Work Text:
There are sounds of people talking nearby but to Marta, the conversation might as well be happening on another continent. All she can hear is her own thundering heartbeat as she stares unseeingly up at the macabre display of knives looming over her like an artistic reimagining of death itself.
(It's supposed to be, she thinks foggily; Harlan had explained the finer elements and symbolism to her once before but she can't quite recall what he'd said especially not right now.)
Her heart is still beating – racing, really, although that seems like an insignificant detail at the moment – and the only reason that's the case is because Harlan was right and Ransom really can't tell the difference between a prop knife and a real one.
Chance. A fluke. Nothing but sheer dumb luck.
If he'd picked a real one, she'd be dead right now.
Her vision gets a little blurry at that point, and it's only then that she vaguely realises she's still holding the prop knife against her chest – right above her heart, no less – where he'd dropped it after Lieutenant Elliot and Trooper Wagner had pulled him off her.
She wants to get rid of it – throw it somewhere far away or into a deep dark hole, anything as long as she never sees it again – but it's a chore to even remember to breathe-
“Marta?”
Just when it's starting to feel like the knives still wired in place are going to fall out and finish the job Ransom started, her view of them is blocked by a familiar face and ice blue eyes that are paradoxically filled with immeasurable warmth. She knows him – him and and his big showman voice, now all soft and gentle. Blanc, the small part of her brain that's still functioning despite the shock that has it in a stranglehold supplies. His name is Blanc.
The chaos in her head must be audible or something because the worried furrow in Blanc's brow deepens but then his gaze slides down and to the left of her face. “Let's put aside this grisly little item so Lieutenant Elliot and Trooper Wagner can take it away as evidence once they've dealt with the young Mr Drysdale, shall we?” he suggests, and it takes feeling his fingers carefully extracting the prop knife from under her hand for her to realise what he means.
It's hardly the time or place to notice that his fingers are surprisingly callused instead of soft like she'd originally expected but she does anyway.
“There we go.” His quietly pleased voice drags Marta back to reality whereupon she finds him openly eyeing her with genuine concern again. “Can you stand?” he asks with the same hand he'd used to take away the prop knife now empty and held out in a silent offer of help and support. Somehow she knows that he won't be offended if she doesn't take it – that he'll just let it fall to his side and step away to give her some breathing room as she gets to her feet on her own – and it should feel weird to know something like that but it doesn't.
She nods slightly, not sure if she should risk talking especially after her latest bout of vomiting, and takes his hand.
His grip is firm but not too tight when he helps her up which turns out to be a very good thing because the moment she's on her feet her knees buckle under her without warning. Her fall, however, is cut short when she stumbles into a solid form that almost dwarfs her and an arm wraps awkwardly but securely around her waist to keep her from hitting the ground again.
“Sorry,” she says except the word comes out more like an unintelligible rasp. Part of her is aware why her body isn't cooperating with her – she's a nurse, after all; a good nurse, he'd said – but knowing why isn't enough to force her limbs to work the way she wants them to right now.
“S'all right.” His soothing drawl fills her ears, momentarily drowning out the sound of her still thundering heartbeat, and distracts her enough that she almost doesn't notice him shifting so that his arm is less awkwardly positioned and thus better able to support her. “Come on now, let's get you seated somewhere more comfortable than the floor. Just put one foot forward then the next- That's it, keep going, you're doing marvellously.”
So focused is she on following his instructions and gentle encouragement that she only becomes aware that they're no longer in the library when he's carefully guiding her into a chair. They're in the small reading room where the Thrombeys had assembled earlier, she dimly realises – the small reading room where she had come within a hair's breadth of confessing to a crime she now knew she'd never committed.
That, for some reason, is the point she starts inexplicably trembling like she's just taken a plunge in the Arctic Ocean.
Some alien noise abruptly bursts out of her, and Marta thinks in a distant way like this is happening to someone else that she might be starting to hyperventilate.
“Goodness gracious!” Blanc exclaims, and that bizarrely helps especially when he starts leading her through a textbook deep breathing exercise. What she doesn't expect is his warm hands carefully helping her to shrug off her jacket which she only now notices is trying to squeeze the life out of her. He's saying something about loosening restrictive items of clothing and part of her wants to tell him that yes, she knows that, she's a nurse, but mostly she's just grateful because she doesn't think she would've actually remembered that on her own.
Of course, the problem with losing her jacket is her shaking just gets worse although he once again provides a solution almost immediately, procuring a blanket from somewhere in the room and draping it around her frame with a soft “There we go”. It's the green and white chequered one – a favourite of Harlan's, the one he liked to use when he sat outside to write on chilly spring mornings – and the memories are a welcome anchor that she grounds herself with – clings to by clutching the familiar fabric with trembling fingers.
“Better?” she hears him ask after what feels like forever, sounding incredibly close, and when she blinks she realises it's because he's kneeling in front of her, that look of open concern still plain as day on his face.
She opens her mouth, closes it, tries again. “Y-Yeah.”
The corners of his mouth curve upwards just a touch but the worry remains in those piercing blue eyes. “That's good to hear. Now, my momma always said a nice cup of tea cures everything and while I'm sure that, speaking as I am to a medical professional of your exceptional calibre-”
His random compliment doesn't quite coax a smile out of her but it comes close.
“-we can both agree that she might have overestimated its healing properties, bless her heart, I'd say it might help just a touch with your current situation. So how about it?”
“...Tea sounds good,” she manages to reply.
His smile widens and he nods. “All right then. And stay put while I'm gone, you hear? I expect to find you sitting right in this very chair when I get back.”
“I will.”
Marta watches him leave in the direction of the kitchen and pulls the blanket a little tighter around herself, suddenly unsure what she's supposed to do while she waits. It strikes her then that she can't remember the last time she was the one being taken care of instead of the other way around; her work aside, she rarely ever falls sick and even when it happens, she becomes her own nurse and soldiers on until she's better.
This is... nice, though.
Footfalls muffled by carpeting announce Blanc's return, but what she sees in his hand has her unexpectedly alert.
“That's-” -Harlan's mug, she wants to say but stops herself. Harlan's gone and he'd... he'd willed it all to her – the house and everything in it; Alan had read out loud something to that effect – so that mug with its (still accurate) message... It's... well, technically hers now, isn't it?
Blanc eyes her curiously, having stopped at her aborted exclamation, but doesn't say anything.
It's nothing... is what she would have told him if the thought alone didn't make her stomach roil so she settles for shaking her head mutely and holding out a hand in his direction.
Taking that as his cue and thankfully choosing not to ask any questions, he continues his approach and gestures for her to hold out her other hand as well so he can pass her the steaming mug. “Careful now; water's piping hot so you might want to wait a while before you take a sip else you'll burn your tongue.”
“Thank you. For the tea and-” she risks freeing one hand so she can wave it weakly in the air, “-everything else.”
“Ms Cabrera,” he starts as he lowers himself into the chair facing hers with a sombre expression that borders on grim, and she wonders why he's suddenly gone back to using her last name, “I'm afraid that far from accepting your gratitude, I must instead apologise most profusely for my failure to anticipate the extent of the young Mr Drysdale's vicious streak – a failure which, if not for divine providence, would likely have led to your untimely demise and thus a truly lamentable ending to this sordid tale.”
Maybe you really aren't that much of a detective after all. Marta considers the weak joke for a split second before dismissing it; Blanc is clearly beating himself up enough over it and the last thing she wants is to make him feel even more guilty than he already does even unintentionally. “It's okay,” she tells him instead. “No one could've seen it coming. Not even you.”
The furrow of his brow suggests her words didn't quite have their intended effect but he chooses not to argue and simply leans back in his chair.
It's only then that she notices he's got his coat draped over his left arm.
“You're leaving already?” she blurts out before she can think twice but when she does she feels so stupid because god, of course he's leaving soon; the mystery's been solved and the police have arrested the culprit – Ransom, she'd trusted Ransom, what had she been thinking? – so there's no reason for him to stick around any longer.
He blinks at her question, and she can't tell if he's surprised because he hadn't expected it or because maybe he thinks the answer was obvious for one reason or other. “I'll be required to go down to the precinct and make a formal statement about everything I've uncovered during the course of my investigation as well as... the most recent events of today and I'm certain Lieutenant Elliot would appreciate it all being done as quickly as possible. But.” He makes himself a little more comfortable in his chair. “It can wait a while. At least until I'm sure you're well enough to manage on your own.”
Guilt, now an unhappily familiar friend, rears its ugly head again. “You don't have to-”
“That may be true,” he interrupts gently, “but I would like to do so. If you'll permit me.”
He'll leave if she asks, true blue Southern gentleman that he is, and she almost does; asking him to stay sounds selfish and needy and she's not really sure how to be either of those things after a life of putting everyone else first.
But.
But she doesn't have to ask.
Because he's offering.
“...Okay.” She lets out a shaky exhale. “Thank you. Again.”
“Think nothing of it,” he waves it off with a lazy brush of his free hand, and even though he doesn't have a tell like hers it's obvious he really doesn't mind.
Silence falls over them but it's a comfortable one and she chances a sip of her tea – lets the warmth seep into her bones from the inside out and chase away all the demons hounding her even if just temporarily. For possibly the first time since that fateful night, she feels something that could reasonably pass for peace and with it comes the faint hope that yes, she really can make it through this day and the next and the one after it.
She can breathe.
It's a start.
Marta lets her mind drift a little after that as she stares at the steam disappearing lazily into the air, and with him sitting across from her like there's nowhere else he'd rather be her thoughts naturally turn to him – him and how he had gone from the man she'd thought was going to put her in jail to the man who'd absolved her of all her perceived crimes.
That's when a question forms in her head, and for a while she thinks it's not a mystery that needs solving so she really shouldn't bother... but she's curious.
She has to know.
“...Blanc?”
His gaze immediately slides away from a spot somewhere over her left shoulder to meet hers. “Yes?”
“Can I ask?” She pauses briefly, thinks it over again, then forges ahead anyway. “When did you know I had something to do with Harlan's death?”
(Unfortunately, his answer kind of ruins her recently achieved sense of peace but that's not really his fault so she doesn't hold it against him. Not much anyway.)