Fic: Rescue
Title: Rescue
Characters: Tim Drake, Zachary Zatara, Steph Brown, Anita Fite.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Even more angst. Death (not anyone we know)
Word Count: 3, 470
Author's Notes: A sequel to Relief, you don't need to have read it but it might help. The Teen Titans are helping out as med team in Haiti. Also this is all iesika's fault. And I owe her many thanks for being a very knowledgeable and understand beta.
Zachary wakes to the world shaking itself apart. He scrabbles to stand, but by the time he is up the earth has stopped shaking. It takes him a moment to realize where he is, still in Haiti, and then his next though of ‘aftershock’ provides the explanation for why he was woken. He knows straight away that he hasn’t had enough sleep, his eyes are bleary and sore, and his muscles still ache from the exertion.
His soul feels like it’s been ripped out. But that’s just how overuse of magic normally feels, and he knows it will get a bit easier after he’s had something to eat.
He strips off his dress shirt and replaces it with a plain black t-shirt from the small bag he’d brought, then steps into his shoes and walks out into the light. It’s mid-morning, and he recalls that Tim helped him into bed at sunrise, so he reckons he’s had at least a few hours sleep.
He heads to the large pavilion tent that has been turned into a mess hall and is greeted with the smell of coffee and cooking meat as he enters. The non-powered and non-medically trained members of the Teen Titans and other teams are scurrying about, preparing meals and organising supplies and carrying provisions in and out.
A red haired girl he doesn’t recognize hands him a plate of food piled with toast, sausages and something pretending to be scrambled eggs. He sits down at the closest table and starts eating hurriedly, abandoning his usual pristine manners in favour of carbs and protein.
A tray clatters down next to his and a swathe of blonde hair comes into his view.
“Morning Zat,” Steph greets him as she takes a bite of sausage.
“Hey Steph, looks like you’re keeping the same hours as me,” Zach replies through a mouthful of toast.
Steph chuckles, “Honestly Zat, I don’t think anyone knows what hours they’re keeping.”
Zach nods and they both go back to their meal. Steph had come over with them, sans costume, and had ended up the personal assistant of Dr. Thompson, running errands and fetching medical supplies and helping wherever she was needed. Tim had told him that Steph had done this before, in Africa, and Zach hadn’t been surprised, her ease at fitting into her role had made that much obvious. She and Zach had started getting along fairly well, much to Tim’s surprise, and chagrin, but Zach knew that in a situation like this, it was easy to bond with people, latching on to any and all support and familiarity you could get.
Steph finishes before he does, not having had as much too eat because Zach really needs to replenish his energy, and she squeezes his shoulder on the way out.
“You need anything you know where to find me,” Steph tells him with a gentle smile, “Painkillers, more food or water, a shot of adrenalin, just come find me, kay?”
Zach nods, his throat tight because he’s been getting far too emotional but Steph seems to understand, disappearing outside without another word.
Zach quickly finishes his meal. He has work to do.
~
He heads back to his tent and pulls on his shirt and jacket, then grabs his top hat and a small satchel from inside his duffel bag. He hadn’t felt it appropriate to wear it in the hospital, but he wasn’t headed there right now, and he figures it might give him a little bit of strength. When he’d told Tim he wanted to wear his stage costume for morale, Tim had assumed he meant for the morale of the team and for the patients, but he’d needed it for himself. His costume was as much a part of his identity as Tim’s mask was. It feels right to be wearing it. It feels strong.
He heads into a tent set up near the edge of their camp that Oracle had told him about when they were on their way over. It’s a field laboratory, set up with some equipment in order to do blood work and test the water and other things. But Zach wants it for something a bit different.
He’d studied with Zatanna for quite some time, and then with Raven for a long while as well, and he’s picked up more magic than just spells. The small bag he’s carrying has various herbs and items used in medicinal magic, because he’d learnt how to make various healing charms and potions, and the one he has in mind is the strongest he knows.
Bruce had asked him to make it once, and Zach had obliged him, because he knew not to piss off your boyfriend’s dad, especially when he was Batman. So Zach had spent the half hour needed to make it, using up some of the more rare ingredients and at the end Bruce had taken it to the lab to test. Apparently it had an anti bacterial quality, which would kill any germs in the air and stave off infection. It also had an affect similar to caffeine, something rejuvenating. Zach had been a little annoyed, his magic reduced down to numbers and chemical equations, but even at the end of his tests Bruce had admitted that there was something else in the concoction, something that couldn’t be measured and that was probably real magic. Zach had beamed with pride.
And now he’s going to use the last of his dragon claw to make it again, but he’s planning some changes, because it’s usually a draught, taken internally, but he’s going to change it into something that can be inhaled, so he can just set up steaming bowls of it in the hospital for everyone, patients and medics alike, to breath in and make use of.
He’s halfway through the formula, adding a sprig of willow and melted glacial ice to the boiling pot, when he hears someone make their way into the tent. He feels slightly ridiculous, with steam billowing up about his face as he leans over the pot, with bits of plant and animals spread on the table next to him. Apparently the person who enters thinks the same, because they let out a little gasp of surprise.
Zach looks up to see a pretty, dark-skinned young woman staring at him. She’s dressed in some sort of yellow scale mail with a dark red vest and skirt over the top. Her hands and face are bare. It’s clearly a superhero costume, but Zach doesn’t recognize her.
“Um. Hi?” Zach says cautiously. He waves a little of the steam away.
“Who are you?” the girl asks warily, her voice thick with an accent Zach can’t quite place.
Zach wipes his hands on his suit jacket and steps out from behind the table, offering his hand, “Zachary Zatara, World’s Greatest Teenage Magician at your service.”
Her whole posture seems to relax suddenly and she even smiles a little, “Good to know, 'dis place is playin' tricks on my mind. De way you're dressed; I took you for somebody else.”
“Who did you think I was?” Zach questions, turning back to his work, knowing it can’t be left alone for too long.
“A loa, a spirit of Vodou, Baron Samedi is what de Haitians call him,” the girl tells him and when he raises an eyebrow she continues, “He's da loa of death.”
Zach had been ready to scoff at her saying he looks like a spirit, but the word death makes him freeze, his heart clenching tight and his stomach rising into his throat.
“Death?” He manages to choke out.
Her expression softens, “Not the Grim Reaper mon, like an angel, you know? He heals those who are supposed to be healed, and if not, he'll take you safely to the other side.”
“Who are you?” Zach questions warily.
“Anita Fite, Empress,” Anita introduces herself.
Zach wracks his brain for a moment, the name sounds familiar, Tim mentioned her once; a member of Young Justice, some sort of sorceress.
“What are you making?” she asks, completely changing the topic.
“A healing potion. Traditionally it was said to keep demons at bay and revive the soul, but it mostly just kills bacteria and gives the body a little jolt of energy. At the moment I’m turning it from a potion into a vapour, so it can be dispersed easier.” Zach doesn’t hesitate in telling her; if what he recalls from Tim’s words about Anita are true, she probably knows more about this than he does.
She approaches the pot and breathes in deeply with her eyes closed, sampling the potion. She opens a small bag she has slung over her shoulder and pulls out an animal skin pouch. Taking out a pinch of something chalky, she sprinkles it into the potion. It sparks bright red and then fades back to clear, but the smell it’s giving off is invigorating and Zach feels his fingertips tingle as his magic fully re-awakens.
“When this is done, do you have any other urgent tasks?” Anita asks him as she replaces the pouch into her bag.
“I was planning to head back into the hospital and keep healing, why?” Zach replies.
She looks down at her hands and takes a deep breath, her accent suddenly thicker with emotion, “There’s a woman in one of the private tents. She’s just given birth, but the baby was stillborn. Her mind fractured, she won’t let the baby go, won’t let us help her and she’s going to die if she doesn’t get medical attention soon.”
Zach busies himself with his potion for a moment, adding the final ingredients and stirring it correctly. “What do you want me to do?”
“You're dressed like Baron Samedi. With my help you can look exactly like him. Come to the woman, take her child and tell her you will ensure it passes safely.” Anita explains.
“I can’t speak their language," Zach protests, the idea making him uncomfortable for a reason he can't quite place.
“I'll tell you what to say,” Anita assures him.
Zach steels himself for the task, “Let me finish this and then I will help you.”
“Thanks mon. If you can, grab a pair of the white cotton gloves. Leave your top hat with 'ere," Anita says with a warm smile.
Zach nods, and taking up the pot, heads into the Mess. He asks for four smaller bowls and a pair of gloves from the kitchen staff.
Once back in the hospital he places a bowl in each corner and pours some potion into it, around it he sprinkles ground up herbs and casts a spell to light them and keep the aflame constantly so that the potion will continue to steam. At the last one, Tim comes up behind him and with his head over the bowl, breathes in deeply.
“You are magical,” Tim murmurs as he presses up against Zach’s back.
“I know,” Zach replies, and turns to quickly kiss Tim on the cheek. “This is all I can do for now. I need to help Anita Fite with something.”
“Anita is here?” Tim asks, straightening up and peering around.
“Yeah, apparently I am a spirit of death and I need to go help a woman deal with the loss of her baby,” Zach answers blithely, but his hands are shaking without the heavy pot to still them.
Tim squeezes his shoulders in comfort, “Whatever it is you need to do, I know you’ll do it perfectly.
~
Zach returns to the lab tent, and finds Anita finger painting a black mask. He peers over to look at it and sees a stylized skull drawn on in white paint. It looks eerily real, but when he manages to drag his eyes away from it to survey the rest of the room, his jaw drops in shock.
His hat is white.
"What have you done?!" He shrieks indignantly and rushes over to pick up his hat. His hands smear with white, "My hat! You- You WITCH!"
Anita stares at him blankly, "It's just ash, mon, chill."
"Ash? You covered my hat in ash!" Zach's jaw is clenched in anger, but he takes a moment to steady himself and then focuses on his hat, "Tah eb naelc dna etihw!"
His hat is suddenly clean and white and he breathes an audible sigh of relief.
Anita is still staring at him blankly, although the corners of her mouth are slightly upturned in a faint smile. With a showman grin he flicks the hat up onto his head.
"Magicians," Anita mutters under her breath and finishes with the mask. "All done, now put dis and the gloves on," Anita tells him as she hands him the mask.
There's a strap that holds the mask into place when he puts it on, and the gloves feel a little clumsy but Anita feels that they're necessary so he doesn't complain. He briefly mourns the loss of his bowtie, he'd sacrificed it sometime yesterday in order to make a tourniquet, Anita seems to read his mind though, because she produces a thin strip of black fabric and ties it round his neck. It's not a proper bowtie; simply knotted at the front, but it keeps his collar together, which is enough for him.
"Perfect," Anita says with a smile.
Zach frowns under the mask as something registers in his memory, he digs around in his jacket pocket and produces a packet of cigarettes, showing them to Anita and she smiles knowingly. A young man had pressed the packet into his hand after Zach had healed his broken leg. He hadn't refused, not wanting to offend.
"All this, this Baron stuff, is that why I was given these?" Zach asks, the pieces clicking into place.
"Yes mon, a boon for a boon," she explains.
"What should I do with them?" Zach continues, not particularly wanting to keep a packet of cigarettes for the rest of his stay.
"Keep dem close, dose were a gift," she says solemnly, and Zach tucks them back into his pocket.
As they walk to the tent she constantly repeats what he needs to say, and he knows that the words will be imprinted in his mind forever.
When he steps into the tent, the young nurse attending the woman jumps up in shock, but Anita raises a hand to still her. The woman in the bed, she can’t be older than 25, is sobbing silently and rocking the child in her arms, the sheets are stained with blood. She sees Zach and her whole posture changes, the manic light disappearing from her eyes and her jerky movements stilling.
She says something in creole and Anita smiles in relief.
Zach repeats the words that Anita told him, conscious of trying to cover his atrocious accent, but the woman seems too relieved to notice. She presses a kiss to the baby’s head and then hands it to Zach.
Her eyes flutter closed.
The machine monitoring her pulse suddenly beeps loudly and the nurse rushes over, checking the reading and then turning with frantic eyes to Anita. Anita gently lays a hand on the nurse’s arm as the monitor shows the pulse disappear.
“I knew we couldn’t save her, but I wanted to give her some peace before she moved on,” Anita explains, although Zach doesn’t feel like she’s talking to him or the nurse.
“What -” Zach chokes on his words and his to take a moment to compose himself. “What do I do?”
“Dey have no family, no one to mourn dem properly,” Anita says like it’s an answer, then turns away from him.
Zat steps out of the tent, the tiny baby wrapped in a bundle of cloth cradled in his arms. He knows there are formal proceedings to deal with the body, but something in his heart tells him what the right thing to do is. He walks slowly into the surrounding forest until he finds a small meadow fair enough away, and clutching the baby against him with one arm, he takes off the mask, throws it aside and then extends the other towards the earth.
Before he can cast the spell he hears a rustle in the woods and turns to see Anita watching him, and a few seconds later Tim appears too, concern written over his face. Tim stays where he is, but Anita steps up next to him and he sees that she’s holding a shovel. He lowers his hand and waits while she digs a small grave.
When she’s done, Zach crouches down and gently lays the child inside. Beside him, Anita is talking under her breath in a language Zach doesn’t understand. Then she picks up the shovel and buries the baby. Zach blinks back tears and presses a hand against the earth.
When he stands back up he finds himself no longer in the woods, but on an empty path. The baby is back in his arms, but it’s alive now, and no longer swathed in cloth, the little thing naked in his arms. He nearly starts and drops it, but he manages to compose himself.
There’s a compulsion to walk, and he listens to it, trusting himself, his instinct and his magic enough to know that he won’t come to any harm. The road feels crowded and bustling, but he can’t actually /see/ anyone else, and it sends shivers down his spine.
After an unmeasurable time he reaches the end of the road, marked by the appearance of a tall man in his way. Zach gulps nervously.
“What have we here, little one?” the man chuckles, his accent even thicker than Anita’s and Zach can make out the white and black skull.
“Baron Samedi, I have a soul that needs passage, will you please take him?” Zach asks slowly and carefully, he’s dealt with spirits before and knows to be mindful of his manners.
“Perhaps, perhaps, do you have something to entice me to do so?” The Baron asks and leans forward, towering over Zach with something like a leer on his face.
Zach’s heart stops in his chest and his tongue cleaves to the roof his mouth. But suddenly his brain clicks back into gear and he remembers the cigarettes from the young man, and what Anita had said about boons.
He pulls the packet out and offers it to the Baron, who takes it with a flourish and it disappears into the inside pocket of the Baron’s jacket. Zach sighs with relief when the Baron reaches out for the child, and Zach tentatively places it in his arms.
“Look after your lover,” he says it like a warning, even though he’s grinning and then vanishes, leaving Zach standing alone in the forest.
Tim is clutching his arm, hard, and shaking him, Zach stares at it briefly and then slowly turns to look at Tim.
“What just happened? You weren’t responding and Anita just walked away. What happened?” Tim asks, his voice tight with fear, but he doesn’t seem to really want an answer, he’s too busy hugging Zach tightly and running his hands over him, making sure he’s solid and okay.
“I’m not sure Tim, I just- I’m not sure,” And Zach sinks into the embrace, pressing his face into Tim’s shoulder and clutching at him fervently.
Tim senses the change instantly and straightens himself up, turning from the seeker of comfort to the giver of support, and as they both sink to their knees, Tim is murmuring gentle words into Zach’s hair.
“That was very unpleasant,” Zach mutters into Tim’s shoulder and shudders a little.
Tim holds him tighter, "Do you want to take a break?"
"No, no, I just- There's still work to do," Zach says, shaking off the cold dread that had settled over his heart.
He stands and tugs Tim up, then follows him back into the hospital tent. It's the same as it was yesterday, and it makes Zach feel as if the whole strange morning was just an awful dream. But when he walks past a little girl cries out in shock and clutches at her mother and across the room Anita looks up from the man she is attending to and nods at him just once.
Zach peels the gloves off his hands, takes off his hat, jacket and dress shirt and places them on top one of the small supply cupboards that had been moved into the room.
The weight of death lifts off his shoulders.
Characters: Tim Drake, Zachary Zatara, Steph Brown, Anita Fite.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Even more angst. Death (not anyone we know)
Word Count: 3, 470
Author's Notes: A sequel to Relief, you don't need to have read it but it might help. The Teen Titans are helping out as med team in Haiti. Also this is all iesika's fault. And I owe her many thanks for being a very knowledgeable and understand beta.
Zachary wakes to the world shaking itself apart. He scrabbles to stand, but by the time he is up the earth has stopped shaking. It takes him a moment to realize where he is, still in Haiti, and then his next though of ‘aftershock’ provides the explanation for why he was woken. He knows straight away that he hasn’t had enough sleep, his eyes are bleary and sore, and his muscles still ache from the exertion.
His soul feels like it’s been ripped out. But that’s just how overuse of magic normally feels, and he knows it will get a bit easier after he’s had something to eat.
He strips off his dress shirt and replaces it with a plain black t-shirt from the small bag he’d brought, then steps into his shoes and walks out into the light. It’s mid-morning, and he recalls that Tim helped him into bed at sunrise, so he reckons he’s had at least a few hours sleep.
He heads to the large pavilion tent that has been turned into a mess hall and is greeted with the smell of coffee and cooking meat as he enters. The non-powered and non-medically trained members of the Teen Titans and other teams are scurrying about, preparing meals and organising supplies and carrying provisions in and out.
A red haired girl he doesn’t recognize hands him a plate of food piled with toast, sausages and something pretending to be scrambled eggs. He sits down at the closest table and starts eating hurriedly, abandoning his usual pristine manners in favour of carbs and protein.
A tray clatters down next to his and a swathe of blonde hair comes into his view.
“Morning Zat,” Steph greets him as she takes a bite of sausage.
“Hey Steph, looks like you’re keeping the same hours as me,” Zach replies through a mouthful of toast.
Steph chuckles, “Honestly Zat, I don’t think anyone knows what hours they’re keeping.”
Zach nods and they both go back to their meal. Steph had come over with them, sans costume, and had ended up the personal assistant of Dr. Thompson, running errands and fetching medical supplies and helping wherever she was needed. Tim had told him that Steph had done this before, in Africa, and Zach hadn’t been surprised, her ease at fitting into her role had made that much obvious. She and Zach had started getting along fairly well, much to Tim’s surprise, and chagrin, but Zach knew that in a situation like this, it was easy to bond with people, latching on to any and all support and familiarity you could get.
Steph finishes before he does, not having had as much too eat because Zach really needs to replenish his energy, and she squeezes his shoulder on the way out.
“You need anything you know where to find me,” Steph tells him with a gentle smile, “Painkillers, more food or water, a shot of adrenalin, just come find me, kay?”
Zach nods, his throat tight because he’s been getting far too emotional but Steph seems to understand, disappearing outside without another word.
Zach quickly finishes his meal. He has work to do.
~
He heads back to his tent and pulls on his shirt and jacket, then grabs his top hat and a small satchel from inside his duffel bag. He hadn’t felt it appropriate to wear it in the hospital, but he wasn’t headed there right now, and he figures it might give him a little bit of strength. When he’d told Tim he wanted to wear his stage costume for morale, Tim had assumed he meant for the morale of the team and for the patients, but he’d needed it for himself. His costume was as much a part of his identity as Tim’s mask was. It feels right to be wearing it. It feels strong.
He heads into a tent set up near the edge of their camp that Oracle had told him about when they were on their way over. It’s a field laboratory, set up with some equipment in order to do blood work and test the water and other things. But Zach wants it for something a bit different.
He’d studied with Zatanna for quite some time, and then with Raven for a long while as well, and he’s picked up more magic than just spells. The small bag he’s carrying has various herbs and items used in medicinal magic, because he’d learnt how to make various healing charms and potions, and the one he has in mind is the strongest he knows.
Bruce had asked him to make it once, and Zach had obliged him, because he knew not to piss off your boyfriend’s dad, especially when he was Batman. So Zach had spent the half hour needed to make it, using up some of the more rare ingredients and at the end Bruce had taken it to the lab to test. Apparently it had an anti bacterial quality, which would kill any germs in the air and stave off infection. It also had an affect similar to caffeine, something rejuvenating. Zach had been a little annoyed, his magic reduced down to numbers and chemical equations, but even at the end of his tests Bruce had admitted that there was something else in the concoction, something that couldn’t be measured and that was probably real magic. Zach had beamed with pride.
And now he’s going to use the last of his dragon claw to make it again, but he’s planning some changes, because it’s usually a draught, taken internally, but he’s going to change it into something that can be inhaled, so he can just set up steaming bowls of it in the hospital for everyone, patients and medics alike, to breath in and make use of.
He’s halfway through the formula, adding a sprig of willow and melted glacial ice to the boiling pot, when he hears someone make their way into the tent. He feels slightly ridiculous, with steam billowing up about his face as he leans over the pot, with bits of plant and animals spread on the table next to him. Apparently the person who enters thinks the same, because they let out a little gasp of surprise.
Zach looks up to see a pretty, dark-skinned young woman staring at him. She’s dressed in some sort of yellow scale mail with a dark red vest and skirt over the top. Her hands and face are bare. It’s clearly a superhero costume, but Zach doesn’t recognize her.
“Um. Hi?” Zach says cautiously. He waves a little of the steam away.
“Who are you?” the girl asks warily, her voice thick with an accent Zach can’t quite place.
Zach wipes his hands on his suit jacket and steps out from behind the table, offering his hand, “Zachary Zatara, World’s Greatest Teenage Magician at your service.”
Her whole posture seems to relax suddenly and she even smiles a little, “Good to know, 'dis place is playin' tricks on my mind. De way you're dressed; I took you for somebody else.”
“Who did you think I was?” Zach questions, turning back to his work, knowing it can’t be left alone for too long.
“A loa, a spirit of Vodou, Baron Samedi is what de Haitians call him,” the girl tells him and when he raises an eyebrow she continues, “He's da loa of death.”
Zach had been ready to scoff at her saying he looks like a spirit, but the word death makes him freeze, his heart clenching tight and his stomach rising into his throat.
“Death?” He manages to choke out.
Her expression softens, “Not the Grim Reaper mon, like an angel, you know? He heals those who are supposed to be healed, and if not, he'll take you safely to the other side.”
“Who are you?” Zach questions warily.
“Anita Fite, Empress,” Anita introduces herself.
Zach wracks his brain for a moment, the name sounds familiar, Tim mentioned her once; a member of Young Justice, some sort of sorceress.
“What are you making?” she asks, completely changing the topic.
“A healing potion. Traditionally it was said to keep demons at bay and revive the soul, but it mostly just kills bacteria and gives the body a little jolt of energy. At the moment I’m turning it from a potion into a vapour, so it can be dispersed easier.” Zach doesn’t hesitate in telling her; if what he recalls from Tim’s words about Anita are true, she probably knows more about this than he does.
She approaches the pot and breathes in deeply with her eyes closed, sampling the potion. She opens a small bag she has slung over her shoulder and pulls out an animal skin pouch. Taking out a pinch of something chalky, she sprinkles it into the potion. It sparks bright red and then fades back to clear, but the smell it’s giving off is invigorating and Zach feels his fingertips tingle as his magic fully re-awakens.
“When this is done, do you have any other urgent tasks?” Anita asks him as she replaces the pouch into her bag.
“I was planning to head back into the hospital and keep healing, why?” Zach replies.
She looks down at her hands and takes a deep breath, her accent suddenly thicker with emotion, “There’s a woman in one of the private tents. She’s just given birth, but the baby was stillborn. Her mind fractured, she won’t let the baby go, won’t let us help her and she’s going to die if she doesn’t get medical attention soon.”
Zach busies himself with his potion for a moment, adding the final ingredients and stirring it correctly. “What do you want me to do?”
“You're dressed like Baron Samedi. With my help you can look exactly like him. Come to the woman, take her child and tell her you will ensure it passes safely.” Anita explains.
“I can’t speak their language," Zach protests, the idea making him uncomfortable for a reason he can't quite place.
“I'll tell you what to say,” Anita assures him.
Zach steels himself for the task, “Let me finish this and then I will help you.”
“Thanks mon. If you can, grab a pair of the white cotton gloves. Leave your top hat with 'ere," Anita says with a warm smile.
Zach nods, and taking up the pot, heads into the Mess. He asks for four smaller bowls and a pair of gloves from the kitchen staff.
Once back in the hospital he places a bowl in each corner and pours some potion into it, around it he sprinkles ground up herbs and casts a spell to light them and keep the aflame constantly so that the potion will continue to steam. At the last one, Tim comes up behind him and with his head over the bowl, breathes in deeply.
“You are magical,” Tim murmurs as he presses up against Zach’s back.
“I know,” Zach replies, and turns to quickly kiss Tim on the cheek. “This is all I can do for now. I need to help Anita Fite with something.”
“Anita is here?” Tim asks, straightening up and peering around.
“Yeah, apparently I am a spirit of death and I need to go help a woman deal with the loss of her baby,” Zach answers blithely, but his hands are shaking without the heavy pot to still them.
Tim squeezes his shoulders in comfort, “Whatever it is you need to do, I know you’ll do it perfectly.
~
Zach returns to the lab tent, and finds Anita finger painting a black mask. He peers over to look at it and sees a stylized skull drawn on in white paint. It looks eerily real, but when he manages to drag his eyes away from it to survey the rest of the room, his jaw drops in shock.
His hat is white.
"What have you done?!" He shrieks indignantly and rushes over to pick up his hat. His hands smear with white, "My hat! You- You WITCH!"
Anita stares at him blankly, "It's just ash, mon, chill."
"Ash? You covered my hat in ash!" Zach's jaw is clenched in anger, but he takes a moment to steady himself and then focuses on his hat, "Tah eb naelc dna etihw!"
His hat is suddenly clean and white and he breathes an audible sigh of relief.
Anita is still staring at him blankly, although the corners of her mouth are slightly upturned in a faint smile. With a showman grin he flicks the hat up onto his head.
"Magicians," Anita mutters under her breath and finishes with the mask. "All done, now put dis and the gloves on," Anita tells him as she hands him the mask.
There's a strap that holds the mask into place when he puts it on, and the gloves feel a little clumsy but Anita feels that they're necessary so he doesn't complain. He briefly mourns the loss of his bowtie, he'd sacrificed it sometime yesterday in order to make a tourniquet, Anita seems to read his mind though, because she produces a thin strip of black fabric and ties it round his neck. It's not a proper bowtie; simply knotted at the front, but it keeps his collar together, which is enough for him.
"Perfect," Anita says with a smile.
Zach frowns under the mask as something registers in his memory, he digs around in his jacket pocket and produces a packet of cigarettes, showing them to Anita and she smiles knowingly. A young man had pressed the packet into his hand after Zach had healed his broken leg. He hadn't refused, not wanting to offend.
"All this, this Baron stuff, is that why I was given these?" Zach asks, the pieces clicking into place.
"Yes mon, a boon for a boon," she explains.
"What should I do with them?" Zach continues, not particularly wanting to keep a packet of cigarettes for the rest of his stay.
"Keep dem close, dose were a gift," she says solemnly, and Zach tucks them back into his pocket.
As they walk to the tent she constantly repeats what he needs to say, and he knows that the words will be imprinted in his mind forever.
When he steps into the tent, the young nurse attending the woman jumps up in shock, but Anita raises a hand to still her. The woman in the bed, she can’t be older than 25, is sobbing silently and rocking the child in her arms, the sheets are stained with blood. She sees Zach and her whole posture changes, the manic light disappearing from her eyes and her jerky movements stilling.
She says something in creole and Anita smiles in relief.
Zach repeats the words that Anita told him, conscious of trying to cover his atrocious accent, but the woman seems too relieved to notice. She presses a kiss to the baby’s head and then hands it to Zach.
Her eyes flutter closed.
The machine monitoring her pulse suddenly beeps loudly and the nurse rushes over, checking the reading and then turning with frantic eyes to Anita. Anita gently lays a hand on the nurse’s arm as the monitor shows the pulse disappear.
“I knew we couldn’t save her, but I wanted to give her some peace before she moved on,” Anita explains, although Zach doesn’t feel like she’s talking to him or the nurse.
“What -” Zach chokes on his words and his to take a moment to compose himself. “What do I do?”
“Dey have no family, no one to mourn dem properly,” Anita says like it’s an answer, then turns away from him.
Zat steps out of the tent, the tiny baby wrapped in a bundle of cloth cradled in his arms. He knows there are formal proceedings to deal with the body, but something in his heart tells him what the right thing to do is. He walks slowly into the surrounding forest until he finds a small meadow fair enough away, and clutching the baby against him with one arm, he takes off the mask, throws it aside and then extends the other towards the earth.
Before he can cast the spell he hears a rustle in the woods and turns to see Anita watching him, and a few seconds later Tim appears too, concern written over his face. Tim stays where he is, but Anita steps up next to him and he sees that she’s holding a shovel. He lowers his hand and waits while she digs a small grave.
When she’s done, Zach crouches down and gently lays the child inside. Beside him, Anita is talking under her breath in a language Zach doesn’t understand. Then she picks up the shovel and buries the baby. Zach blinks back tears and presses a hand against the earth.
When he stands back up he finds himself no longer in the woods, but on an empty path. The baby is back in his arms, but it’s alive now, and no longer swathed in cloth, the little thing naked in his arms. He nearly starts and drops it, but he manages to compose himself.
There’s a compulsion to walk, and he listens to it, trusting himself, his instinct and his magic enough to know that he won’t come to any harm. The road feels crowded and bustling, but he can’t actually /see/ anyone else, and it sends shivers down his spine.
After an unmeasurable time he reaches the end of the road, marked by the appearance of a tall man in his way. Zach gulps nervously.
“What have we here, little one?” the man chuckles, his accent even thicker than Anita’s and Zach can make out the white and black skull.
“Baron Samedi, I have a soul that needs passage, will you please take him?” Zach asks slowly and carefully, he’s dealt with spirits before and knows to be mindful of his manners.
“Perhaps, perhaps, do you have something to entice me to do so?” The Baron asks and leans forward, towering over Zach with something like a leer on his face.
Zach’s heart stops in his chest and his tongue cleaves to the roof his mouth. But suddenly his brain clicks back into gear and he remembers the cigarettes from the young man, and what Anita had said about boons.
He pulls the packet out and offers it to the Baron, who takes it with a flourish and it disappears into the inside pocket of the Baron’s jacket. Zach sighs with relief when the Baron reaches out for the child, and Zach tentatively places it in his arms.
“Look after your lover,” he says it like a warning, even though he’s grinning and then vanishes, leaving Zach standing alone in the forest.
Tim is clutching his arm, hard, and shaking him, Zach stares at it briefly and then slowly turns to look at Tim.
“What just happened? You weren’t responding and Anita just walked away. What happened?” Tim asks, his voice tight with fear, but he doesn’t seem to really want an answer, he’s too busy hugging Zach tightly and running his hands over him, making sure he’s solid and okay.
“I’m not sure Tim, I just- I’m not sure,” And Zach sinks into the embrace, pressing his face into Tim’s shoulder and clutching at him fervently.
Tim senses the change instantly and straightens himself up, turning from the seeker of comfort to the giver of support, and as they both sink to their knees, Tim is murmuring gentle words into Zach’s hair.
“That was very unpleasant,” Zach mutters into Tim’s shoulder and shudders a little.
Tim holds him tighter, "Do you want to take a break?"
"No, no, I just- There's still work to do," Zach says, shaking off the cold dread that had settled over his heart.
He stands and tugs Tim up, then follows him back into the hospital tent. It's the same as it was yesterday, and it makes Zach feel as if the whole strange morning was just an awful dream. But when he walks past a little girl cries out in shock and clutches at her mother and across the room Anita looks up from the man she is attending to and nods at him just once.
Zach peels the gloves off his hands, takes off his hat, jacket and dress shirt and places them on top one of the small supply cupboards that had been moved into the room.
The weight of death lifts off his shoulders.