Chapter Text
I would rather be left with the unavenged
suffering. I would rather remain with my
unavenged suffering and unsatisfied
indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too
high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond
our means to pay so much to enter on it. And
so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket,
and if I am an honest man I am bound to give
it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing.
The Brothers Karamazov, Fëdor Dostoevskij
IV.
18th March 1870, Buntingford
The return journey had been a quiet affair.
Jonathan had insisted in departing the morning after the funeral, despite Taylor’s insistence he stayed at least one more day, to help him sort out the last details of Jonah’s will. Jonathan had declined the offer, politely but also firmly, and Taylor had eventually had to give up, just to come up with a new offer right afterward: he would make sure Jonathan got safe and sound to his home by personally accompanying him. And, despite Jonathan’s growingly exasperated insistences, he hadn’t changed his mind.
To Jonathan’s surprise, though, neither of them had talked much throughout that day and a half. He himself had been too tired to even attempt at beginning a conversation, while Taylor had limited himself to a few piercing stares, his eyes quickly falling on Jonathan before turning towards the landscape. No other movement, except the uneven, impatient drumming of his fingers on the wood of the carriage window.
“So, dear doctor, how did you find the funeral service?”
The question took him aback, both because it was sudden and unexpected, after so many hours of silence, and because it was, if not completely inappropriate, at least disconcerting in its straightforwardness.
“Well, I-” he cleared his throat, looking for the right words: “It was, uhm, well-done. Clean. Quick. I appreciated the priest’s… concision.” He’d never been the kind of person to express over-the-top compliments, not even when he actually appreciated an event or a gift, so it was all the more difficult to find something nice to say about an experience that had unsettled him for all the wrong reasons.
“Cold and impersonal, wasn’t it?” Taylor smiled, and before Jonathan could say anything, added: “You need not to pretend, the task ill-suits you and takes an evident toll on your conscience. And, furthermore, I’ve always found bad lies more offensive than hard truths.”
“I might be a bad liar, sir, and for it I take credit rather than shame,” Jonathan replied, his voice equally dismayed, relieved and vexed: “But asking question one already knows the answer of is a rather bothersome habit all the same.”
He had spoken with sincerity, perhaps too much sincerity for an acquaintance of merely five days, but Taylor chuckled, one hand raised in sign of surrender: “I myself admit my flaws freely and fearlessly,” he pursed his lips, then shook his head: “but I couldn’t help noticing that the sermon and the burial left a certain… impression on you. I found them proper, but Mr. Magnus was my employer, not my friend.”
“Jonah Magnus wasn’t my friend either. Once, perhaps, decades ago. Not now,” Jonathan let out a sigh, the wave of sorrow that had washed over him just two days before still pending over his head, barely kept at bay: “And it felt… out of place. Off, in a way. Your Founder was- had he died in his youth, that church would have been filled with people. Seeing it empty as it was, it left a foul taste in my mouth.” He averted his gaze from Taylor’s, his voice almost on the verge of cracking. Then, after a moment of pondering: “Did he ever seem to regret it? The work he’d done, the path he’d chosen?”
“You mean the Institute?” The was a dash of surprise in Taylor’s tone.
“Everything, really. His work with the supernatural, the life’d led. You told me you weren’t exactly close, but surely if he nominated you his successor there had to be some kind of familiarity between the two of you, and I just wonder if he ever… wavered, even slightly.”
Taylor gave him a look he couldn’t quite understand: “Mr. Magnus was never one for regrets, not when I met him at least. I can’t know the inner workings of his mind, those were for him and him alone to know, but I always had the impression he felt nothing but satisfaction for his work and the choices he’d made, difficult as they might have been.”
Of course, Jonathan already knew the answer. Jonah had never been one to look behind him and wish he’d taken different steps. His head was set onto the future, and onto the future he walked without missing a step, carried away by projects and ideas with such a force they seemed to swipe him off his feet. And yet, he’d asked. He didn’t know if he’d hoped for a different answer, if knowing Jonah had had second thoughts about his mistakes, wishing to wash the blood off his hands as a newborn Lady Macbeth, would have made a difference in the way he felt about him now.
Perhaps it would have only made everything more difficult than it already was.
“And you, Doctor? Do you hold any regret towards the choices you’ve made?”
Jonathan sighed, passing a hand over his face: “Not many, but I do. And some are heavier than others.”
He added nothing else, for Taylor wasn’t entitled to a more sincere, complete answer. Instead, he rested his head against the back of his seat and closed his eyes.
Regrets.
His life had been a good one. Even going through it again, there were few things he truly regretted doing or not doing. He wouldn’t give himself credit for it, though, as he was aware of his limits, and of his faults, and the truly hard choices he’d had to make throughout the years had been so few he had never found himself in a difficult position, stuck between two possibilities that sounded equally dreadful. He was not a brave man, and the life he’d led had been according to his lack of courage.
With some exceptions.
He let out a brief, bitter chuckle, eyelids half-open to get a glimpse of the country around them.
His return from Schramberg had been a nightmarish one.
Stuck in carriages that threatened to swallow him whole, and the haunting feeling of something relentlessly chasing him, Jonathan had barely slept for weeks and almost collapsed in Margaret’s arms once home.
He had fallen ill, then. A long, exhausting illness that had confined him to bed for weeks, head filled with feverish dreams fueled by fright and the ceaseless watching of thousands of eyes. Margaret and Charles had tended to him to the best of their abilities, and Martha had stayed by his bedside with the worried cheerfulness of children, reading him stories and forcing him to play with her. No one had asked anything about the journey, and what he’d found there, for the look on his face had been plain and there were things, that Margaret had understood, that were to be kept under a tight lock in one’s mind, for them not to go mad.
No one had asked, and he’d never spoken a word.
That burden was for him and him alone to carry.
And he had done just that.
No matter how many stares Margaret had given him in the following months, no matter how heavy the silence in the room could become whenever they found themselves alone, no matter how many times he’d silently wished for her to inquire further in the thick fog of his memories- no matter what, he’d kept his mouth shut.
Only one thing he’d told his family, whenever they showed concern for his health and mental state, and that was that he was mourning. The loss of a friend, he had explained, memories fixed on Albrecht’s disfigured body on the operation table, muscles and organs filled with unblinking grey eyes fixed on him with morbid anticipation.
And that was the truth, but it was also a lie.
Because, though that had taken time for Jonathan to admit it even to himself, what he truly had been mourning wasn’t the loss of a friend, but of two. A death, and something worse.
His hand had trembled when writing a reply to Jonah’s letter in November, an year since their last meeting and almost seven months since his return home, and he’d had to throw away almost a dozens of paper sheets, as not to make a fool of himself in his display of anxiety and anger. And grief.
The tone had been practiced, rehearsed until it had come through cold and professional and detached. No feelings, just facts. One last story, one last statement, and that would be it. Forever.
Jonah, the letter started, without the ‘dear’ that had accompanied it for almost thirty years -for a lifetime- and he could still recite it by heart, forty years later. To tell it plainly, though, what had truly haunted him hadn’t been what he’d put into the letter, but what had been left out.
Why offer me a position at Millbank? Why send me to Albrecht when you already knew what would happen? What are your plans, Jonah, and why do you still try to include me in them when you know I cannot and will never be able to approve them, and share them with you?
He’d been tempted to ask for explanations. He had felt entitled to them, as a compensation for the horrors he had had to witness, and in the first drafts the letter ended with several question marks, why after why after why written down so heavily that they almost tore through the paper. None of them had made it to the end.
And the reason of it had been the same reason why Jonathan had chosen to write, rather than visit Jonah in person.
He had tried to place the blame on fear. Fear for himself, fear for his family, his wife and his children. Fear of what Jonah could do, if faced with a refusal to his face, no barriers to hide his wounded pride. Jonathan had never thought himself a brave man, and he’d always admitted his own cowardice with a straightforwardness that brought him pride.
But in the rare moments of clarity, whenever he wasn’t trying to justify himself to the silent audience in the back of his mind that told him that Jonah Magnus was a dangerous man, that he had done evil deeds and would probably keep doing them again, that he needed to be stopped so why why why why didn’t he just go there pull the trigger and put an end to it- whenever the crowd in his head fell quiet and nonjudgmental, Jonathan could admit to himself that the real reason why he hadn’t followed through with his questions and his meeting and his, maybe justified, revenge had simply been that not only he wasn’t a brave man, but he probably wasn’t a good man either. The ties had needed to be severed from afar, once and for all, because he’d feared that after seeing him, questioning him and getting the answer he craved, he wouldn’t be able to cut them at all.
After all, Jonah had always had the power of turning him into an hypocrite.
And the disappointed relief he’d felt when he realized that no reply letter would come, not now, not in a month, not in a year, not in forever, had been well-mixed with shame.
Silence had fallen in the carriage once again, and Jonathan kept feeling Taylor’s gaze on him, relentless and unwavering. There was a tension between them, something pending unsaid, and even if Jonathan couldn’t pin-point what it was, he suddenly regretted having accepted him as his companion for the journey.
“Well, it surely is a relief, having so few regrets, I mean.” Taylor’s smile lacked sincerity: “I just hope indulging the dying wishes of a man you despised won’t become one of them.”
Jonathan let out a deep breath: “It won’t. I decided to comply willingly, and I feel no shame or remorse for it.”
“And was it useful?”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow, perplexed: “What?”
“I spoke about closure, when we first met. I have to admit, mine was a stretch and a leap of faith, as I didn’t know you enough to be sure whether attending Mr. Magnus’ funerals would truly be beneficial. You’ll forgive my inquisitiveness one last time, I cannot help but wondering if what you got from this experience was what you’d been hoping for.”
Again, Jonathan had the impression there was something very precise Taylor wanted to hear, a unique string of words put together, and nothing else would satisfy him. But, for the life of his, Jonathan couldn’t even begin to imagine what those words could be: “It was and it wasn’t at the same time,” he therefore replied, his limbs heavy with uneasiness: “I think it was beneficial, in a way. I was confronted with many memories, so many more than I had initially bargained for, some of them I thought long forgotten, and my answer to them has been… mixed. I am not sure they gave me closure, but I faced them, one way or another. That has to mean something.”
Taylor pursed his lips, and frowned: “I suppose it does. The thing about memories,” he added after a small pause, words spoken slowly and deliberately: “is that they make our understanding of the world and of ourselves. It isn’t what happens, what we can’t control, that truly shapes us, as much as what we make of it. I have my convictions, as you have yours, and they might look set in stone but all it takes is for a pebble to fall in the right place and at the right time and… well, everything changes, doesn’t it? Our perception of the world, and its meaning with it.” He let out a soft chuckle: “Not that it ever happened to me, of course, still too young for it, but I cannot imagine how many times it had occurred to you, Doctor. Holding onto a belief just to see it shatter like glass on a marble pavement.”
“My beliefs aren’t so fragile to easily break under pressure, sir.” Jonathan’s tone betrayed defensiveness, and a thin uncertainty: “And I’ve found them standing the test of time well enough for my own liking.”
Something similar to exasperation fleshed within Taylor’s eyes, and his hands briefly closed into a fist, before laying again relaxed at his sides: “Everyone has his standards, and everyone has his limits. Some are, evidently, higher than others,” and then, uttered under his breath: “but never unbreakable.”
Jonathan did not reply, for he himself was at loss on what to say. As a young man, and well into his more mature years as well, he’d been convinced that his vision of reality was, if not objective, at least decently close to the right one. That his morals, and his ethics, though sometimes wavering in a normal, human way, could not be shaken by anything and anyone. Good was good, evil was evil, and the separation between the two was also what distinguished right from wrong, and moral from immoral. Things that could be done and should be done, and things that were outside the realm of possibilities, because the the ethics of them could not be taken into account.
Margaret had agreed with him, even if her reasoning was religious and his was, for the greater part, secular, and it was a founding ground of their relationship for decades, their stubborn, solid faith in the line that divided black from white.
Then, Albert had died.
The meaning of certain stories cannot be put into words. The meaning of other ones, instead, can be summed up in just a handful. In this case, it’s a matter of just three.
Albert had died.
Margaret’s third pregnancy had been an unexpected one.
Giving birth to Martha had taken a toll on her, to the point Jonathan had seriously worried for her own life, and in the months that had followed they’d decided, in a shared, peaceful agreement, that Margaret’s health and wellbeing had to be at the forefront of their priorities. Martha and Charles were enough, no more children.
Then, Schramberg.
The journey had lasted a little over a month, and it had still taken him several weeks -of illness, of recovery and of grief- to notice how Margaret’s belly had become swollen in an all too familiar way. He’d been so afraid, then. Afraid for Margaret, afraid for the unborn child growing inside of her, and afraid for himself and Martha and Charles, what would become of them all if something happened to their mother.
In the end, his worries had been proven to be misplaced.
On the day of his birth, the child had let out a strong, healthy cry, and Margaret herself, though exhausted by the long labor, hadn’t gone through any of the risks and the dangers of pregnancy, of the kind that -not a long time before- had claimed his sister’s life. That day had been a day of celebration and relief, not of pain, and for the first time since his staying on the continent Jonathan had managed to look at the future with renewed optimism.
The babe’s name hadn’t been decided yet, but Jonathan only had to look at him once before knowing what it should be.
They’d called their firstborn Charles, as a way to honor Margaret’s father, passed away merely days before the boy’s birth. Jonathan had given Martha’s name to their daughter, seeking forgiveness for his sister’s death, and to keep her memory alive with them in the years to come.
Holding in his arms his third child, Jonathan thought of all the people he couldn’t save, and all the lives that were cut short because of his incompetence or mistakes, and before him had fleshed the image of a corpse full of pupils, the face of a face who’d trusted him with his life and the one of another friend who had damned them both for reasons he would not comprehend. He couldn’t bring Albrecht back to life, nor he could do much for his family, with Clara dead and gone, but he could make sure his memory persisted throughout the years. As a reminder, and his personal cross to carry.
He’d called the babe Albert, and loved him more than he thought he was able to.
A decades had passed, and then another five years.
He and Margaret had grown older, and so had their children, Charles already out of university and Martha about to marry. Albert, still young, still a child, still at home immersed in his studies, telling his father over and over and over that he’d become a doctor just like him.
Life had been good, then. And though Jonathan had had his doubts -memories he’d wished he hadn’t, people he’d wished he didn’t miss-, they had been easily ignored and carried away by days which had turned into months which had turned into years.
Then.
People around them had called it a tragedy.
It hadn’t been.
Tragedies, that much Jonathan knew, were meant to be displayed in theatre. Tragedies were dramatic, and extravagant, and loud. Tragedies were the subject of screenplays, and meant to be such. Tragedies were cathartic.
What had happened to them, what had happened to Albert, had been quiet, and insignificant, and mundane. It would have never caught an artist’s eye, as there was nothing artistic in it. And it wasn’t cathartic, for its rot had set roots in their hearts and never left them.
Jonathan had wondered, in his idle pondering, throughout the years, if it would have hurt less, had it been a tragedy. If the loss would have weighted less, if the tears would have felt sweeter. He never managed to give himself an answer.
It would have felt more… purposeful, to a point. Had Albert drowned in a lake, or fell off a horse, or got shot in a clandestine, improbable duel to restore his honor, the chain of events leading to it would have been laid bare, clear for everyone to see: it would have been easier to find who to blame, to find the reason behind it, and to learn to live with it.
As it was, it had been senseless, and it had been absurd.
Fevers shouldn’t claim young boys, not when those young boys are strong and healthy and full of life. Fevers shouldn’t claim a young boy, when his father is a doctor who’s cured those very same fevers for as long as he can remember.
Yet.
Albert had laid in bed for weeks, growing weaker and weaker each passing moment, and as his body thinned so had done the hopes he would get back on his feet safe and sound. No one had said word about it, for certain things cannot be discussed without speaking them into reality, but there had been a sense of thick inevitability hanging over their heads, during those last days, and the stench of it they had carried on their clothes for a long time after. No matter how much they washed them, they wouldn’t come clean.
Margaret had kept praying. Her faith had been the bulwark of her sanity, and of her hope, and she’d spent hours kneeling by Albert’s bed, fingers intertwined and God on her lips.
Jonathan had found himself praying too, by the end. He prayed to his Lord, and to the Saints, and to whoever was listening that would grant him just that one mercy, just that one miracle.
On the last days, mercy and miracles finally set aside, he’d prayed to something else entirely.
If love and care weren’t enough, he’d thought, perhaps Fear would do.
He didn’t know how the bargain worked -he hadn’t back then, he still didn’t now-, but if a price had to be paid, if anything had to be sacrificed, then he would accept the deal. No matter how, no matter what. There was nothing, nothing in the world, he wouldn’t have sacrificed for his son’s life.
One night, looking at Albert’s pale, drained face, he’d almost started writing a letter, and only managed to refrain from the impulse hearing Margaret’s faint, light steps on the stairs.
At the end, it had all proven useless.
No one and nothing had answered Margaret’s prayers, nor his pleas.
And Albert had died.
He’d been unable to practice for a long time, after it. Almost two years had had to pass before he’d been able to go back to his profession, and things had never been quite the same. He would look at his patient’s face, at the old woman with a weak heart and shaky breath that still staunchly refused to die, and feel a wave of hatred for her, for her years spent in joint and back pains -so scarcely made use of that you could hardly call them lived- could have gone to his son instead. More than once, he’d looked at his patients, sleeping soundly on their bed after danger had passed, and thought about pressing a pillow to their heads, taking away what he’d worked so hard to preserve.
He’d struggled to see any good reason why he shouldn’t.
It would have been senseless, and cruel, and absurd, but Albert’s death had been senseless and cruel and absurd too, so what difference would have it even made?
What was the use of holding a morale that was constantly disproven by facts? And what was the use of tending to a world that didn’t tend to them in return?
Margaret had had her religion. She’d prayed before and she’d prayed after, reassured by her faith that, though dead, Albert was now in peace and she would see him again soon, that God’s plans were unknowable and that the greatest pain would ultimately lead to the greatest joy. That hadn’t eased her grief, for she’d mourned just as violently as Jonathan had, but it’d given her hope, and that hope had been enough to keep her alive.
Jonathan had had no religion. No faith. And no hope.
If there was a God in the sky, and if that God truly had watched his child -beautiful and smart and innocent- pass despite their pleas, then there was nothing He could ask from Jonathan, and nothing Jonathan would give him in return.
The Fears, too, had stayed at their place, but horrors beyond human comprehension rarely answer a man’s call. There was no purpose to them, they were as senseless and terrible as Albert’s death, and Jonathan had felt no resentment for them.
He would have drowned in his bitterness, hadn’t it been for Charles and Martha.
Albert had died -Albert had died- but they lived, and they loved him, and he loved them, and he’d clutched to that knowledge with every fiber of his being, managing to pull himself out of the water just as the damp threatened to swallow him whole.
The anger never truly faded, never dissipated as he would have wished, but he’d learnt to ignore it, to push it back in the deepest corner of his soul, and not to let it fester on his sanity.
He’d looked into the abyss, and only by chance he’d managed not to fall into it.
For the first time since the beginning of their journey, Jonathan noticed Taylor seemed more focused on his own thoughts than on staring at him, one elbow placed on the carriage window and head resting on the palm of his hand. It felt as if a pressure had been lifted from his chest, him finally able to breathe more freely than in the previous hours, but the relief that blossomed in his stomach was partially hindered by the look of extreme displeasure on Taylor’s face. Brow furrowed, lips thinned, and something dark in his eyes.
On the why of this sudden change, Jonathan wasn’t sure he had the right -or wished- to inquire.
Before curiosity got the best of him, though, the carriage jolted, a sudden movement that pushed Jonathan against the opposite side and snatched a muffled cry out of his mouth.
The carriage driver let out a similar cry.
“What in Lord’s n-” Taylor put his head out of the carriage: “Everything alright, Thomas?”
“I’m- I’m not so sure, sir.”
Taylor turned towards Jonathan: “Doctor?”
“I’m… I’m fine, it was just,” Jonathan caught his breath: “unexpected. What was it?”
“I’m going to get out and see it for myself.”
Taylor opened the carriage and jumped out. Jonathan followed suit, though not with the same quickness of movements.
They found Thomas with both feet on the ground, kneeling in front of one of the horses with a deep frown on his brow: “The road was bumpy, sir. I’m afraid this one hurt himself badly.”
Taylor frowned in return and arched his back onwards: “Will they be able to pull the carriage to our destination and back to London?”
“We are mere minutes away from Doctor Fanshawe’s home, sir. The horses will make it ‘till there. I hardly think his foot will allow him to carry us back home, but I remember seeing an inn, around here and I assume they’ll have a spare to lend us, or to buy.”
Taylor sighed, and raised a finger to his lips: “That will be costly, I assume.”
Thomas shrunk in his shoulders, complexion suddenly pale: “I… I apologize most profusely, sir. I have been riding carriages ever since I was a boy and that has never happened to me. I always make sure not to tire the horses too much, I feed them properly and I would never do anything to-”
Taylor put a hand over his shoulder, nothing but politeness in his smile and voice: “Oh, you’re not to blame, Thomas. I know you’re not. Accidents happen. Not anyone’s fault, really. An Italian philosopher used to say the events that befall on us are half fortune and half our own deeds, but my opinion is that, sometimes, it’s just bad, rotten luck.”
In the years that followed, Jonathan would often ask himself what had given the truth away to him, in that precise, particular moment. The revelation had come unexpected, a sudden light in a pool of darkness. There hadn’t been other quieter, smaller steps leading up to it. Or, better, he had been given hints, dozens of them, but they’d gone overlooked and unheard, and he doubted he would have ever put them together at all hadn’t it been for that little push.
Perhaps, it’d been the way Taylor had been holding his cane, or the particular gesture he’d made when resting his hand on Thomas’ shoulder. Perhaps it’d been the typical, rehearsed tilt of his head, the way his glittering grey eyes had reflected the light of the afternoon sun, or the words he’d spoken, so similar to ones Jonathan still remembered far too well.
Or perhaps, and that was the explanation Jonathan found the most convincing, for the first time in those five days the man in front of him had forgotten himself and the part he’d been playing. One moment, the blink of an eye, enough for something more genuine, and recognizable, to shine through.
When one is used to wear one thousand masks, even shedding one is enough.
Jonathan remained still, frozen in his place as a million small puzzle pieces slowly rearranged themselves and an unnamed feeling -dread and surprise and hatred all mixed together with something else he couldn’t and wouldn’t quite name- took his stomach in an iron twist.
He felt his legs tremble, hands hurting and breath heavy, and he had just enough time to walk over the carriage and sit right back in it before losing the last bit of self-composure he had.
That was-
That was-
That can’t be, he tried telling himself, it’s just tiredness, and the weight of memories, and an old mind pulling tricks on me.
But he’d seen stranger things happen, with men willful enough to assure they would, and the overview of the situation suddenly looked less crazy than it’d seemed just a few moments before.
He closed his eyes, hands tightened into fists, and went back to the hours and the days he’d just lived, attention firmly fixed on one person, and on one face.
Why?
“Doctor?”
The voice made him jump and he opened his eyes with a jolt, just to find Taylor looking at him from outside, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, no there isn’t,” he replied, quick and fast, almost immediately, teeth cutting his tongue as he tried not to let knowledge shine through his words: “I am just- this journey has been proven tiring, for my old body. More than I thought it would.”
“Of course,” the man in front of him nodded, understanding, before getting in the carriage himself: “I spoke to Thomas and we should be at your home in no time. No more than ten minutes or so.”
“F-fine. I mean, good.”
Taylor gave him a funny look, then sighed and took his place, quiet and silent. Jonathan gave him a side-glance, swallowing hard, and with the sudden, excruciating awareness that had that man wanted he could have pulled his thoughts apart and realize what had just happened. He waited one, two, three minutes for the moment to come, for him to turn with a smile he knew far too well and call it quits, but that never happened. Instead, his companion seemed completely absorbed in his own thoughts, his own mind, so much that he was hardly aware of Jonathan’s presence at all.
What had caused the shift, and especially now, that Jonathan was not sure of.
Why, he wanted to ask.
Why now, why after all this time, why doing this to me, why doing this at all?
But a look at Taylor’s face, and the sheer, pure dissatisfaction he saw on it, that transpired through any muscle of his body, made him keep his mouth shut.
He kept going over it again and again, though. The conversation they’d had, the things they’d done, what Taylor had showed him -the Institute, the Archives, that room-, and the memories, dozens upon dozens of memories unlocked and brought back to life for a reason he still could not pin-point.
Why
Why
Why
So caught in his reasonings he was, he barely noticed the carriage had come to a second halt.
“Here, home sweet home!” Taylor snapped his fingers, his voice once more bright as he opened the wooden door and stepped outside.
Jonathan looked at his right and his heart missed a beat when he realized that yes, that was truly his fence and those truly his trees and that he was finally, finally home. He’d missed it more than he thought.
Taylor accompanied him to the door, walking so close to him that he almost stepped on his feet, and when Jonathan turned to face him, one hand already on the door handle, there was a tension on his face he couldn’t decipher. A mixture of expectation, and annoyance, and disappointment, and hope.
“Well, I think this is it, then.” He told Jonathan, every syllable spoken slowly and with evident reluctance.
Jonathan forced himself not to look away: “So do I.”
“It’s been… a pleasure, Doctor. To meet you, and to spend these days with you.”
“Likewise, sir. Thought the occurrence has been less than pleasant, I must say that it has still brought me good.”
Taylor tilted his head: “Closure, then?”
No, not even remotely so: “Of sort.”
A quick grimace passed through the man’s face: “Excellent. I guess this is a goodbye, then.”
He stretched out his hand, and Jonathan caught it with trembling fingers: “Goodbye, sir.”
Taylor stood in his place, his grip on Jonathan’s wrist strong and dry, for a moment so long Jonathan feared he’d forgotten how to pull away. Eventually, he did, one finger at the time.
Then, he breathed a long, deep breath, nodded one last time and turned his back to Jonathan, walking towards the carriage with a pace that was slow, and deliberate, and with nothing of the energy he’d displayed in the previous days.
So that’s how it ends? Jonathan thought, Forty years estranged, a mock-funeral and five days of stage-play and this is how it ends?
Despite his best attempts to pretend otherwise, Jonathan had fantasized often about what he’d say to Jonah, if they ever met face to face again. He’d imagined to pull all his anger on him, to show him his disgust and his hatred for the person he’d become. He’d imagined, in a self-congratulatory fashion that was so unlike him, Jonah asking for a reconciliation and Jonathan negating it to him, from the pedestal of his moral high ground. He’d imagined a final confrontation, and to finally come victorious out of it.
But there they were, and there he was, and there were no more words left to say.
Weren’t they?
He thought about the will, and the visit Taylor had paid him, and the first carriage ride they’d shared. The questions he’d been asked, on his profession and his family and his children -he had known, he must have known-, and their discussion about science, its qualities and its flaws and its limits. The way it had mirrored another conversation, on a roof of an house no one even visited anymore.
He thought about his marriage, his talks about love and affection, and the way time and people had proven them wrong. The funeral, and the sermon, and the cold, freezing carelessness that had drove him to tears, for him and for Jonah and for all the people who could not and would not get what they deserved, but who would live and die all the same.
And he thought about the Institute, and the Fears, and about how horrible deeds had been done just to ensure a knowledge, a satisfaction, a safety his younger self had found monstrous, for it contradicted all he’d been taught about right and wrong and good and evil. Albert’s grave, and the anger that had followed, and how nothing and no one had mattered the moment he’d prayed for him to be saved. How nothing and no one had really, truly mattered, after he hadn’t.
Two words came to mind, then, and they rose from his lungs just to get stuck in his throat.
They were not an apology, for he had nothing to apologize for, and they were not an act of forgiveness, for there were wounds that never cauterized, no matter the time and no matter the medicine. They weren’t an act of surrender, for his philosophy had brought him comfort and love and happiness amongst pain and he wouldn’t give up on it, not after a lifetime of holding onto it.
They mended nothing, they adjusted nothing, and nothing would come out of them, once spoken.
They were -and that made him want to laugh and cry at the same time, because of the perfect, solid irony of it- idle, sterile knowledge.
“Wait, sir!” he called, brave enough not to use the man’s new name, but not brave enough to call to the old one.
He stopped, already halfway through the path, and turned, deep confusion on his face.
Jonathan walked hastily in his direction, panting in hurry until he found himself face to face with him again: “I…” He bit his lip and forced his heart to beat to a steadier rhythm.
“Yes, Doctor?”
Jonathan looked at him straight in the eye: “I just wanted to tell you that I understand. Now, I understand.”
It took a fraction of second for the man in front of him to process what Jonathan had just said, but when he did his face was set alight by unmistakable joy. His eyes -grey, of shade Jonathan wondered how he hadn’t recognized before- glittered, triumphant and ferocious and hungry, and his lips spread out into a wide, sharp smile.
He opened his mouth to reply, then frowned and closed it without uttering a sound. Then, after a pause, he opened it again:
-and the unmistakable familiarity of that gesture pressed against Jonathan’s chest and heart and lungs and throat so hard he almost choked on it-
“I deeply apologize, Doctor. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he bowed slightly, then added, low and soft: “Goodbye, Jonathan.”
Jonathan managed to force only one word out of him: “Goodbye.”
The man who once had worn a name and now wore another walked down the small pathway, opened the gate and climbed the small ladder into the carriage. He never turned back.
Thomas grabbed the rains, and the horses moved.
A few seconds, and they were gone.
Jonathan stayed at his place, feet firmly pressed into the ground, and let the avalanche of emotions swallow him whole. All the anger, and the grief and the betrayal and the shameful, secret, relieved joy of someone finding an item long-lost right in the last place he’d seen it, years before.
Jonah was alive.
Jonathan gazed at the sky and the stars gazed back at him, as they had done on a night far away in time, cold and unblinking and uncaring and so beautiful one could almost say it was worth existing just to admire them.
And wonder, and Know.
Jonathan sighed, fingers on the handle and shaky breath, then closed the door behind him.
Somewhere else, unheard and unseen, a spider weaved its web.
Jonah Magnus was alive.