Chapter Text
It was a relief to leave the too bright, too lively hospital.
"I'm surprised you agreed to this," Chapman said. "I would have guessed that the thought of being under my supervision would be insulting to you."
"No one is forcing you to go through with it. All I wanted was to go home."
Antigone knew exactly that these words would drive Chapman to go through with it. The mere suggestion he wouldn't keep his word was unacceptable to him.
"Whether you like it or not, your well-being is my responsibility for now and I intend to take it seriously," Chapman said. Although with that tone, he was on the verge of being difficult again.
"Suit yourself," she replied. She even let him carry her bag and the basket. If he thought this to be part of his duties , so be it.
Needless to say that Rudyard was not thrilled with these recent developments. He almost actually smiled, when she entered the funeral parlour, but quickly went back to his usual bad-tempered expression at the sight of Chapman.
"What is he doing here?"
"Hello to you, too, Rudyard," Chapman said. "I'm here to keep an eye on your sister. Doctor's orders."
"What!"
Rudyard looked at her for confirmation. Or maybe support to throw Eric Chapman out.
"It's either that or a prolonged hospital stay," she said. " Apparently , our family cannot be trusted to not overwork ourselves."
Rudyard snorted.
"And that kind of attitude is exactly why I'm here," Chapman said.
"So what, you will be here all day now?" Rudyard asked. "Messing with our business?"
"No, believe it or not, I have work to do myself." He turned to Antigone. "But I will come by to make sure everything is alright and you take it easy. And if anything comes up, I'll be right over."
Antigone was itching to get back into her mortuary, if only for the solitude and silence.
"Fine, fine, you can go now," she said.
Chapman actually left, but she could swear that he was rolling his eyes on the way out.
Rudyard and Antigone were standing there in a moment of silence.
"Are you doing well then?" he eventually asked. And there was the shifting from one foot to the other again.
"I'm fine," she said. "No need to make a fuss."
Rudyard harrumphed. "I do not make a fuss."
"Yet you go around telling Georgie and the Reverend and God knows who else about me being in the hospital."
Antigone didn't really want to start an argument, but this was the easiest way to gain back some sense of normalcy in this house. Rudyard was all too eager to oblige.
"Both these people work with us and as such need to be informed about the state of our business. It's not making a fuss. It's being a responsible proprietor of a business!"
"Does calling Chapman for help also fall under that?"
To her surprise, Rudyard didn't immediately have a retort for her. He looked down to the ground.
"I knew the odds of me finding you were slim," he said quietly. "And saving the day in a pompous and ridiculous fashion against all odds is the only thing that man is good for. So, yes, I called him for help."
How had Chapman phrased it earlier?
'He cares about you more than he despises me .'
Maybe not entirely wrong.
"A sensible choice," she said. "Which is why I didn't expect it from you of all people."
"I will not let a woman who decided to take a rowboat out to sea during a storm lecture me about being sensible."
That was a hard one to counter. Because he might have a point. She hated it, when Rudyard had a point.
"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" she snapped.
"Yes, now that you are finally back, I need to catch up on my archival work. This messed with my entire work schedule. So, I'll be on my way." Rudyard stopped short of the door. "If… if you are fine by yourself here."
Rudyard chose to take on the role as protective older brother at the most inconvenient of times.
"I'll be better, when I finally have some peace and quiet away from all of you people."
That was enough for Rudyard, he left the house in a hurry.
Antigone descended to her mortuary which she hadn't seen in days . In fact, she had not gone this long without being down there since she was eight years old.
Everything seemed to be unchanged from when she had left. Not one tiny pot out of place. Maybe Rudyard had finally learned his lesson in regards to embalming anyone himself.
Relief washed over her. No more eyes on her, no more people around to judge. Being alone had always been the simplest solution to her worst anxieties.
Since apparently no new bodies had come in, a sure sign that Rudyard had been slacking off despite his rant about work morale earlier, she was left with her usual pastimes: contemplating and reading.
She quickly discovered that the contemplating led to dwelling on the past few days which in turn was followed by agonizing over her time in the cave. Before this could turn into anything worse, she decided to read. But her brain simply seemed incapable of keeping up with the words on the page. She skipped lines or read an entire paragraph without grasping any of its meaning.
It had to be a side effect of sleep deprivation. Well, she could easily lie down for a bit and sleep.
And there was absolutely no reason for her to feel anything except relief about lying down while she was alone in the house. It was the way she liked it best after all. So why did she feel so… unnerved all of a sudden? Like she was entirely cut off from the outside? It's not like that had bothered her before, not like this at least.
Maybe Rudyard should've stayed after all. But she would not have asked him to, even if she had known she would feel this way.
Antigone left the mortuary. Being upstairs did not make her feel better.
It would be easy enough to cross the square. It was not easy to admit that she actually wanted to.
Maybe Chapman was also not feeling well. Part of her plan was to keep an eye on him, after all. She would do that. For his sake.
So, she marched across the square towards Chapman's.
It should be easy for her to slip in unnoticed.
She opened the door only as wide as it took for her to squeeze through. Chapman was busy talking to a client at the counter. It was an older woman carrying an instrument case almost as big as herself. She picked up on a few phrases like "... trumpet solo…" and "...piano themed coffin…". Typical nonsense for a Chapman funeral, unnecessary gimmicks as Rudyard would say.
The longer she stood in the corner, pressed into the shadows, the more ridiculous she felt. There was no reason to be here. Chapman was working and clearly fine. She should be, too. Nothing had really happened after all. It was time to move past whatever annoying thoughts kept her from resuming her normal life.
The client said her goodbyes and Antigone could easily slip out behind her with Chapman none the wiser. Something was wrong though. It took her a moment to figure out what it was. He had not told the old woman to enjoy herself.
The door closed behind the client and Antigone was still standing in her corner, unsure of what to do.
"Hello, Antigone," Chapman said, eyes scanning the room for her.
"How did you know I was here?" she asked and walked towards him.
His eyes settled on her, finally out of the shadows.
"I didn't know. I noticed the door opening earlier and thought it might be you."
He said it like he had hoped it might be her.
"Is everything alright?" he asked. "Do you need anything from me?"
There was a whole list she needed from him: an explanation for his behavior, another hug, a first kiss, maybe even- This train of thought was unhelpful.
"No," she replied.
"Riiiight." He raised his eyebrows.
She could see the seconds ticking by on the digital clock behind Chapman, while they were standing in silence. He was waiting for an explanation she would not give.
"I was about to take a lunch break," he said eventually.
That seemed like her cue to leave.
"Do you want to join me?"
The question stopped her in her tracks.
"What?"
"Well, I am supposed to make sure you take care of yourself. And if I cook something for myself it's hardly any work to make a bit more. Not that I think you can't cook for yourself! I'm sure your perfectly capable. But you're already here and, uh… " Chapman's rambling was slowing down. "And why not, you know?"
"Yes," she said. "Why not."
He seemed surprised by her answer, and if Antigone was honest, so was she.
He pressed a button that switched the LED display pointing outwards from open to closed.
"Alright, if you would follow me?"
They were walking to a part of Chapman's ground floor that Antigone hadn't seen before. The only part of his private quarters she had ever seen was his bedroom which sounded much more scandalous than it actually was.
The kitchen was stainless steel all around, everything shining and gleaming.
There were gadgets around with functions Antigone could not even attempt to guess.
Chapman gestured towards a kitchen island in the middle of the room with stools around it.
"You can sit down."
She did, it was too awkward to keep standing in the entrance.
"I was thinking of making omelet souffles." He looked at her, as if asking for permission. She nodded.
"Excellent! I still have smoked salmon to go with it. And maybe honey glazed vegetables?"
One of the steel surfaces opened up to a spacious fridge. Chapman started gathering ingredients.
"Do you need any help?" Antigone asked, even though she had absolutely no desire to attempt to figure out anything in this kitchen. Still, it was the polite thing to do.
"No, no. Sit back and relax, I'll be done in no time."
Relax . Not something she thought herself even capable of, especially not right here and now.
As Chapman was standing in front of the stove, an eerie and very out of place feeling crept up on her. There was a strange and inappropriate domesticity to this. She had imagined scenarios like this before, but the context was all wrong.
She shouldn't have come over. This was nothing but a stark reminder of opportunities that had slipped away.
"Everything alright?" Chapman asked her with what seemed like actual concern. He always paid attention in the most inopportune moments.
"Why wouldn't I be alright?" she shot back.
"Maybe the almost dying part?" he replied drily while keeping his eyes on the pan in front of him. "Or the unwanted hospital stay? Maybe my mere presence? Something is clearly bothering you."
He sighed. "You don't have to tell me, but… maybe talk to someone? You don't have to deal with everything by yourself."
It wasn't like Antigone had a wide array of confidants up her sleeve. Talking to Rudyard was absolutely out of the question. She wasn't sure anyone else even cared to hear about her problems. It certainly was unhelpful that the person she had the most successful heart-to-hearts in recent years was part of the problem.
"I'll think about it," she said.
And for once, that actually seemed good enough for Chapman and he dropped the subject. It was quiet except for the clanking of utensils and the hum of the oven.
The plate that ended up in front of her of course looked like something out of a high-end restaurant. She couldn't identify some purple vegetables next to her carrots and poked them with her fork.
"Those are also carrots, don't worry," Chapman said.
"Ah. I haven't had those before." By the way her fork sank into them, she could already tell that they would be too mushy for her taste.
"Did you know that the purple color is due to a pigment called anthocyan? It's found in blueberries and pansies as well."
She stopped herself from continuing. Experience had taught her that people were not partial to little nuggets of knowledge, at least not from her.
"I didn't know that."
Chapman was looking at her with a slight smile. It was ever so slightly crooked, one corner of his mouth a tad higher than the other. It was the easiest way to tell it was genuine. His other smile was always perfectly symmetrical, like he had practiced in front of the mirror.
"Anything else interesting about anthocyan?" he asked.
Antigone could exactly pinpoint, when she had first read about this. It had been a few weeks after her mother's death. Rudyard had gone to the library for her and more or less cleaned out the botanical section because she mentioned being interested in poisonous plants. He never was one for diverse reading material.
"It has a different color depending on its pH. It can be anything between red and black. Raspberries and black beans." She took a bite of the carrots and they were indeed too soft. "Not beets though. They have betalains instead. Both pigments together have never been found in the same plant."
The omelet souffle was nice. Very fluffy and homogeneous in texture.
"Of course you would know all that." He shook his head. "I could've brought anything to this table and you could've told me something I didn't know about it."
"Possibly," she said.
Smoked salmon was bad. It was soft and strangely smooth in a way that gave her horrible goosebumps and the smoked part of it all was overpowering.
"I don't like smoked salmon, as it turns out," she informed him.
"Oh. You don't have to eat it."
He didn't seem offended at least and let her keep talking about plant pigments while they were eating. It was almost nice.
Antigone found most of the kitchen gadgets unnecessary, but the dishwasher was convenient. Not having to deal with leftover food scraps soaked in water or arguing about whose turn it was to do the dishes would be great.
"I should leave," she said. "Rudyard will make a fuss if I'm not there by the time he's back."
"Do you want me to walk you over?"
She rolled her eyes. "I am capable of walking 54 steps to my own home."
"I know you are capable . I thought you might like the company, that's all."
"No," she simply said.
"Well, I'll still come by later."
"Suit yourself."
They walked to the front part of Chapman's together. She waved vaguely as a goodbye.
"Enjoy yourself, Antigone."
The door closed behind her.
He had been… well, not exactly normal, but he certainly seemed more like the usual Eric Chapman than any other time she had seen him since this whole debacle had started.
She counted the steps to Funn Funerals and for some reason it only took her 53 today. It was slightly upsetting and not helpful for gaining that sense of normalcy she wanted.
She opted to stay out of the mortuary for now. In the kitchen, she noticed that Chapman's basket was still standing on the counter. If she had a hard time concentrating on a book, she might as well read one she knew. That way she wouldn't miss anything. So, she picked up one of Chapman's books and tucked herself away on a chair in the corner. She felt a little more settled than earlier. At times, her thoughts still drifted to unwanted corners of her mind, but it was not as bad as before.