Archive of Our Own ^beta

The archivist is there to listen.

The job of the archivist is to record. It is to watch history pass by and to make sure that history is recorded for later generations. The archivists are few and far between, scattered throughout the universes, given a job to fulfil and spending their whole lives fulfilling it. The libraries they create from the knowledge they have are what hold up the worlds. Those who do not know their own history must repeat it, and therefore the archivist serves in the highest honour in most every universe. They are chosen by the archivist before them, living like travelling hermits in their spacecrafts. They have no one home because their duty is to everyone and therefore they must be able to be available to everyone. The archivist is respected everywhere.

When Harry is made the archivist, he is told that the archivist is not meant to interfere in the interactions of the universe. He is there only to record them, not to help them happen. He is an observer at all times.

He is also told that this is a lie. It's a small lie, really, because there is a single exception to the rule. Harry can make one change to what he sees happen. He has one chance to change events, if he so chooses. He is given a necklace with a small red gem in the middle, the kind that reflects any available light so it almost seems as if it emits its own. He's told to keep it safe, it may aid him one day.

He gets the spacecraft when he officially inherits his position as archivist, on his eighteenth birthday. It's his home, it'll be where he spends the rest of his life.

He feels a little lonely thinking of it like that, and vows to get a plant. Or, quite a few plants. Maybe it can be his own personal forest.

The spacecraft belonged to the previous archivist, and is filled with all the stuff she lived her life with. Harry's heard that she's retired to a nice planet with a lot of seas and gentle breezes to live the end of her life, but he's a little upset she hasn't taken all of her stuff with her. He doesn't want to start a life with a lot of baggage that's not even his, so he figures he'll start clearing it out immediately. There are a lot of cat figurines.

It's a bit larger than the flat he had back home, after moving out of his parents' house, not including the large library room that would be used to store his archival materials (as well as a fair amount that the archivist before him had left). This is where things are kept before being transferred over to the interuniversal library, where they can be accessed by almost anyone, providing they could prove themselves.

Harry spends the first few days exploring his new spacecraft, and getting it more or less organised to his liking. It'll take a long time to rid himself of all of that junk left from before him, but he does try to make a start, clearing out his bedroom entirely so that he can fill it with his own clothes, favourite books, and trinkets from back home. He doesn't get the entire spacecraft organised partly because mass dumpings of cat figurines seem to be frowned upon on almost every planet that Harry visits.

The other problem with cleaning the spacecraft is that his job as an archivist means that he tends to have sort of an odd sleep schedule. He has a calendar, of course, in which he keeps track of all of his appointed events (crowning of new princes and kings and such, creation of new countries, naming ceremonies and so on), but since these events all take place on different planets, he finds that it's a much more complicated schedule than he would have originally assumed. Different planets means different suns and different rotations, so he gets quite a bit of travel fatigue going between places where days are eight hours and places where days are upwards of forty hours. It's something very difficult to get used to. He's told that eventually his body will adjust itself so that he can sleep and wake on command without feeling the crazy levels of exhaustion that he feels now, but so far it's not happening.

On the fourth day, he climbs back onto the spacecraft (it needs a name soon, Harry thinks) during what would be 3 am back on his home planet (it's what all the clocks are set to, in order to simplify matters). It was exhausting, being a witness to the birth of three new royal triplets. He thinks maybe it could have simply been the archivist's job to say "and three royal triplets were born on this day," but no, the family had wanted the event recorded in detail, so he had been made to put his shorthand to the test in recording exactly how dilated the queen was (gross), and how long the contractions had lasted (he almost vomited on several occasions), and of course how much each baby had weighed, as well as, oddly enough, how long each ones' ears were. Apparently, that was how they would determine which of the three would be the future ruler. Odd system, but Harry wasn't one to question it.

Really, Harry wasn't one for doing much of anything at this point but taking a very long sleep. He stumbles into his room without the energy to take a shower (water imported from this planet has a funny smell to it anyway), and barely manages to get out of his official robes before he finds himself collapsing onto his bed. Sleep hits him fast, like a punch to the gut but slightly more pleasant, and with a promise of making him less tired, instead of giving him aching ribs.

He can't have been out for more than a few hours when he's woken by something. He checks his alarm clock but it's thankfully not that. Thankfully, because that means he doesn't have to be at a new planet any time soon and can get more sleep in. He closes his eyes and attempts to return to his dreams (of home and a sunny backyard), when the noise comes again.

His eyes shoot open now because this noise is sounding oddly alive, and he knows he should be the only truly living thing on this ship (no plants having been purchased yet). He stays still and tries to concentrate on the sound.

It's the sound of crying.

Really, it sounds more like sobbing, to be honest. But the sound is muffled like it's coming from quite a long ways away. Harry tries to think up circumstances in which someone would be crying on his spacecraft. How did someone even get on his spacecraft? Should he be worried? He doesn't tend to be scared of crying people, but he feels like this may be an exception to some kind of rule. "Sobbing people who sneak onto spacecrafts are dangerous" or something.

He gets out of bed carefully, trying to be quiet and think through his circumstances. Did he put into coordinates for his next destination, so the ship is flying on autopilot? Or did he leave it docked overnight to figure out when he woke up? He thinks it's still docked, thinks he was too exhausted to program new coords.

He leaves his room and pads down the dark hallway, listening to the sobs. They sound a little hysterical at this point, which he thinks should be a worrying sign but he's still not sure a sign for what. He passes his kitchen and tiny dining area and makes his way to his makeshift library, where he keeps most of his archivist notes-in-progress. The room is a bit lighter than the rest of the craft has been and he soon sees why.

In the far wall of the library is a hole, and light is pouring out of it. It's not the kind of light that leads one to believe that there's a hole in the side of his craft, it's much too bright for it to be from the outdoors. He's so confused. This is definitely a wall that connects the library with the outside. Definitely. What's going on?

The wall of the library has a small section not covered in shelves, and it's decorated with a pattern that is supposed to replicate the old stonework of castles in primitive times. Harry approaches the hole and finds that it looks like one of the stones has been removed. It's maybe eight or ten inches wide, and half that in height. From the hole is bright white light that takes Harry's eyes a few minutes to adjust to. He feels for a minute that looking through the hole would be considered snooping but this is HIS spacecraft after all, and therefore whatever is on the other side should belong to him as well, right?

And on the other side is the sound of sobbing.

He takes a look through the hole, finally, and what he sees on the other side he is fairly certain is not his spacecraft.

It's a small white room; the walls are white, the floor is white, and he thinks the ceiling is white too. Certainly it's small, no more than the size of his bathroom, Harry thinks. He can't tell where the light comes from, there doesn't seem to be a light fixture in the room that he can see, but it's certainly unnecessarily bright.

In the far corner sits a boy. He's curled into a ball, his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around them and head down. Harry can see some dark brown hair and light skin, somewhere with only one sun probably. He can't see the boy's face because it's buried in his knees, but the boy's entire body is shaking with his sobs, which don't seem to be lessening.

Harry thinks he'll probably get dehydrated pretty soon.

He also has no clue what to do.

So, in lieu of more intelligent sounding options, he does the first thing that comes to mind, and tries to talk sense into the boy.

"Hey, hey kid?" There's no indication that the boy has heard him. He repeats himself louder to no avail. Then, "Hey you! Heeeeey! Sad boy! Hey!"

He doesn't think the boy can hear him, because even if he's being purposefully ignored, he thinks he would have gotten some sort of flinch or something at this point. So, time for the next thing that comes to mind. He psyches himself up for a moment then, before he can tell himself otherwise, takes his hand and sticks it through the hole.

If he reaches all the way up to his elbow, so that he has to bend at a really odd angle in order to still be able to see at the same time, he can just brush the leg of the boy with his fingertips.

The boy jumps, and his head snaps up and OH his eyes are VERY blue, which is difficult to notice at this angle but how could Harry NOT. He's also older than Harry had originally thought, judging by that (tear-streaked) face, like he's Harry's age if not older.

The boy is staring at Harry's hand now, which is sort of just stretched out in the space between them because Harry did not think this through clearly. He tries to plan out his next move, but none come to mind, so he clears his throat and goes, "Um, hello?"

The boy gives no indication of having heard Harry, and he's trying his hardest now it seems to stop crying, catching the sobs in his throat and turning them into what looks like painful hiccups. He's also trying to inch backwards from Harry's hand, but he's already got his back virtually in the corner of the room so he can't really.

Harry thinks his hand sticking through a hole in a wall might be making a strange boy uncomfortable. Odd how that works. So he withdraws his arm back through the hole, slowly as if he might scare the boy more if he moved faster.

"Um." the boy goes. He hiccups and takes a few shuddering breaths. "Um."

"I don't think you can hear me." Harry says, more to himself than to the boy, but there's no indication of the boy hearing him, so Harry takes that as him agreeing.

"Wait..." the boy seems uncertain. He's got puffy red eyes and is probably quite dehydrated now and he's still shaking more than a little. "I, um, wait."

Harry doesn't know what that means. He's got his face in front of the hole, but the boy doesn't give any indication of being able to see him. This is bizarre. He can't figure out what could possibly be going on.

The boy's voice breaks the next time he speaks. "Come back?" he asks, his eyes clearly not focusing on anything, although he's looking in the general direction of Harry.

Harry doesn't know whether this is a good idea but he's decided there are clearly no rules for such a situation so after a moment of hesitation he finds himself sticking his arm back through the hole in his wall, not stretching out all the way to meet the boy but enough that he's clearly in the room. The boy's eyes are clearly focusing on the hand now, and they're wide, following his every twitch with rapt attention.

"Um..." the boy says again. "Am I- um... are you attached to a human? Are you more than just a hand?"

Harry's not really sure how to respond. At all. How does one respond to accusations of being only a hand? He's sure at this point that the boy can't hear him, but he still voices his opinion that "I am very much an entire human." He doesn't know sign language though, can't figure out how to convey that he is very whole and complete, rather than simply flapping his hand around a little. It occurs to him that although the hole is too small for him to stick his whole head in, he could maybe get his other arm through, at the cost of not seeing the other boy's reaction, so for a moment he pulls his face back and tries sticking both hands through. He can only really get them both in up to the elbow, but he waves around a minute, to an audible gasp from the boy, before going back to just his right hand so he can see through at the same time.

"Are you, um... Are you one of the sisters?"

The sisters. Who are the sisters? Harry can't remember a religious affiliation of any kind on the planet he was just visiting. Either way, he's not anyone's sister. He tries to make a negative hand motion, sticking his hand out flat and waving it back and forth, similar to how his sister dries her nails when she paints them.

"I think that's a no. Is that a no?"

It's frustrating trying to hold a conversation with one hand. Awkward, even.

"Could you- Am I-." The boy thinks for a minute. At least he's stopped crying. Harry's arm is an odd distraction. "Am I hallucinating? I felt you touch me. Did you really?"

Harry reaches out his arm far enough that the boy could almost simply lean into the touch. A minute later, a hand much small than his own is touching his, poking at it as if checking that it's not a hologram.

"I guess I'm not hallucinating? Er, what are you?"

Harry's frustrated with that question. What is HE? What is this BOY? Why is he in a hole in Harry's study? Why can't he hear Harry? For lack of an explanation, he looks around to simply have some sort of response to give. Libraries are supposed to give knowledge, helpful solutions. All Harry sees is a nearby vase of fake flowers.

Well, that'll do.

Harry pulls his arm back in (it was starting to ache anyway), and can hear a hesitant confused question from the other side of the wall, but ignores it for the moment in favour of grabbing the fake flowers out of the vase. Then, sitting back at the hole, he sticks his hand through, fake flower scrunched in his palm, and flings it none too gracefully at the boy. It hits him in the face.

The boy lets out a squeak of surprise and stumbles backward a moment. "What-"

Harry throws another flower at him. This could go on a while if he wants. He's got quite a few blossoms left.

"Wait! What is this? Where is it coming from?" The boy is sounding more confused (who can blame him?) as he picks up the flowers that have been thrown at him. He then looks back at Harry's arm, and he seems to be looking in the general direction of where Harry's arm emerges from the wall.

"There's no hole in the wall, you know."

Harry did not know. This is a surprise to Harry, He questions the hole that he's looking through. He tries to grab at the flowers that the boy is holding.

"Wait, did that offend you? I'm sorry!" the boy says in the direction of Harry's hand, which makes him laugh. A boy is apologising to his hand. "What I mean is, you're just emerging from a wall. Like, it makes it look like it's liquid or something. How are you doing that?"

He scooches closer to the wall where Harry is, still sitting down and grasping flowers in one hand. He moves his other hand to Harry's arm, which Harry has withdrawn until only his forearm is sticking through. The boy tentatively touches the arm, runs his finger up it with a light brush that makes Harry shiver a little (the boy seems to notice, "Is this okay?" he asks). Then when his fingers get to just above Harry's elbow, it seems as if some invisible force is keeping him from moving farther.

It's right where Harry's arm emerges on the other side of the hole.

What the fuck is going on in Harry's life?

"I change my mind," the boy says. "I must be hallucinating."

Harry sticks his other hand out and deposits the rest of the fake flowers in the boy's lap.

The boy stares at his hap. He lets the flowers in his hand drop to join them. "You know, you're not convincing me otherwise."

Both of Harry's hands are in the hole up to their wrists. He tries for a shrugging motion, then withdraws a hand so he can see the boy's face, and he's smiling now, at the place where Harry's arms are, almost at the place where Harry's face is.

If only.

Or something.

"Well, as far as hallucinations go, a lap full of flowers is probably nice. Um, thanks, I guess."

They both sit there for a few minutes. Where does one proceed from here? But Harry is still tired as all get out, and he can feel sleep pulling at his eyes again. So he withdraws his arm slowly, lingering a moment over the hand of the other boy before leaving him entirely.

"Oh, uh, goodbye?" the boy questions. He looks sad. Harry wonders what sort of life a boy leads that he's sad when a disembodied arm leaves him. But at least he's not crying any more, so Harry must have left some positive effect. He lingers a moment longer before getting up, stretching his back until the satisfying pop echoes around the library, and heads back to bed.

He dreams of small boys in bright rooms.

The next time he wakes up, he makes his way to the library but the hole is gone.

It's two sleep cycles later that Harry arrives home from recording the crowning of a new queen to find that his spacecraft once again doesn't sound as empty as he left it. Putting down his papers and camera right inside the door, he makes a beeline for the library. He can hear crying again, echoing through his walls. It's not as loud as last time, but he's pretty sure it sounds like the same boy.

Sure enough, he enters the library where the lights had been dimmed the last time he left the craft, to find that the hole is back, and once again filtering bright white light into the room.

Absolutely bizarre.

He tries to make some sort of connection between now and the time two days ago as he walks back over to the spot on the floor that he had occupied last time. Why has it appeared again? What circumstances have been filled? He can't think of anything. This planet is nothing like the last one.

He sits in front of the hole on the cold library floor, vowing to remember a cushion or something next time (next time?) and looks in to find the same boy once again, in almost the same position as he was in last time. He's curled himself into a ball at the far end of the tiny room and is sobbing into his knees.

Harry takes a moment to consider that maybe it's a sort of time loop, and he's watching the boy live the same day that he lived last time. To test his theory (what has he got to lose?) he sticks his arm through the hole once again, and stretches until his fingertips can brush the boy's leg.

The boy flinches at the contact, shedding tears as he looks up and sees Harry's fingers still lightly resting on his leg. He shakes his head frantically, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands and addresses the hand in front of him.

"I'm so sorry, so so sorry."

Probably not a time loop then.

The boy reaches out his hand, a little wet with tears, and brushes it against Harry's. "They took the- the flowers!" he shudders a little as he says it, clearly still in the crying mindset. "Said- they said I'm not allowed to have them. They seemed really confused."

Well, Harry probably would have been too. Who knows where they (whoever they were) thought the boy got the flowers from?

The boy began almost petting Harry's hand, tracing the bones in his fingers up to his wrist. "I guess that proves that you weren't, um, weren't a hallucination. So, sorry I guess. For thinking you weren't real."

Harry's never been apologised to for something thinking he wasn't real, before. It's quite reassuring, really. He tries to make some sort of response with his hand, some way of showing that he understands what the boy is saying. He turns his palm upward and softly clasps the boy's hand in his. It's a soft hand, clearly the kind that isn't used to manual labour of any kind, and it's dwarfed in Harry's own bony hands, calloused from years of constant scribe work.

The boy trembles a little still, but he doesn't move his hand away. He's sniffling and wiping his face with the arm of the tunic he's got on, as bright white as the room he's in. He's silent for a minute before continuing. "M'still not really sure what you are, though. Like, I can't think of any sort of stories about arms appearing through walls to give flowers to people, so I don't think you're some sort of fairy tale or something. And I think you must be a whole person of some kind because you stuck your other hand through, so..."

Harry considers a moment and then unclasps the boy's hand, drawing his arm back through the hole. He hears the boy starting to give apologies and asking if he's offended Harry, but Harry's already got a plan in motion. It's an odd angle, but he manages to balance himself so that he can stick one of his legs through, up to almost his knee (the hole is a little hard to navigate his foot through). He waves his bare foot and the end of his pleated slacks around a moment (archival dress robes were frowned upon in the planet he was just on, so he had been wearing an old suit that seemed to belong to the woman before him), then withdraws it again and repositions himself so he can stick his hand back through, and gauge the boy's reaction to seeing that YES Harry is at least THREE body parts!

For a moment, the boy looks shocked. Then, much to Harry's delight, he lets out a peal of laughter, a large smile alighting on his face which suits him very nicely and makes crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes.

"What the fuck?" the boy gasps out. "You're so WEIRD! What ARE you?" He scooches forward and grabs Harry's hand like it's what he does all the time, and Harry feels like this is maybe the highlight of his experience so far, getting to hold hands with a boy who might still think he is some sort of three-limbed monster and make him laugh. It's pleasant. Confusing as all hell because what the fuck is going on, but pleasant nonetheless.

He wishes he could ask the boy his name, find out who he is, and WHERE he is, because after an inspection of the craft last time this happened, Harry came to the conclusion that where this room appears to be is definitely outside the ship. But he still can't do that, because for whatever reason the boy can’t hear him, and he can’t see the hole that Harry can. Whatever's going on here is certainly nothing he's encountered before and, as the archivist, he has encountered (or read about past archivists encountering) quite a lot.

After a moment of sitting in silence and holding hands with the boy in the hole, he hears a noise; a loud rumbling echoing around the small room the boy's in.

"Sorry..." he mumbled, curling his legs up to his chest. "They don't give me dinner. Say I only need meal a day, and my body will adjust after a bit." He looks a little sad and Harry knows he's missing something but he has no idea what. But he remembers the flowers he threw at the boy yesterday and that he's got a cupboard fully stocked from his last trip to a marketplace. No way he could eat all of it before it goes bad anyway, and he always over buys when food looks good. He gently shakes off the boy's hand and holds up a finger, hoping to make a gesture that conveys he'll be back momentarily.

"Are you leaving already?" the look the boy gives is puppy dog level sad. "I mean, I know you're just an arm but I liked the company, really!" Harry reaches out a moment to pat his head, like the puppy dog he's acting like, and withdraws his hand. He jogs out of the library (it's surreal being in his dark spacecraft after looking into that bright room) and down to the kitchen. He pulls out a few boxes of biscuits, for variety's sake, and a banana. Bananas are hard to find outside of his own planet and they go bad so terribly fast (these already have brown spots on them and he was at his mother's less than a week ago), so there's no point in trying to eat them all himself before they're thoroughly disgusting. He grabs a bottle of water too, as an afterthought.

Walking back to the library, Harry has the sudden realisation that since he doesn't know why the hole appears and what makes it disappear, he might have just accidentally shut himself out, since the last time this happened when he returned the hole was gone. It worries him and he quickens his pace, but a glance into the library as he rounds the bend tells him that this is not the case; the hole's still there and the boy is sitting patiently on the other side.

Harry sets himself down again on the floor in front of the hole and opens a packet of chocolate biscuits. He grabs a small handful and sticks his arm through the wall, dropping them at the boy's feet.

"What's this?" the boy asks, picking one up and examining it. Harry starts to worry that he's never had biscuits before (what sort of depraved world does he come from?), but a second later the boy is stuffing the whole thing into his mouth. "Oh hell," he says, his mouth full of chocolate and biscuit, "you brought me food? Are you some sort of angel?" He goes for the other two biscuits left on the floor - practically dives for them - and stuffs them in his mouth before he's even done with the first one. "Chocolate! I didn't think I'd ever taste chocolate again! You're a lifesaver, I apologise for every time I said you were a hallucination."

Harry laughs at the boy's blissed out expression. He withdraws his hand long enough to grab the banana and bottle of water and manoeuvre them through to the boy. The boy takes the water from him immediately and takes a swig, but he eyes the fruit suspiciously. "Dunno what that is, mate. Looks like a fruit. Am I supposed to eat it?"

Harry groans because of course the boy doesn't know what a banana is. Well, if nothing else this could rule out him living somewhere on Harry's home planet. He takes the banana and brings his hand back until it's only wrist deep through to the other room, giving him enough space to stick his other hand through and make a show for the boy of peeling the banana. He points to the white inner part that he's peeled, and tries to hand it back to the boy, who takes it with a mistrustful look as Harry goes back to having only one arm sticking through.

"I eat this part? The middle part?" the boy squints at it like it holds some great secret, then takes a tentative bite. "Wow. This is the weirdest thing I've ever tasted. Isn't fruit supposed to be juicy? Is this even fruit?" he keeps taking more bites though, still clearly ravenous, until he's all out and then looks at the peel like that may be worth it to eat as well. Before he can get the chance, Harry grabs it from him and pulls it back through the hole, eliciting a "heeeeey" from the boy on the other side. To make up for it (what is he making up for? No one should eat the peel), Harry sticks a whole box of Jaffa cakes through, which the boy immediately pounces on.

"More biscuits! I'm keeping you around. These are fucking delicious!" Harry sits and watches him devour them, trying not to think about the sleep he's probably missing out on. It's fairly worth it.

The boy is halfway through the package when Harry's feeling his eyelids droop and knows he needs to get some sleep. He doesn't know a good way to say goodbye to a boy who can't hear him, so in lieu he sticks out his hand and ruffles the boy's hair, who leans into his touch. He waves and withdraws his hand. As he walks away he hears a "Goodbye," uttered from the other side.

Harry's tried to go over all the information that he knows about the boy on the other side of the wall. It's not a lot, really. He's some place where there are "sisters" - so either it's a large family or a convent of some kind, maybe? He doesn't know what bananas are, but he knows biscuits and chocolate. He wears a white tunic, which looks to Harry the sort of thing worn in religious ceremonies, so maybe he's part of a church somewhere? And why the room? It's tiny, and way too bright, and the boy doesn't seem to ever be doing anything but sitting there. Well, Harry's only seen him in their twice anyway, but still. It's odd.

Also, one meal a day. He hopes their days are very short ones.

He's recorded for himself the two times that he's met the boy, hoping that some sort of pattern will become clear if the boy appears again. He desperately hopes he does. The spacecraft (STILL needs a name) has seemed a lot less lonely than Harry had initially thought it would be, with the knowledge that he could run into that mysterious stranger again.

It had been about two days between the first two visits, almost exactly two days really, so he thinks maybe it won’t be too long until he appears again. Looking at his calendar though, he sees a problem. He's got a christening planned for the time when supposedly he'll be able to see the boy again. He's got to attend the christening, it's his job as the archivist and his first and foremost duty is always that. But. But he doesn't want to miss the chance to see the boy.

So the day of the christening comes and Harry arrives a little early in the hope that maybe they could start a bit soon, hurry things up a bit, anything. Of course it doesn't work, that would be like starting a court case early because of the stenographer. He's there several hours, and spends all of them terribly antsy, watching the minutes click by. The child being christened doesn't like him much either, and keeps flicking him with holy water. He hopes whatever goddess is supposed to watch over this planet will swoop down and strike the child with lightning or something, but it doesn't happen, at least not while he's there.

Finally being allowed to excuse himself, he makes it back to his craft at a breakneck pace. He waits only long enough to drop his things right inside the door and program the coordinates for his next job (thank the heavens for autopilot), and jogs for the library.

The hole in the wall is there, and he lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. He can hear sniffling, and wonders why the boy is always crying, what in his life could possibly be so sad? No one should cry as much as this boy seems to.

He makes his way over and sets himself down, and on the other side of the wall he sees the boy curled up on his side, like he's trying to sleep, tears leaking from his closed eyes. Harry's heart lurches and he just wants to know what he can do to help, how can he comfort? He doesn't know, but he'll figure it out, he will.

He sticks his hand through and, with the softest touch he can manage, runs his fingers through the boy's hair. The boy whimpers and curls tighter in on himself, seemingly subconsciously, before slowly opening his eyes. They're red rimmed and bloodshot like he's clearly been crying a while and Harry doesn't know what to DO so he runs his hand through the boy's hair again, hoping to convey some sort of comfort.

The boy stares at his hand as it runs through his fringe, completely still and expressionless for a moment. He opens his mouth after a few minutes and his voice comes out in a croak. "I thought you weren't coming back this time."

Harry's struck with the realisation that the boy might have been crying because of him, and what on earth does he do with that information? What has he gotten himself into? He moves his hand from the soft locks and goes to grab hold of his hand instead, but in the process he brushes up against the boy's arm and when he does the boy lets out a cry, flinching at the light touch. Harry doesn't know what's going on but there's definitely something wrong here and in an effort to find out what it is, he grabs the boy's loose white sleeve and tugs upward.

The boy cringes as his sleeve is moved and Harry lets out a gasp at the sight. His arm is covered in welts from elbow to wrist, all of them clearly fresh, bright red stripes marking him more than a tiger. He lets the sleeve fall back, doesn't know what to do. What's been going on? What happened here?

"They- they thought I was doing magic."

The boy tugs at Harry's hand, taking it in both of his own. "You left the box for the biscuits here, and they found it when they came in this morning, and thought I had done some sort of black magic to get them. Had to punish me somewhere where the people can't see, in case it doesn't heal in time."

Harry's head is spinning, he's clearly getting half a story here and he desperately needs the other half. Someone has HURT this boy and he needs to know who and he needs them to stop. It narrows down the planets quite a bit, since few are still simple enough to believe in the art of magic, but it's still a larger number than he wants to deal with figuring out.

"I- I thought maybe they had sent you to trick me, to test me or get me in trouble or something, and then when you didn't come back right away this time-" the boy's voice breaks and tears spill over his cheeks again. Harry squeezs both of the smaller hands in his.

"But you did. Why do you keep coming back? They clearly don't know that you're here, or I would be given another room, right? They don't want me fed more than once a day. I didn't get lunch because of last night."

Last night. He means the last time that Harry had seen him, had given him the biscuits and banana. He hadn't eaten since then? That had been two days by Harry's time! Fuck, Harry could at least have given him something substantial, with protein and shit.

He gives another squeeze to the hands and goes to extract himself. The boy is probably starving! Does he even get water during the day? Three days without water kills you!

The boy protests the withdrawal of his hand, scrabbling to grab it again. "Wait, please! Don't leave! Don't leave me alone!" and Harry feels so guilty but he only wants to help, only wants to make it better because this was his fault to begin with, he's the one who left the biscuit box with the boy.

So he hurries back to his kitchen and tries to grab as much as he can; biscuits and fruit and crisps and two bottles of water and some lunch meat because he's out of bread from making eggs on toast all week. He also ducks into his bathroom on the way back down the hallway and scrabbles through his cabinet, which is mostly filled with lots of jars of things like aloe that the previous archivist probably picked up from all sorts of planets but Harry doesn't have time right now to check what they're used for. He finds, at the back, a small jar of salve that he knows should help the welts and adds it to the pile in his arms.

Then he's back in the library again and dumping everything on the floor and picking out of the pile the jar of salve, pushing it through the hole and dropping it on the boy's lap.

"Oh dear lord, you're back!" the boy rasps out, "Please stop just leaving like that, give me some sort of signal that you're coming back or something! I didn't want to spend the rest of the night alone. What's this?"

Harry doesn't know how to explain without words, so he tries to point to the label.

"I, uh, do you want me to read it?" the boy looks embarrassed. "Well... it's, um, I can't. Read, that is."

The boy can't read. The boy that looks older than Harry, with sharp cheekbones and eyes like the most beautiful iced planets that Harry's been to, but he's never gotten the chance to learn to read.

He grabs back the salve, opens it one-handed (a feat; he's proud of that), and sticks a finger into the beige ointment. He reaches back out to the boy, tentatively so that he doesn't startle him, and pushes his hand under the boy's sleeve so that he can smear the ointment onto the dark welts.

The boy tenses and lets out a whimper, his whole body goes rigid and Harry hopes that this WAS the right cream that he grabbed, and the previous archivists wasn't into, like, keeping poisonous substances in her bathroom cabinet. But a second later the boy relaxes, he almost seems to collapse into Harry's touch, and lets out a breath. "Th-thanks, oh hell, you have no idea..." he rolls up his sleeves - and Harry sees that the welts cover both arms and he feels a little sick - and starts covering his skin with the substance. He cringes a little and Harry hopes it's just because the ointment is cold.

He withdraws his hand and wipes the rest of the ointment off onto his shirt, and grabs a water bottle. Instead of placing it in the room, he just pushes it through the hole and lets it topple to the ground on the other side, which elicits a squeak of surprise from the boy. He follows with a bag of crisps and the package of lunch meat, dropping them all at the boy's feet.

"What is- what are-" the boy surveys what's been placed in front of him and his eyes widen. "Is that MEAT? It looks like meat. I haven't had meat in ages!" he scrabbles for the package, the ointment forgotten. Tearing it open, he grabs a handful of slices of what Harry thinks he remembers as chicken (it's been a while since he bought it, and he hopes it's still good).

He finishes off the package so fast Harry thinks he might be sick. After taking a moment to recover and take a drink from one of the water bottles, he looks down at the empty container in his lap. "Oh, they're going to think... Do you think you could, um, take this back with you?"

Harry immediately grabs the empty container and brings it back through the hole. Of course he was already planning on not letting any trash linger on the other side, after what had happened. He sticks his hand back through and retrieves the salve as well, capping it and putting it back on his side.

He waits as the boy slowly eats his way through everything that Harry brought him. He fumbles a little trying to peel the banana on his own, but manages that too in the end, only having smushed it a little. After everything, Harry works to get rid of the evidence, removing all the wrappers, bottles and the peel.

The boy is back to holding his hand now, and his eyelids are starting to droop a little. Harry wishes he would talk more, maybe about his life or especially his name, but the boy doesn't seem to feel the need. He remembers the boy saying that it's night there, and wonders if he should be sleeping.

"Thank you," the boy mutters. He switches between looking at Harry's hand and looking at the space where Harry's hand disappears into the wall. "I wish you'd talk to me, but I don't think you can, can you?"

He waits for an answer that of course doesn't come, because Harry cant reply. He tries to make the same motion that he had a few days ago, shaking his hand out flat, but it's harder when the smaller hand is clutching his.

"That's supposed to be a no, right? You can't talk. I wish I knew why not. You're very nice, you know. I wish I'd known you before this. I didn't though, right?"

Harry has no idea what that means, but he repeats the gesture. Before what?

"I think..." the boy yawns. He stretches the hand holding Harry's up to cover his mouth and Harry feels a warm puff of air. "I think I'll really fall asleep tonight. But could- could you stay with me until I do? Like, I know you don't live in the wall or whatever, you probably have places you go, but..."

Harry squeezes his hand and hopes that's affirmation enough.

The boy nods and keeps breathing his thanks as he settles down onto the ground, pulling Harry's hand with him and wrapping around it like it's a plush toy. Harry wonders how he can sleep like that, with the bright light and the hard floor, but the boy says it like it's not a common thing so maybe he doesn't, at least not often.

Harry repositions himself and tries to make himself comfortable on the floor in the library and waits what feels like a very short time until he hears even breaths and tiny snores coming from the other side before he disconnects his hand and pulls it back through.

He doesn't sleep well that night, red welts slapped across his dreams.

Harry only gets to sleep about three hours before he has to be up again in time to arrive at a royal execution. It's one of his least favourite parts of the job, recording death, especially preventable death. But it's still a part of history and he has to be there for it.

The execution is long and gruelling. A royal family who has been forced from their ruling position and now one by one face the guillotine. Each one has to have their crimes read to them before they proceed, and the list is long. Also in parts very trivial; things such as picking fruit from the orchards of their subjects, or rounding up when it comes to tax season. Harry gets a cramp in his hand writing them all down. He hopes this is worth it to future generations, because it doesn't seem worth it to him.

Immediately as he's walking into his craft after the exhaustingly boring (and, of course, quite sad) execution, he gets a call that he's needed to appear at the birth of a prophesied shaman, who is being born a month earlier than normal and can he please hurry? He only has enough time to organise his notes from the execution and grab his camera and a new pen for the birth before he's arriving in the dense forest of a planet four away from the one he was just in.

The shaman is nice. She doesn't cry, at least, and comes out of the womb speaking a prophecy that no one can understand because the baby clearly doesn't know any languages yet. Harry tries his best to write it down anyway.

Only, just as he's returning home and wiping the sweat from his face does he find that he's needed at a revolution happening not too far away. That one takes half a day, and suddenly he's getting a message about an unexpected abdication, and the next thing he knows he's been without sleep for forty hours and the world is getting all fizzy looking.

He stumbles into his spacecraft and barely makes it to the couch in the front room, collapsing in exhaustion. But then he takes a moment to think of the boy in the hole in the wall, and he doesn't want to miss him because he feels a certain responsibility for him at this point. He needs sleep, though, he really does. So he compromises, as best he can think up in his bleary state. He slips into the kitchen because he's going to be prepared this time and grabs an armful of food, and stumbles into the library, dragging all the cushions from the couch and setting them on the floor in front of the wall which currently looks entirely flat and without a hole of any kind. He taps the stone that is sometimes missing and finds it's hard as a, well, stone. Makes sense. It's a goddamn mystery and Harry is much too tired to try to think it through. He pulls a blanket over himself and settles down on his makeshift bed of cushions and revels in the fact that supposedly no one should be dying or giving birth or ascending the throne for at least another twenty hours.

"Hello?"

Harry's head is still more than a bit fuzzy with lack of sleep and he curls tighter into a ball on a very comfortable squishy surface. It's too soft to be his bed, but it's quite nice, he thinks.

"Are you there? Um, I don't know what to call you. Mister Hand?"

Mister Hand. Who the hell would call him Mister Hand? This is one of the weirdest dreams he's ever had.

Then he's waking up and he's realising that the voice is in fact not from a dream at all. He squints around and finds that there's light in the room where there wasn't before, and after a moment of adjusting, he's able to make out the hole in the wall just above where he's lying. He's still not awake enough to move his whole body, that would take tremendous energy that he'll need to work up to, but he's awake enough reach one arm up and grasp the ledge of the hole, thinking that if nothing else his fingers would be visible on the other side.

"Oh! There you are! You respond to Mister Hand, then. That's good to know."

Harry laughs to himself. It's single handedly the worst nickname he's ever been given, he thinks. But at least he has a name now, and he thinks it make him a bit more real to the boy, and a bit less like a mindless limb that feeds him food. Right?

Speaking of which. He takes his hand back and rummages around on the floor until he locates a bag of crisps and a water bottle. He pushes the bottle through the hole, and the crisps right after them.

"Ow!"

That's not a normal response to food.

Finally awake enough to consider moving, he sits up and looks through to the other side where he sent the food. He's terribly confused for a moment because he seems to be confronted with a very empty room, but then he notices bare feet right at the bottom of his vision. He sticks his hand up to his elbow and bends his arm downward to locate the rest of the body the feet are attached to and-

Smack!

"Ow!"

Oops.

He feels around until he locates the fringe above the face that he clearly just smacked and tries to pet it softly, soothingly. How does a hand without a mouth apologise? It's unclear to him.

"I guess I shouldn't have switched walls, I just wanted to see you appear from close-up. But can you not see me?"

The boy scooches around back to lean against the other wall that is his normal position, crisps and water bottle in hand. Once in his field of vision again, Harry waves.

"Ah! Well you can see me now, I guess. I don't understand, really. But that's okay. You brought me food again!" he opens the crisps bag and digs in, making satisfied noises. "You didn't need to this time, you know. They fed me today, didn't think I did magic this time."

Well. Harry is certainly relieved to hear that. He reaches out to the boy and lifts his sleeve a little. The welts are still there, but not nearly as visible. He breathes a sigh of relief, there are no new ones.

"Yeah, my arms don't hurt so much today either. It was that stuff you gave me! Helped so much, you have no idea. I didn't realise that cream could work like that! Never had anything like it back home."

He's almost done with the crisps so Harry hands over his hast banana, much browner than he would have preferred eating, but the boy's eyes light up when it's set down in front of him.

"And this thing! I love these. They're delicious. Wish I knew what they were called. Wish you could tell me. Can you speak, Mister Hand? Like, clearly you can't with me, but maybe somewhere else you can, right? I thought maybe you were trapped in the wall, but I looked on the other side yesterday and there's just the sisters' prayer space, and I don't think anyone would want to hang out there. Plus, the wall is completely solid. I should know, I checked myself. Got weird looks from the sisters but it's not like there's much they can do to me at this point."

Harry sits and smiles and listens to the boy talk because this is the happiest he's seen him so far and he finds that he could listen all day. His voice is high and a little scratchy, like bee honey and crunchy fall leaves.

The boy holds out his own hands and takes Harry's between them, playing with his fingers. "I'm so happy you keep coming back, Mister Hand. I'm sure the sisters know nothing about you, and I'm not sure why not because it's their house you're in, but it's nice, it really is. I knew I'd be lonely here, but I didn't realise just how lonely until that first night, and I missed my sisters back home so terribly, I really did, and I was crying so hard it was rather embarrassing. But then you came out of nowhere! You're like magic, if magic was a good thing and not bad. Like an angel, if angels still existed. Anyway, I'm just trying to say thanks. I spent an entire day without crying because I thought you might be here when I get back."

For once Harry's glad that the boy can't hear him, because he has no idea how he would respond to that. His mind is racing a mile a minute trying to process the information being thrown at him, connecting the dots to figure out where the boy is. Is it a religious boarding school of some kind? That would explain the sisters and the prayer room. But he sleeps in a room as light as day on a hard floor and that doesn't sound like the recipe for a boarding school. What, then?

The boy seems to have decided that he's said his piece, because he falls silent. There's a smile on his face though, so Harry doesn't worry too much. He starts carding his hand through the boy's hair and he leans into the touch, closing his eyes. After a while he lays down in the middle of the room, legs folded into him because there's not enough space for him to stretch out fully, and he takes Harry's hand in his again.

After Harry's sure he's asleep, he navigates around to remove the remains of the boy's dinner so that he's not accused of magic again. Laying back down on the cushions, he feels like his own sleep is days away. There's too many thoughts running through his head, too much worry for the small boy on the other side of the wall. Something doesn't feel right, and he can't rectify it, can't figure out what's going on. For once, though, his work doesn't fly in to distract him, and after what feels like years he drifts into an uncomfortable but dreamless sleep.

Harry sleeps until a message comes in for an assassination attempt, and he's really not sure how long it's been but it feels like no time at all and all he can think about is getting back to the boy in the room. He sort of goes through the events of the next few planet rotations (of whatever planet he's on) in a daze, and he gets things recorded but maybe he's missing a few words here and there. And maybe he forgets to curtsie on the planet where bowing is offensive, maybe he spends his time looking for the next break so that he can get back to his home planet to pick up more bananas, and thinks through all the delicious food he bets the boy has never tried. Parma ham was always one of his favourites growing up...

And the time passes as slow as a snail but as fast as an infection and when the time starts to come close that the boy will appear again, he finds himself constantly checking into the library. It's a miracle that nothing stands in the way of this time spent holed up in the library but of course this is only the fourth time, and he's certainly not going to be this lucky forever, so he gives a quick prayer of thanks for whichever god or goddess happened to tug his luck in the right direction (with the number of planets he visits, it could be any of them).

He sees the hole appear this time, which is something he's never caught before. He's sitting in the library organising files that were properly organised hours ago, and hears a shuffling noise. He looks up to see the stone seem to almost melt into those below it, and the library is bathed in the harsh light of the room that appears on the other side. He can see the boy's small figure crouching down. Above him towers the legs of someone in a maroon tunic and no shoes. Whoever it is, they're gone in a moment and Harry can't even really tell what direction they go, it's as if they're just gone, leaving the boy in a mess of limbs on the ground as if he's fallen there.

He rushes over to the hole, all work forgotten (it had truly been forgotten hours ago), and reaches through to run his hand through the boy's mess of fringe, alerting him to his presence.

The boy looks up and he's not crying, like the first few times Harry found him, but there's a profound sadness in his eyes that Harry thinks is almost worse. When the boy speaks, his voice is calm but but the emotions are buried in it, pain and sadness dripping through every syllable, slowing his words down so he speaks almost as slow as Harry tends to.

"You're here early, Mister Hand."

He sits up slowly and moves closer to the wall so Harry doesn't have to reach as far.

"I'm glad, I really am. I like you, whomever you truly are, and I was hoping to get to see you a last time."

A last time?

Harry's hand stills in the boy's hair. He hates this puzzle, hates it so much. What does he MEAN?

The boy clearly notices Harry's change in demeanour. "Did you truly have no idea? Or do you not know how to respond to a statement so blunt? Well, you're a hand. You couldn't respond anyway."

Harry forces himself to start moving again, carding through his hair because he can think of nothing else.

"I choose to believe that you don't want this, you know. It's easier this way, believing you're not a part of this, maybe even that you don't know what's going on. It feels better that way."

The boy repositions so that he's curled in on himself as tight as possible, just like the first time Harry found him. He's silent for a while and it feels like the universe holds its breath. Harry wishes he could do more than just listen, wishes he could gather the boy into his arms and tell him everything will be all right, but he just CAN’T and in that moment he hates himself for it. Eventually, the boy speaks again.

"I miss my name."

That's an odd piece to add to the puzzle.

"Like, I know I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to have forgotten it, and I've failed there too. Can I tell it to you? I know that, like, it's not mine any more, not technically, but I'd like to give it to someone before I go, so it's like I was really here."

Loss of a name. That's actually a really terrifying piece of the puzzle. Harry thinks of mindless drones and armies and hopes against hope that the boy is not a part of anything like that. He reaches down to grasp tightly around the boy's hand, engulfing it entirely.

The boy sniffs, but tears don't come this time, even if his voice is thick with them.

"My name's Louis. Please, please remember it. I was supposed to have forgotten it by now, but I haven't and I think it's because of you."

-

The next six hours are tough.

The boy doesn't go to sleep this time, but he doesn't speak again either. He sits in silence and watches Harry's hand. He moves it between his own sometimes, studies the fingers or rubs at his wrist. Sometimes he stops and Harry goes back to carding his fingers through the boy's - through Louis' - hair. Tears don't flow, he's become stoic as a statue, but his eyes never leave Harry's hand or arm or wrist, whichever part of him is visible. Harry tries at one point to hand over food but the boy only shakes his head and looks away until it's removed. Harry doesn't ever attempt to leave, doesn't want to let Louis be alone. He's sure that what the boy is saying is true, although he's still not sure what he means, and he doesn't want this to end, doesn't want to give the boy up to a world that wants him to forget his name.

After almost six hours, Louis shows signs of being alert again. He's got deep purple bags under his eyes now and he looks a little crazed as he glances around the room, looking away from Harry for the first time all night.

"You have to go, Mister Hand. Sister is coming and I don't think you're supposed to be here."

He grasps Harry's hand tightly in his for a moment, and leans down to place a light kiss on his knuckles before pushing the hand back toward the wall that Harry is sitting on the other side of.

Harry knows that Louis is right, that he's not supposed to be seen, but it's one of the hardest things he feels he's ever had to do, removing himself. Not more than a moment later, though, the legs appear again as someone towers over Louis, appearing from virtually nowhere. Louis starts to shake and he covers his face with his hands, but suddenly Harry can't see anything anymore, and he feels engulfed in blackness as he realises that the hole has closed again. The hole has closed with Louis on the other side, and he doesn't think it's going to open again.

Archivists don't have sick days. They don't have mental health days or get time off to mourn the loss of loved ones. Harry finds himself seriously considering bowing out completely. He can't do it. He can't face the day, he needs a moment to breathe, to mourn the loss of someone whose name he only just learned.

Maybe it's not as bad as Harry thinks, though. The universe contains so many opportunities. Maybe Louis is in training to be a servant for a rich family. If it's the last day of his training then maybe he's going to be given a new name by the family who takes him in.

Or perhaps he's being baptised into a religious organisation, some sort of coming of age test that he's working to pass, and he'll receive a new name as a result.

Harry continues to make these scenarios in his head because he needs to get through the day, he has things to do, and he'll be able to sort through things properly later. For now, think of all the best options. Only the best. One of them has to be true.

He attends the funeral of a dignitary, in which a fist fight breaks out. He barely notices.

He attends the swearing in of a new minister of finance. The minister faints on stage and Harry just steps aside to let the paramedics through.

The last thing he has to do before he can go home and sleep for what he hopes is years is attend a religious ceremony honouring a local god. He sighs as he lands his craft (it will be nameless forever, he decides) and joins the ranks of those watching the procession of priests and ministers and monks and-

Nuns.

Nuns, wearing maroon tunics, moving in sync with one another as the parade through the streets. Harry's heart is in his mouth, beating haphazardly as everything is falling into place, sickening puzzle pieces fitting together and melting into bile in his throat. There's a buzzing in his ears and he makes his way to the front of the crowd, people parting when they see his official archivist robes.

He knows what "honouring a local god" means. He KNOWS. He's in a world where magic is believed real and angels are thought to no longer exist. People work to appease their gods. When nothing else works (which it doesn't because gods have little if any power), they appease with gold, silver, food, drink, then as a last resort sacrifices.

Louis hadn't eaten meat in a long time. It was probably scarce. Crops failing, probably. Rivers drying up.

The nuns pass by.

Horses are next.

They hold fine silks on their backs, made into harnesses. The first carries a box overflowing with gold.

The second carries a harvest of fresh vegetables, enough to feed a large family.

The third is loaded with wineskins.

The fourth carries a boy.

Louis wears the same pure white tunic that Harry had seen him in every day; white, the symbol of purity. On his face and down his neck are a mesh of red tattoo markings; patterns inked into his skin to convey some sort of spiritual meaning. They are truly breathtaking but the tears cascading down his face turn them to something ugly, hideous. Louis' face is as blank as he is able to make it, but he cant keep the tears from falling.

His arms are tied behind his back with a silver cord.

The archivist is not to interfere. The archivist is there to listen and record, for future generations.

The archivist must not-

The archivist-

The NECKLACE.

He's never taken it off, more out of habit than any belief in the power of it. But he needs to believe now, he's never needed anything so badly in his life.

He drops his scribe materials, warranting confused glances from the virtually silent crowd around him, and pulls the gem out from under his robe. It glints red in the sun and he has no idea what's supposed to happen, what he needs to do, but he needs to do SOMETHING, so.

He throws it.

He throws it straight at the horse that Louis is on, and if he thinks about it there was probably some sort of phrasing that could unlock power in the necklace or some shit like that but hell, he was never told.

The horse is hit almost square between the eyes. He whinnies, which freaks the other horses and they all begin to buck, like a complacency spell has been broken. Food tumbles everywhere, gold coins scatter the walk and are thrown into the crowd of people. The horse holding Louis kicks upward and the boy, with no way to hold on, is thrown off.

Harry's racing through the crowd and he doesn't care about anything, doesn't care about the people fighting over the food or the coins, doesn't care about the nuns wherever they've ended up (he cares a little; he hopes the horses trample them), all he can focus on is the boy laying on the ground, unmoving.

He picks the boy up in his arms, and even though he's smaller than Harry he shouldn't have been this light and Harry thinks back to how Louis is allowed one meal a day, which is closer to three days in his own world. He has one hand behind the boy's back and the other under his knees and all he wants to do is get out of the chaos, get back onto his own ship.

Louis seems to be in shock. Harry thinks he hit his head when he fell off the horse but he's still awake at least. He's making no move to struggle or address the man carrying him, which makes Harry a little worried because there's no way Louis recognises him and apparently he's okay with strangers running off with him.

Of course, the other answer was being the main part in a ritual sacrifice. Maybe Harry would do the same in his place.

He makes it onto his spacecraft without a glance behind him to see if others are following, and sets Louis down right inside the door, running to hit the coordinates for his home planet. He feels the craft take off and finds himself letting out a breath.

Back on the carpeted ground right inside the front door lays a boy with a slight head wound.

Harry hurries over to him and suddenly the awkwardness of the situation reaches him. Louis has no clue who he is. He knows Harry best by the elbows downward. He's never heard Harry's voice, has no way of knowing who this mysterious man is who interrupted a very important ceremony to kidnap the firewood.

Louis is staring at him unabashedly, not making any attempt to move, and Harry realises his arms are still tied.

He bends down over Louis slowly, reaching to pull him upward into a sitting position to get at his arms. "Sorry, um, I'm just going to untie your arms. I swear, that's all."

He sits himself behind Louis (who still isn't speaking), and works at the knots for a good four minutes before they fall away. Untying knots is not a skill taught to archivists, so Harry thinks he's done a decent job.

Louis pulls his hands in front of him and massages his wrists. Harry scooches around on the carpet so he's face to face with Louis.

Louis backs away from Harry a little, frowning and WOW that hurt. Harry echoes his movement and scooches back as well, putting a good two meters between them. "Um, right. Sorry. You don't know me. Right." this is an excellent time to ramble. Get it together, Harry. "Sorry, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Louis continues to stare for a minute before slowly shaking his head. "Fine." His voice is cold.

"You hit your head."

"It's fine."

Harry get up and walks over, reaching out a hand to graze over Louis' hair. Louis immediately cringes and lets out a strangled whimper that he clearly tried to keep from coming out. Harry snatches his hand away. "I'll get ice! I've got something you can put on it, too. You can, um, wait here if you want? Or I've got a couch right over there... But it's missing it's cushions at the moment. Here, I'll just be right back."

He runs for the kitchen and grabs a bag of frozen peas. He hurries back to Louis, who hasn't moved from his spot, and holds out the bag to him.

Louis stares at the bag in front of him until it's just a little awkward before he holds out his hands with a sigh. He presses the bag to the back of his head and leans up to look Harry in the face.

"Who are you?"

"M'Harry," he says and while it's clearly the truth, he wonders if he should have introduced himself as Mister Hand. How does one make an introduction like that? Without sounding ridiculous? One really doesn't.

"What happened?"

"I, um, I threw my necklace at your horse."

"Why?"

"Because you were sad!"

Boy, that sounds as ridiculous out loud as it did in his head.

"People are sad all the time! What makes me different?!" He's angry now, and Harry's a little scared because he's got a point. People are sad all the time. Why did he choose this day to change something?

"That's... that's a very good question."

Louis huffs. He's sitting in Harry's spacecraft with frozen peas on his head SULKING and Harry's life feels unreal. "You don't even know me."

"Well..."

"No you don't! I'm the tribute! Look at these marks! I spent five days with the sisters in order to erase who I was before that and become the tribute! I am a nobody and you can't possibly know me!"

"Your name's Louis."

Harry almost whispers it he's so quiet, and suddenly Louis is completely still. He's staring at Harry with what looks like fear in his wide blue eyes. "How did you..."

"You told me," Harry sighs. This is not a conversation he was planning on having on the entrance hall of his craft. "Last night, you told me. Can we move this to somewhere with real chairs? Maybe the library, that's where the couch cushions are, after all."

He's apparently managed to convince Louis to relocate because he's getting up and following Harry down the hallway. Harry's really too afraid to look back and see Louis' expression because everything is weird now and nothing makes sense.

He moves to the back wall of the library to where the cushions are still from days ago, and sits down on one of them, motioning for Louis to do the same with the other.

Louis sits down and he looks tired and small and altogether like he's about to pass out. Harry remembers that Louis had refused to eat anything the night before and he figures that he probably has had nothing since then, so he reaches around to find the water bottle that Louis refused earlier. He holds it out to Louis who flinches at the movement before reaching out to take it from him. He studies the bottle before opening it and taking a sip.

"Who are you?"

"I told you, m'Harry."

"No, not your name. You couldn't talk."

Harry reaches out his hand and cards through Louis' hair. Louis closes his eyes at the movement and relaxes a little.

"This explains nothing and I don't understand."

"Well you couldn't hear me."

"Why couldn't I?"

"I don't know."

"Why could I never see your face?"

"It was too big to stick in the hole in my wall."

"Your- what?"

Harry takes his hand back and Louis opens his eyes, following his movements. Harry taps the stone in his wall which is now firmly in place again.

"This just disappeared. I could see through to wherever you were, in that little room. I stuck my hand through but clearly this is too small for my head to fit through."

Louis taps at the stone. "Why did it happen? Disappearing?"

"I don't know. I think it happened whenever you were in that little room, because I would wake up the next morning and it was there again and I couldn't see you any more."

Louis stares at the stone as if contemplating it for a while, and then, "Fuck."

He downs the rest of the water bottle all at once and when he lowers his head again Harry can se tears running down his face in full force once again. "Fuck, I-" his voice breaks and then breaks again. "I thought I was going to die, Harry."

He's shaking and sobbing and it's like that first night all over again but it's different now because Harry is here and he has the ability to do something about it, so he envelops all of Louis in a hug and doesn't let go. Then Louis is clinging to him desperately and he's mumbling things through the tears that are a little difficult to make out for a while.

"-Hand. Mister Hand. That was such a dumb name and it was literally all I knew about you, fucking- I'm just-" he hiccups into Harry's shoulder, snot running all down his shirt but who really cares at this point. "I was so scared but you were always there and-"

Harry makes soothing shushing noises and runs his hand through Louis hair until he's calmed down again.

"I don't know why it happened. All I knew was you needed help and I couldn't leave you alone."

Louis grabs his shirt tighter, twining his fingers into the fabric, and pulls Harry's face down to meet his in a weird, wet smash of a kiss. Harry's still in shock for a moment but once he realises what's going on, he returns it full force.

"Thank you. For saving me. I don't understand, but maybe I don't need to."

The first thing Louis insists is that Harry teaches him to read.

The second thing Louis insists is regular trips back to Harry's home planet for bananas, because they both constantly fight over the last one.

He also loves parma ham.

They get married two years (in Harry's planet's time) later on a planet known for its dazzling ocean views, and that night Louis decides a name for Harry's - their - spacecraft.

The Matchmaker.

(that little hole never appears again).