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Gertrude has never much liked hospitals, but as she comes to awareness, the sounds are rather reassuring. She’s alive, and she isn’t in the Institute. Presumably her plan worked. The memories are dulled by the delirium of blood loss — not to mention the haze of painkillers.
Better to focus on the present, she reminds herself. Take stock of your surroundings, be mindful of how many enemies you’ve made, and never let your guard down.
The hospital bed is as any hospital bed; the gown as any gown. There’s an IV going underneath her skin, as insistently unnoticeable as the strings of the Web; if she had the energy, she’d tug on it, just to be sure her movements were still her own. Someone is sitting next to the bed; she can tell from the calm up-and-down of their breathing, the occasional rustle of a page turning.
There’s a heavy pressure over her eyes— Ah. Yes. Over where her eyes aren’t anymore.
Gertrude’s dealings with the People’s Church had prepared her for darkness, but this is simply an absence of information. Really, it’s a wonder she isn’t hallucinating something to fill the gaps — she’d read up on Charles Bonnet syndrome long before her plan was fully formed.
She tries to blink, because of course she does, because she has to account for every possibility. Her brows draw together, her cheeks tense just slightly, but even if there were something left to blink, the bandages would be keeping it firmly immobile.
The person sitting next to her exhales, closing their book with a gentle thud.
“You’re awake, then,” Jurgen says.
Gertrude feels a wave of pale relief. She’s fairly forcibly relaxed already, but Jurgen’s voice makes her shoulders ease, her mouth tick up in a smile. It’s possible she isn’t quite possessed of all her inhibitions right now.
“It does seem to be that way,” she agrees, her voice softer than she’s ever heard it.
She opens her mouth again, intending to ask if everything had gone to plan, but— the absence of compulsion on her tongue is almost as distracting as the absence of sight.
Jurgen sighs. He stands up with a nearly audible creak of bone.
“I’ll speak to one of the nurses. Try not to fall asleep while I’m gone.”
Scoffing at that last remark, Gertrude shifts her hand to wave him off. The willpower of Gertrude Robinson can handle some painkillers. She has no desire to return to her dreams and see whether anything remains of the unfortunate souls within.
Jurgen steps away, his footsteps fading into the hurried maelstrom that characterises the majority of hospitals — never enough people, never enough time, never enough life.
She thinks of Gerard, then, and catalogues the following shiver of heartache with the same calculated distance as always. He had been angry when he died. Scared and alone, but so very angry. Gertrude considers her regrets, then dismisses them. He’d have only met an unfortunate end one way or the other. She only hopes that whoever has the book now is kind to him.
(Gertrude is free, of course. The purpose she bound him for will never come to pass. Perhaps, if she were a better woman, she would go to find him, to release him. But all her pragmatism tells her that will only draw attention. Best to keep herself safe — and Jurgen, too, most likely.)
It is surprisingly hard to track the passage of time without visual cues. A clock ticks somewhere, but by the time she starts counting, it’s already been several minutes since Jurgen left.
When he finally returns, a second pair of footsteps at his side, it feels like it’s been hours.
“You took your time,” Gertrude mutters. It’s easy to fall into the role, to pretend to be small and soft and breakable. “I thought you’d up and left me.”
“Oh, definitely not,” the nurse says, a smile in her voice. “Your brother hasn’t left your side since you got here; I knew you must be awake from the moment I saw him up and about.”
“Is that so?”
There’s no response from Jurgen as he settles back down in his chair.
“I tried to tell him that he could at least go and get something from the cafe, but he point-blank refused.” As the nurse approaches, her tone turns conspiratorial. “His back must be killing him.”
“He was probably afraid of what would happen if I wasn’t around to defend him,” Gertrude murmurs. The nurse laughs, taking it for a joke. Jurgen laughs too, distinctly sheepish.
The conversation dies as the nurse sets about the usual tasks. Gertrude submits to them with as much equimanity as she can muster — more than the usual amount — and tries to keep her voice from being too sharp when she answers questions such as the current Prime Minister.
Finally, the nurse submits to leaving them, and she and Jurgen have the illusion of privacy.
“It would be an easier cover story if we were married, you know,” Gertrude informs him. With the haze of painkillers in her system, it comes out rather more fond than acerbic.
“I didn’t think you’d take kindly to that.”
“Well, no.”
Jurgen chuckles again. It’s an irritatingly pleasant sound.
“What now?” he asks, in that careful way of his.
“To tell the truth… I don’t know.”
“You didn’t plan for it?” She can hear Jurgen’s eyebrows raise — surprise, but without malice.
“I… I thought it would be obvious, what to do afterwards. Instead… I’m at a loose end.”
Gertrude scowls. She hates this raw ache of vulnerability — not the blindness, but the freedom. She has defined herself around and in spite of the tether binding her to the Institute, and now that it’s gone… Coughing, she does her best to straighten up.
“I’ll work it out. I always seem to.”
“Hm.” Jurgen shifts in his chair, though she can’t tell if he’s moved forwards or backwards. He stops and starts for a few moments, and she’s just about to tell him to spit it out when he finds his footing. “Might I offer my support? I’m at as much of a loose end as you are— and homeless, to boot.”
“The tunnels?” Gertrude asks, before she lets herself process what Jurgen is asking.
“Gone. Well, as gone as a place like that can ever be.”
“Good.”
She breathes in, sterility underlined by bitter sweat and blood. She’d like to blame her difficulty in forming words on the painkillers, but she thinks it might just be her. She hasn’t relied on her emotions to guide her in many years; it feels almost silly to start now.
“I am… unaccustomed to trusting people,” Gertrude manages.
Jurgen, to his credit, only gives another warm laugh.
“I had gathered that, along the way. I believe we’re both going to have to get used to things we had forgotten; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen daylight, as you well know.”
Gertrude feels herself smile weakly as she leans her head back on the hospital pillow. She can hear the buzz of fluorescent lights, but her world is only absence. Getting used to things indeed.
They end up in Scotland, after a fashion.
(“Somewhere rural would be best,” she had said, once she’d been discharged. “We’re in danger either way, but at least in isolation we can see it coming— ah, so to speak.”)
It’s cosy. Everything smells of dust and antiquity, the internet connection is shoddy, and the electricity is only half-wired. Gertrude isn’t a fan of cosy.
She’s never enjoyed waiting, and it’s all the worse when she doesn’t know what she’s waiting for, or when it’s going to happen. She’s used to action, and she doesn’t best appreciate sitting on her laptop and swearing at the screen-reader, or walking down to the village market with Jurgen and having everyone assume she’s a charity case.
(“It must be so hard,” someone had cooed sympathetically, their voice aimed away from her. Gertrude had clutched her cane white-knuckle and wished viciously that her life was still one where she could slam it into that well-wisher’s kneecaps.)
Gertrude thinks, perhaps, she’s forgotten how to be a person.
Before she quit, her life zig-zagged between purpose and tiredness, never stopping to truly rest. She knitted on occasion — all the better for having a weapon without suspicion — and read books from charity shops, but all pursuits of leisure felt hollow in comparison to spiteing the Institute.
They feel hollow still, but she has nothing to throw herself into anymore.
It aches, and then it burns, and then Gertrude finds herself twisting at the silver still wrapped around her pinky finger, and she thinks of Agnes Montague.
Jurgen is good company, well-versed in silence, and they spend a lot of time sitting together, two chairs apart, in the living room of this stuffy little cottage.
She coughs to get his attention, waiting to hear the thud of his book on the coffee table.
“I want to tell you about Agnes,” Gertrude says. The words feel like cobwebs in her throat, sticky and glistening. She swallows, thinking of Emma, thinking of her cleverness and curiosity and the grey in the hair that Gertrude had thought was age until it was far, far too late. “It’s something I haven’t told anyone in— a long time.”
“You mentioned that name before.” Jurgen sounds as calm as ever, a hint of curiosity in his tone.
“Yes. My ‘pyromaniac streak’.”
Perhaps Gertrude ought to take up smoking in her old age. That might ease her, at least for a while. She’s missed the simplicity of fire.
“We were bound together when I was young,” Gertrude continues. “I won’t bore you with the details, but it was the Web’s doing — perhaps a way to prevent the Desolation’s ritual, or perhaps a way to keep me leashed. It’s rather a moot point by now. I only ever met her once.”
“This Agnes— Would that be Agnes Montague?”
“I— Yes.” Gertrude tilts her head. “You knew her?”
“Knew of her, certainly. I’m sure some of her church were involved in destroying my library.”
“Doubtless,” she agrees, sighing. “It was just before Emma— before I killed Emma. I needed information on what she’d done to Sarah, and Agnes was the only person I could trust. I thought the rest of that lot would sooner burn me alive than help me, and I was probably even right.
“Agnes and I didn’t speak for long. It’s almost funny; we had a lot in common, even without the webs tying us together. We both had regrets, reluctances, and resolve. From what I know of her, she was a remarkable woman, even to the end. Selfish and sacrificial at the same time.”
“I think you’re right about having a lot in common with her,” Jurgen mutters.
Gertrude gives him a sour smile — but she can’t dispute the point.
“I don’t know what led me to place my hand in hers,” she continues. “It was warm. Not burning, just… warm. I think that surprised both of us. Her skin was rough, and I could feel her age in every line of her palm, even if her face glowed with youth. There was something almost wistful to her expression, sad and soft, and then she pulled away and told me what I needed to know.”
All of Gertrude’s words desert her then. If she were a better woman, she might start sobbing.
“Gertrude?” Jurgen has the gall to sound legitimately concerned. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Gertrude snaps. Her fingers tug at that accursed binding. Sometimes, she fancies she can feel a tug back, a tightening that threatens to cut off her circulation.
“Mm,” Jurgen hums, clearly dubious.
“It’s just that— How can you stand this, Jurgen?”
“Stand what?”
“This,” she insists, gesturing to the room around them. “This farce of domesticity, play-acting as good people until something out there decides to seek us out for revenge and we have to break out the petrol and move on to somewhere that doesn’t know who we are.”
Jurgen shifts. It’s a few moments before he speaks, enough time to cool her ire into exhaustion. It might have been easier for her if her plan had failed, she thinks, not for the first time.
“We’ve done horrible things,” Jurgen starts, “even for the sake of good intentions. I’ve never personally believed in atonement, and even if I did, our horrors are too big to make up for. But I daresay we’ll do less harm in future if we keep ourselves to ourselves for as long as we can.”
“You don’t sound unhappy about that.”
“Well, no.” Jurgen sounds startled about that, and she can imagine the furrow of his brow, clear as day. “Compared to spending the rest of my life in the tunnels of Millbank Prison, this is practically paradise. Not ideal, but liveable, certainly.”
“Hm. I suppose you’re right.”
Gertrude is under no illusions that this is a happy ending. But it is, at least, an ending; a chance to breathe and rest before they’re pulled back underneath the waves.
“I never took you for an optimist,” she mutters. Jurgen just laughs, picking his book up again.