve before he could move. The feel of him, flesh and bone under the thick fabric, grounded her further. “Darling,” she said. “Was it long enough?”
“Much too long,” said Edward, and kissed her cheek. “Over two weeks – awful – I must phone Harding.”
The other lands had all evaporated from her thoughts. Julia laughed and let Edward go. It was impossible to say if she did feel better or not yet. She didn’t feel any worse. Mr Harding would know. All she knew now was that she was hungry.
“Are you all right?” Julia asked Edward, when they started preparing for the next round.
Mr Harding had said it had worked, or at least, there was a marginal increase in her base level of magic energy since last time he’d taken blood to find out. That meant they had to do it again, and he’d prescribed her a vile yellow tonic in the meantime to help build her up. The next time, he’d said, would be key. If she continued to improve, one or two more tries after that ought to help her turn the corner and start healing in the usual manner.
Edward pulled his mouth down at the corners. “No, but if it’s helping you, I can’t complain.”
“But you’re going to?”
“You don’t know what it’s like, seeing you lying there. The risk – and it was my damned idea,” he said, sitting down beside her. “And Emily –” He shrugged. “It’s hard on her. But if it’s working – that outweighs everything else. I’m sorry. It’s worse for you, of course.”
Julia leant in against him briefly. “I’m not sure it is. I was somewhere else, somewhere mostly pleasant, I think. And then I was back again, as if it had been no time at all. It is peculiar to lose a whole chunk of life like that, though. I’m sure you haven’t told me everything that’s been going on.”
“All the important things.”
Julia laughed. “I know you and things you don’t think are important. And Emily –”
“Yes,” he said, and put his arm around her.
“But if it works.”
Edward kissed her. “Yes,” he said again.
They were agreed already, of course. It was just a shame that the one way they couldn’t do this was together.
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Snow White #13 (crane wife); Twilight #15 (conserve); Ecru #18 (devise)
Supplies and Styles: Eraser + Paint-by-numbers from
bookblather (somehow Julia has to survive) + Pastels (also for genprompt_bingo square “the nature of the soul” and hc_bingo square “coma”.)Word Count: 1902
Rating: PG
Warnings: Illness, mentions of death.
Notes: Magic AU; 1962 (continuing from Serendipity).
Summary: Edward’s got a radical plan to try and save Julia’s life – now it’s time to put it to the test.
***
Mr Harding’s treatments were not having the hoped-for effect. Julia wasn’t surprised to hear it. She had felt the lack of magic in her blood and in her bones. When she finally steeled herself to tell Edward, he clasped her hands and said, “I know.”
He would have sensed any shred of her power restoring itself, too. Julia squeezed her fingers around his. “I shall be careful. Maybe it’ll be years yet before something tips me over the edge.”
The least unthinking, instinctive use of her magic when she had so little remaining to her, and she’d outstrip her strength; burn up with a fever she was too weak to fight. Edward had seen it before, he’d said. There were always either people who wanted to take people’s power, to rid the world of a threat, and people who didn’t want power, unasked for. The end result was always the same.
“Still,” said Julia, when Edward didn’t respond, “we must resign ourselves to it happening sooner or later now, darling. I’m sorry.”
He lifted his head and stared at her. “What? No.”
“No? But you always said –”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You remember what happened to me – that business with the neptin pods? I’ve been working on an idea ever since, and I believe there’s a chance. Harding thinks so too.”
He had said something at the time, but never after, so Julia had assumed that it had come to nothing. Her heart lifted. Even if he wasn’t sure about it, if it was Edward’s idea, she felt certain it must work.
“It won’t be easy – we might not even be able to try in the way that we’d want – and there can be no guarantees,” Edward continued. “You might not be willing once I explain.”
“Try me,” said Julia. She had the feeling whatever it was, she’d find it easier than Edward.
Julia was right. Edward’s proposition was unnerving, but it was perfectly simple on her side. When the time came, all she had to do was kiss Emily and Edward farewell, then lie down on the bed, and manage one last brave smile for Edward as he held out the pod for her to touch. It could hardly be simpler.
“Ned,” she said, when Edward didn’t move, keeping the wrapped pod back out of her reach. “You can’t change your mind now. I’ve worked myself up to the sticking point and I might lose my nerve if you do.”
Edward glanced up at Harding, who was also present for the occasion – it might be only one last desperate stab at saving Julia’s life, but it was also a major experiment for the Department. He then looked at Julia again, taking her hand in his. “I’m not. Just giving you chance to think about whether or not there’s anything else you want to do or say first.”
“You can check in the top drawer of the cabinet for my last will and testament,” she said, and it came out much more sharply than she intended.
Harding coughed. “Do you need me to wait outside? If you’re going to have a domestic quarrel, I don’t think it needs to go in official department records.”
“No, we’re not,” said Julia. “We’ve been over this a hundred times. I’m ready – everything’s ready. It’s Edward who seems to need more time. Mr Harding, you don’t have to observe the actual moment, do you?”
Mr Harding pulled back from the bed and tucked his pencil into his breast pocket. “Provided Ned makes proper note of the exact time, no.”
“Well, then,” said Julia, and turned towards Edward as his superior left them alone together. “Darling. I didn’t mean to sound impatient. I’m not frightened, not truly – but I don’t like leaving you, or Emily. I never have. I don’t want to string this out any more.”
Edward gave a crooked, unwilling smile. “I’ve noticed.” He played with her fingers. “And it was my idea, but there is a risk. It’s unlikely, but if that happened – if you didn’t wake –”
“It’s not worse than having an operation,” said Julia. “A risk, yes, but not your fault if it doesn’t work. Doing nothing only means no hope – this gives me a chance.”
Edward lifted his head and directed a dark glance at the door. “Maybe. But Harding is loving this, I swear. Furthering the cause of human knowledge and all that. If he says it’s a wonderful opportunity one more time, I don’t know what I shall do.”
“Just as well someone’s having fun.” Julia pulled a face. “Let’s get on with it. I don’t think it’ll help either of us to prolong this.”
Edward nodded, but leant over and kissed her forehead first, before holding out the pod carefully.
She made sure she smiled as she placed her fingers on the unwrapped end, like Sleeping Beauty and the spinning wheel’s needle.
It was one thing to come up with this idea, another entirely to try it out on Julia. The moment she’d gone – wherever one went when one touched the neptin pods – Edward knew it had been a terrible plan. At the end of the day, lying next to her unmoving form, he remained tense and wakeful. It was hard to resist the urge to put on the light and check yet again that she wasn’t dead. It was eerily hard to be sure.
The theory was sound, it was true. Harding would never have agreed to it if it hadn’t been, and Edward had gone over it a thousand times before even taking it to him. The theory was that keeping Julia completely isolated and in the unnatural state of suspension produced by the pods, she would have the chance she needed to recover with no danger of trying to draw on her non-existent magic. If they could manage that, she should begin to regain her strength and power.
Once Julia awoke, she could take a large dose of the curative Harding had prescribed, and then as soon as she felt able, repeat the process. Harding would take blood in between sessions to check that it was having the desired effect. And at the end of it, she should be able to recover her magic and health gradually and naturally.
Nevertheless, the effect of the pods was erratic. The Department had found ways of measuring which pods were more potent than others, but they it wasn’t reliable yet. If they’d picked up a less potent pod, Julia might only be in this state for a few hours and then they’d need to repeat the process more than they had intended, which increased the risk. If they’d used a stronger one than Harding supposed, she could be out for years. Some people never woke again.
Edward sat up and switched on the light, his heart racing. He drew in a breath and looked down at Julia. She was utterly still. If she was breathing, it was only barely, and he wasn’t sure she was. She was neither warm nor cold when he put his hand on her arm. She was, in some way that nagged at all his heightened sensitivity to magical activity, not truly there any more. He’d wanted to stay with her in case she woke in the night, knowing that she disliked being alone in the dark, but he couldn’t. The hairs kept prickling on the back of his neck, and he couldn’t even begin to relax enough to sleep.
He wound up tying a piece of cotton around her wrist and fixing the other end to the bell they’d put on her bedside table as a warning system and, with a muttered, sheepish apology to Julia, he retreated to the tiny spare room in the attic, and slept poorly there instead.
It didn’t feel as if she’d been asleep. Julia sat up, last tendrils of memory of a dream of somewhere green and golden slipping away. The bedroom looked the wrong shape, and too small, lacking a light that only existed elsewhere. She put her hand to her head, and something fell off the bedside table, clinking and startling her fully back into the here and now. She leant over in alarm, even as she discovered the string tied around her wrist.
“Did you tie a bell to me?” she asked, as Edward ran in through the door.
He halted sharply, and coloured. “I suppose I did, yes. You’re awake.”
“I know,” she said, still tugging at the string. “Where’s Mr Harding’s potion?”
Edward crossed to the bed, picking the phial and glass up off the bedside table and pouring a dose out for her, before handing it over. “Take that,” he said, and while she did, undid his handiwork around her wrist.
“I’m, er, sorry about that,” Edward said, gesturing to the bell on the floor. “I didn’t want to miss it if you woke.” He hesitated, and then perched on the edge of the bed, his forehead furrowing. “How are you?” he said, and then, distracted, “I must telephone Harding.”
Julia clutched at his sleeve before he could move. The feel of him, flesh and bone under the thick fabric, grounded her further. “Darling,” she said. “Was it long enough?”
“Much too long,” said Edward, and kissed her cheek. “Over two weeks – awful – I must phone Harding.”
The other lands had all evaporated from her thoughts. Julia laughed and let Edward go. It was impossible to say if she did feel better or not yet. She didn’t feel any worse. Mr Harding would know. All she knew now was that she was hungry.
“Are you all right?” Julia asked Edward, when they started preparing for the next round.
Mr Harding had said it had worked, or at least, there was a marginal increase in her base level of magic energy since last time he’d taken blood to find out. That meant they had to do it again, and he’d prescribed her a vile yellow tonic in the meantime to help build her up. The next time, he’d said, would be key. If she continued to improve, one or two more tries after that ought to help her turn the corner and start healing in the usual manner.
Edward pulled his mouth down at the corners. “No, but if it’s helping you, I can’t complain.”
“But you’re going to?”
“You don’t know what it’s like, seeing you lying there. The risk – and it was my damned idea,” he said, sitting down beside her. “And Emily –” He shrugged. “It’s hard on her. But if it’s working – that outweighs everything else. I’m sorry. It’s worse for you, of course.”
Julia leant in against him briefly. “I’m not sure it is. I was somewhere else, somewhere mostly pleasant, I think. And then I was back again, as if it had been no time at all. It is peculiar to lose a whole chunk of life like that, though. I’m sure you haven’t told me everything that’s been going on.”
“All the important things.”
Julia laughed. “I know you and things you don’t think are important. And Emily –”
“Yes,” he said, and put his arm around her.
“But if it works.”
Edward kissed her. “Yes,” he said again.
They were agreed already, of course. It was just a shame that the one way they couldn’t do this was together.
***