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“Elias said you’d probably be keeping a close eye on the Archivist’s condition, so I’d be keen to hear any developments.”
Martin supposes that’s what he’s doing, as he sits on a cramped wooden chair next to Jon’s bed. Jon—Martin refuses to think of him as Jon’s body as more than one of the doctors do, despite the fact that Jon is definitely not dead—is pale and still underneath the white covers. Even his chest doesn’t move. The only sign of life at all is the constant twitching of his eyes beneath his eyelids, darting through dreams that Martin can’t comprehend.
“You can talk to him,” a nurse says as she checks the as-always silent machines attached to Jon’s lifeless chest. Martin likes her. She doesn’t look at him like he’s wasting all of his free time in being here.
“I know,” Martin says. He’s heard the stories of coma victims being able to hear their loved ones’ voices, even though their minds are beyond the reach of their bodies. This just feels different. It’s not that Jon is unconscious, but that his mind is elsewhere.
There’s a part of Martin that’s terrified that—whatever Jon is doing while trapped in his mind—he might distract him, that something might happen to him in that dreamscape. After everything they’ve been through lately, his fears don’t seem far-fetched.
Another part wonders if, maybe, Martin’s voice could lead him home. He shakes his head at that train of thought. Not him. Jon would never return for him.
Still, once the nurse is gone, Martin starts to speak. “Elias is in police custody now,” he says, awkward. He perches on the edge of the chair, elbows braced against his knees. “You might have heard some of that…if you can hear what’s going on out here. I can’t see how it won’t stick—we have the murder on tape—but I’m still afraid. It’s like, even in prison, Elias has the upper hand. I know he has secrets and I’d feel better about it if you were here.
“Peter Lucas is overseeing the Institute now; I guess he and Elias had some sort of agreement. He says that Elias is still the—what’s the phrase—beating heart and everything, but someone still has to be there to do the duties. He’s given us all two weeks’ vacation to recover. Basira says I should take it, go somewhere nice for a week.” Martin reaches out, stroking Jon’s hair out of his face. There’s more gray than even Martin remembers there being but it’s soft. “I don’t want to leave you,” he admits, softly. “What if I go and something happens to you? Or what if you wake up?”
The idea of losing Jon after Daisy and Tim and everything that’s happened is a constant spike in Martin’s chest. It grinds against his ribs and sends broken shards of glass ricocheting through his veins. He doesn’t want to consider the possibility, not even with Jon laying there like he’s seconds away from being placed in a coffin.
Martin takes a shuddering breath and opens his mouth but he finds that he doesn’t have anything more to say. Normally, this is the part where he’d offer to make Jon a cup of tea but that’s even less help now than when Jon was conscious.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Martin says as he stands, knees clicking, and steps across the floor. He pauses at the threshold, looking back over his shoulder. Jon sleeps on.
It becomes a bit of a routine after that. Martin stops at his favorite tea shop each morning and goes to hospital. He questions the nurses—no change, not even a sign of deterioration despite the fact that Jon’s body isn’t participating in any of its normal functions—and then lets himself into Jon’s room. He sits on that spindly wooden chair. He talks.
Martin tells Jon about Peter Lucas, and Melanie’s trip to Paris, and Tim and Daisy’s funerals. When he runs out of things to ramble about, he reads. Sometimes it’s a newspaper that he picked up from a stand on the way in. Other times it’s books—history, philosophy, the occasional novel. Once, he even reads Keats, half-hoping that Jon will rouse himself just to inform him that it’s useless drivel.
If Jon can hear any of it, he doesn’t offer a sign. Not so much as a flicker of his eyes in Martin’s direction as far as he can tell.
Martin clings to hope as long as Jon’s brain remains active. Every day, he promises to see him tomorrow.
“How is he?” Melanie asks when they all return from their alloted vacation time. She joins him standing outside Jon’s office, staring at the door. Martin knows there’s a file in there that he needs but he can’t bring himself to enter. It isn’t like Jon spent much time there before anyway, running all over the world working on his own investigations. Still, it feels different this time. The office is abandoned rather than simply awaiting the Archivist’s return.
Martin half-shrugs. “There hasn’t been any change. The doctors don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.”
“Jon is a strong man.” Melanie rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “He’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah, I know,” Martin says, even though he’s not so sure. Not anymore.
Martin goes straight to hospital after he leaves the Institute, storming down the familiar halls to the familiar room. He doesn’t even look at the doctors and nurses as he goes by, can’t hear the “No change, Mr. Blackwood” or bear their empathetic looks today. The door flies open against his weight and clicks shut behind him.
“Wake up, you bastard,” he says, standing at the end of Jon’s bed. He means for it to sound like an order but his voice crackles and breaks. A tear leaks out of the corner of his eye. “Wake up or I’ll start butchering Latin. I’ll start listing all the facts I know about spiders. I’ll sit here and make statements for every groaning pipe or spooky sound I’ve ever heard in my life. Damn it, Jon. Please. Please wake up.”
Martin’s knees hit the floor and he stays there, forehead resting against the end of the bed. He feels like he’s shattering into pieces and he doesn’t know where to begin to put himself back together again. A nurse finds him there and guides him out of the room with a gentle hand.
It’s the nice one. Katherine, her name is. For a moment, she’s gone and he’s alone, but then there’s a warm paper cup of tea being pushed into his hands. He sips at it gratefully. Only when it’s half-gone does he manage to look at her and say, “Thank you.”
“You truly care about him, don’t you?” Katherine says, jerking her head back at Jon’s door.
Martin nods because he doesn’t have the words for how much. He’s had a crush on Jon since the first day he saw him but he’s sure that it’s not just a crush anymore. He’s head over heels in love with the man.
“Keep coming here.” Katherine pats him on the knee. “It helps him.”
“How do you know?” Martin downs the last of the tea in a single gulp, the heat of it making his eyes water.
“We all need someone to care about us.” Katherine takes the paper cup from him and smiles. It’s gentle and doesn’t hold even the slightest sign of pity. Martin is grateful for it. “Go home. Get some rest.”
Martin leaves, shock jolting through him at the darkness outside. There aren’t any windows in Jon’s room and he hadn’t realized how long he’d been sitting there on the floor. His knees remember, aching a bit with every stride. He goes home but, like always, it’s nearly impossible to get some rest.
Martin’s in the middle of reading an Agatha Christie novel when his voice trails off and he looks up. Jon’s been in the hospital for three weeks now and he still doesn’t look any different. Martin thinks it might be the scariest thing he’s ever seen—Jon’s body remaining lifeless and unchanging, like it’s trapped behind glass.
“I love you, you know,” Martin murmurs, half to himself. He sets the book down, using a clean q-tip to hold the page. “You might know, I know you listen to all the tapes and the damn things seem to have a mind of their own these days. Still, you should hear it from me. I love you, so much that sometimes I can hardly believe that you’re real.”
Martin is crying again but he can’t bring himself to stop. Jon is a gaping hole in his heart even wider than the ones left behind by Sasha and Tim and Daisy. Jon is still here, sure, but he’s not really and as much as Martin dares to allow himself to hope, he’s not sure Jon will ever come back to them—or that, if he does, he’ll even be the same person.
“I don’t expect you to love me back,” Martin goes on, sniffling a bit now. “You never did take to me, not like Sasha and Tim. I was always in your way. I just wanted you to know. I’d offer to leave the Institute but…you know.
“Just come back to us, Jon. None of us know what to make of Peter Lucas, especially without you. Not to mention, you’re the only one who ever seemed to enjoy recording all those damn statements. And—and!—you can get people to talk to you, not like any of us can, but really talk to you. Share the truth of what happened to them, even if they don’t want to. The Institute needs its Archivist.”
Martin stares at Jon, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. His pleas go unheeded. Jon dreams on, his chest unmoving, his heart unbeating.
Martin pauses on the way out and steps back to the bed. Jon’s face is drained of any color, although it is reassuring that he’s also missing the blue cast of a corpse. His head is propped up on a pillow, the starched white sheets pulled up to his chest. His arms rest gently on top. There’s something about his mouth that gives him a look of concern, even though the rest of his face is entirely relaxed.
Martin leans over to kiss him, just once. A bare brush of his lips against Jon’s forehead. His skin is cool but not cold. He thinks about how easy it would be to kiss him on the lips, like Sleeping Beauty, but he doesn’t know how Jon feels about that sort of thing. He doubts a kiss from him would be welcome in any case.
“See you tomorrow, Jon,” Martin says as he turns to go. Out of the corner of his eye, he swears he sees Jon’s chest move. When he turns back, Jon is just the same as he always is. Martin frowns, deflating.
It happens again. This time he’s looking, really looking, and he knows without a doubt that the covers of the bed rise and fall.
Martin reaches out, fingertips searching Jon’s wrist for the tiniest sign of a pulse. His own heart rockets in his chest, terrified and elated all at once. There, a flutter. It’s slow, much slower than a human heart has any right to be, but Jon’s heart is beating.
Martin opens his mouth to shout for a doctor as the machines start to beep. Jon opens his eyes.