"...You Don't Forget," Ch. 12/?
Title: ...You Don't Forget, Ch. 12/?
Author: blindswandive
Characters/Pairing: Ambrose/Cain; feat. Azkadellia, DG, and one OC. Light references to Glitch/Azkadellia.
Rating: PG13 - PG16
Summary: Apparently no one's adjusted, anymore. But wounds are tended, souls are nursed, and treason is treason is treason. This chapter contains questions, manipulations, remembering, forgetting, forgiving, not forgiving, and a certain amount of screaming.
Warnings: An OC, a question and answer period, a hairbrush, and a sponge bath. And a cliff-hanger, but you're probably used to that, by now.
Disclaimer: Characters and Oz and O.Z. belong to Baum, SciFi, etc. Storyline/writing are mine, and I'm not turning a profit from it.
Word Count: 4764
Cross posted to tinman_fic.
Posting the shorter chapter seems to have had the desired effects, momentum-wise! This is the second new chapter this week, and we're getting into the meat of the thing. (So be forewarned if you're following and the last part you saw was a month and a half ago; see Ch. 11, linked below!) Thanks so much for patience and encouragement. Your feedback is love. <3
Previous chapters/series:
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Ten
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eight
Chapter Seven
Chapter Six
Chapter Five
Chapter Four
Chapter Three
Chapter Two
Chapter One
Previous Series
And now,
Chapter 12
"Do you remember baths at my palace?" Azkadellia whispered to Ambrose, as he worked to undress her with shaking hands.
Cain had elected to stay in the room, for her bath (such as it was), but wondered if he'd made the wrong choice.
Ambrose didn't answer her. "Hand me the bowl, please," he mumbled, and Cain reached to do it with his good hand.
"Oh, come now, Ambrose," she said softly, sweetly, "if you're going to keep me locked up, away from my family and away from my life, at least speak to me..."
Ambrose closed his eyes tightly, and the set of his jaw told Cain (even through the lingering mugginess of his skull) that he was fighting off tears. The glitch hand was fumbling for the washcloth in the soapy water, as if determined to go on, with or without him.
"Please, old friend..." Azkadellia twitched her fingers, as if she would move to touch him but didn't quiet have the strength. "You can't blame me for the things we did to you..."
"Hush," Ambrose guttered. "I don't know."
Cain looked between them slowly. He didn't know what? Didn't know if he could blame her...?
Azkadellia pouted, then, but the gesture was strangely false, and her eyes were cool. Pins pricked the back of Cain's neck, to see this, and tripped down his spine.
They were all silent, for a moment.
Ambrose finally gathered himself enough to start washing Azkadellia's body, and she sighed audibly as he began. She'd resisted and resisted being bathed (and eating, and having her splints checked, her surface wounds cleaned, her breathing listened to...), but when three days had passed, she'd acquiesced, bitter and weak. A strange stillness came over her, as Ambrose worked, and she was very quiet through the too-intimate task.
For his part, Ambrose was keeping up a detached distance and a kind of resentful thoroughness. At first. But as he shifted the blanket he'd laid over her, now to expose, now to cover, a softness came about his work, and a shyness, and the grace of familiarity and muscle memory.
Cain felt oddly like he was trespassing, and looked away. His throat felt constricted, or thick. It was a little hard to breathe, in the dim little room.
Azkadellia laughed very softly, once, and Cain looked up, but Ambrose had already withdrawn from wherever he had been, dropping the cloth nervously and reaching for the towel. He dried her cautiously, like he was afraid she would break (which she might), or bite.
"Brush my hair," she asked, all humility, when Ambrose had finished and covered her with the blanket, but Cain couldn't tell if it was false or not. Just looking at her was disorienting (though that might just as well have been the remnants of the concussion). And though he'd hated her, before, for whatever she might or might not have done with Ambrose in the early Spring, and in the Winter and in the Summer before, he hadn't felt so wary of her, hadn't wondered if she was any worse than just the broken figure he'd been told she'd become, with the petty hurts and allowances that entailed and perhaps forgave.
He did wonder now, just a little. He had a vacuum of suspicion to fill, now that... well. Now that he couldn't hold every hurt in his heart against Ambrose, for a while.
Cain had been strangely sobered, by the false inebriation of his injuries, and the world seemed under a cold new light, like a grey morning after a snow. He remembered why he had trusted Ambrose so little, but only in a clinical way. His trigger to action--his belief that Ambrose and Azkadellia had been entwined, just on the other side of the door from him--had been nothing, in the end, and all the assumed trespasses of before seemed petty and thin, next to their joint attempt at murder afterwards. If that was what it was.
Cain knew he had been trying to kill her, at least, if he knew nothing else.
Ambrose, even if he'd had some torrid affair with the Princess in the woods, even if he'd seen her a dozen times, even if he'd lied to Cain outright, seemed blameless in the face of that.
And the victim, strangely enough, did not.
Cain felt like a dog before a storm, ill at ease of her, and not just from the rational terror of being caught holding a royal. There was something wrong with her, and the animal in man cannot abide a wrongness, even if he is stupid or superstitious or mean, for it. The hindbrain resists, pulls away or blots out.
That didn't excuse his mad attempt to destroy her. But it did give him cause to wonder.
Ambrose sighed, shakily enough to pull Cain from his fearful reverie. He'd fetched the brush, and was rearranging Azkadellia as much as he needed, to free her hair from beneath her. They'd pulled the pins out of it, the day before, but the tangles had taken long before then, and the strange coils lingered, ghosts of good grooming.
"Watch me," he whispered in a plea, to Cain, "make sure I don't..." With much force of will, he indicated with the glitch hand. "...do anything," he finished lamely.
Cain nodded his promise he would, and Ambrose set uneasily to his task.
His fingers trembled while he worked (they had hardly stopped trembling, since they'd gotten her in), but if he pulled, Azkadellia made no sign of it, only closed her eyes as if soothed. And as he undid the knots and flattened the forced coils, she looked like she was melting into the cot, her inky hair fanning out around her like a nymph underwater, dissolving into a shadow.
About halfway through, she asked, sing-song and sighing, "Do you remember when I washed your hair for you?"
When Ambrose blinked, there were already tears formed and falling, landing quietly on the blanket below. He swallowed, and after a moment murmured thickly, "Yes."
Azkadellia smiled faintly, sadly. "You loved me a little bit, then, didn't you?"
Ambrose hitched a breath and brought his forearm up to his face, swiping at his eyes urgently. "Az, please..."
"You did," she whispered, "you told me. You hated me, too, but you loved me..."
Cain hobbled up to his feet, as Ambrose's shoulders started to shake in earnest and a panicked hiccough took his breath. He reached to take the brush away, and gathered his lover under his arm, half shepherding him, half making a crutch of him to get out of the room. "Come on. Finish it later."
He felt sick. But he guessed Ambrose felt sicker, so he bit it back, and guided him out to the sofa to fall into the upholstery and clutch him close while he sobbed.
********
Cain was thrust headlong back into the role of the sane one, the sober one, the protector, and he wasn't sure he was ready for it. Not sure at all.
Ambrose was pacing, agitated, outside the bedroom door, while Cain leaned on an improvised crutch to block his path. "Ambrose," he said, as sternly as he could, "go sit down and drink your tea."
"Please!" Azkadellia wailed, from the other side of the door, "please, mercy..."
Ambrose's knuckles were raw from his biting. Sniffing, he clutched his fists to his face, like he was afraid it would break open if he didn't brace it, didn't hold it. "I can't--she won't--"
"She'll calm down," Cain said, "she always does. This isn't gonna' kill her, and she can't honestly believe it is, so all the rest of this is just hysterics."
She was pleading for death, again. This had been the pattern; a few hours would pass quietly, and then she would snap. Nothing at all seemed to have set her off, this time; one minute Ambrose was finishing brushing her hair, and then she was begging, screaming. They'd strapped her down and tried to quiet her, but Ambrose hadn't been a match for it.
"But she's--I can't stand it," he said, shuddering, "I can't--"
"So go out, get out of here for a little while. Go pick up a game bird from the kitchens, listen and see if--see what anyone is saying. It's been awful quiet, yet, there's got to be something in the works."
"I shouldn't--"
"Ambrose," Cain said, firmly, "get."
Ambrose kissed him and fled.
***
Something was in the works. There was a definite buzz about the palace, with all of the curious whispering and conspiracy hashing that entailed. Ambrose ducked about his business quietly, but the crawling dread crept up on him too late.
Why hadn't it occurred to him he could get swept up in that?
"No, no, no," Ambrose pleaded silently, trying to shrink into nothing behind a cupboard, when he heard running footsteps. "Please don't see me, please--"
"Ambrose!" DG yelled, dashing through the door and to him, gripping his arm. He nearly dropped his sack. "There you are! Come on, Mom was just about to send someone out to get you, she says she needs you to talk to someone. I said you didn't know anything, but she said you might have maybe seen something when you were here, so..." She trailed off, but he was still being dragged off from the kitchen with no recourse. No unsuspicious recourse, anyway. If he bolted, he'd surely be chased.
"Az has been missing," DG hissed, conspiratorially, "longer than usual. Nobody's seen her in four days, and usually she's just, you know, locked up in her room, but they finally busted in this morning, and they don't think she's been in there for a while. And, I mean, she's disappeared before, but usually not for very long, and she always comes back on her own, you know, eventually..."
Ambrose's terrified brain tried to absorb all of this information, tried to formulate something--anything--to say, tried to order and shape all of the pieces into tools he could build with. He felt too frantic to go forward.
DG had more than enough momentum for the two of them, however.
"Anyway, this will just take a minute, you just have to talk to the investigator, and tell him you haven't seen her, so they can get on with it. It's so lucky you dropping in, right now! How've you been?" she asked, warm with concern. "How's Cain?"
Ambrose gaped for longer than he should have, but thought he remembered something about how lies that are closest to the truth are the best. "He's--he hurt himself," he stammered, "Fell. It's--it's been keeping us stuck indoors, lately, he's not walking so well."
"Oh, God, Glitch, I'm sorry, you know we could send over a healer, get him back up and running in no time... Or even Raw and I could come, I'm getting pretty good at bending my magic into healing, and you know Raw's good..."
Raw was also a little too good at seeing into people's souls.
"No," Ambrose said, too fast, and then scraped for a reason, "no... Cain's..." He shook his head, slowly, and took a sharp breath when he thought of it. "You know how proud he is, he's really embarrassed about it, it was--it was a really silly fall, he'd be upset I even told you. He's just going to lay up and, and be stubborn for a while, then he'll be fine..."
DG squeezed his arm, and smiled a little. "Oh, all right. I'm dying to try it out, though. It's like--something's been pushing me, or, or pulling me, maybe. I think I somehow knew Cain was hurt, maybe, I've felt like... like there's someone I love who needs healing. God, Ambrose, I hope that's all it is, just Cain's leg or whatever it is... You don't think..." DG's voice started to quaver, a little. "You don't think I'm feeling it because of... not Az..."
Ambrose shook his head, though the wave of terror threatened to sweep him under. And a wave of tears, to match DG's unshed ones. "N-no, she's really... really resilient, right? Nothing could hurt her." He squeezed her arm desperately, his glitch hand clenching and unclenching a fist in the space between them. "I'm sure she's okay."
"Thank you, Glitch." She stopped dragging him, then, and leaned to kiss his cheek. "You're so sweet. Take care of Cain, for me, promise? I just got a... a bad vibe, so make sure he didn't, like, fall again, okay?"
"Okay," Ambrose whispered, ashen.
"Okay," she said, nodding, and hugged him, before spinning him around. "Here you go, he's in there. You'll be fine!"
And just like that, Ambrose found himself nudged over a threshold, and right into the hard face of the law.
***
The man behind the table was unfamiliar, and Ambrose didn't recognize (or didn't remember) him, though time could have turned anything into the man in front of him. He was indistinct and worn, like an old coat, grown leathery and faded and bare of ornamentation, over time, a grey coat and white hair and brittle fingernails with nothing much in between.
Ambrose desperately wanted the man to be calm, and gentle, and kind. He looked like an old advisor ought to, or like a grandfather on a farm, stately and soft. He might be kind.
"I understand that the Princess Dorothy Gale intended to inform you that this is merely a formality, but I urge you to disregard her statement." The man hardly looked up from the notes he was scrawling into his neat, open folder, as he spoke, and his voice was low and grave and hard and even.
Ambrose felt dizzy. The door swung shut, behind him, and latched.
"I'm Acting Investigator Bernhaben," the man continued, "and I'll be collecting your statement and pursuing more information with you if necessary. Have a seat, Mister Switch."
"Ambrose, please," he said, nervously, "no one--nobody even--"
"Mister Ambrose," Bernhaben said, more slowly, "have a seat," and his gravity left no room for refusal.
Ambrose swallowed, and sat, like it was automatic. He felt nauseated and weak, and he knew he was sweating. Gods, he'd have known he was lying before he even spoke, if he'd been Acting Investigator and talking to him...self. He tried to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. "Sorry, but I hope this won't be long, my l--my... my person is stuck at home, waiting for me, and he's hurt right now. I need to bring back food," he said, gripping his sack, "we're just about out and it got completely away from me, you know how it can be when someone's sick at home... Or, well, not sick, but you know how it is, laid up..."
Bernhaben didn't spare him a glance for this, just made a note. "Mister Ambrose, I have been given reason by Her Majesty the Queen to believe that you are the last person known to have seen the Princess Azkadellia, as you were sent to her quarters unaccompanied shortly after the last time Her Majesty the Queen had contact with her. You left at an unspecified time, and have not returned since."
There was a pause, and Ambrose shifted uncomfortably. Was that a question? "I went to visit, but--"
"Did you enter the Princess Azkadellia's quarters unaccompanied, as instructed by Her Majesty the Queen, upon your last visit to the Palace?" Bernhaben's eyes came up, then, for the first time. They looked fathomless, and as pale as winter.
Ambrose felt cold.
"Yes," he said, and his voice was a wisp, "I did, but--"
"And was she there, inside, when you arrived?"
"Yes--"
"And how long did you stay inside of the Princess Azkadellia's quarters?"
"I really don't know, I--"
"Please make an estimate," Bernhaben said, calmly.
Ambrose was rattled. The man interrupted the way a mountain did by being in front of you; there was nothing sudden about it, it just was impassable.
"I--" Ambrose shook his head, trying to think. His glitch hand caught hold of a lock of his hair and pulled. "I'm not sure, maybe... maybe a half an hour?" Something about this man was unsettling, even beyond his task; he was as unmoving as the sky, as grave as the earth. Ambrose didn't know how to not move, anymore. How did you talk to someone like that?
"And then you left, taking approximately the same route by which you entered?"
"Yes, sir..."
"Was the Princess Azkadellia still in her quarters, when you left them?"
"No, she--I mean, yes, but she--" Ambrose could have strangled himself, if he'd had the leverage.
"Pardon," Bernhaben said, but it wasn't a question so much as an irrefusable demand. "Did you leave her quarters alone?"
"Yes," Ambrose said, trying to keep track of everything he'd already said and threatening to lose the thread quickly. He felt so scattered...
"And was the Princess Azkadellia inside them when you left?"
"Yes," he said again, this time nodding and lying as firmly as he could.
"Please enlighten me as to why your first answer to that question was 'No,'" Bernhaben said, perfectly unfazed.
"I--I saw her leave," Ambrose said, basically truthfully. "I didn't--"
"When?"
"When?" Ambrose repeated, startled.
"When did you see the Princess Azkadellia leave her quarters?" Bernhaben clarified.
"The same--well, almost the same time as I did. Not--not with me, but I--I saw her outside, when I was outside, and--and so I knew she'd left the palace."
Ambrose was half pleased with himself: that hadn't been a lie. He breathed a little easier, before realizing that probably didn't make him look any better. He tried to settle back into "concerned/flustered." It wasn't very hard.
Bernhaben glanced up at him, briefly, before returning his eyes to his notes. "Where was the Princess Azkadellia when you saw her, outside of the palace?"
"I don't..." Ambrose began, but thought better of denying completely. Better to give them something... He almost said "under her window," just to be telling the truth, but his brain caught up with him, and reminded him there would be grooves from the stretcher through the dirt, there, and while they might be lost in the long field, they'd still suggest a direction. After a terrifying moment, he shook his head, finally defaulting to the first answer. "I don't know. I don't remember."
"You cannot remember?" Bernhaben pressed, sounding as unconvinced as his steady tone allowed.
"I'm--" Ambrose set his jaw. "No, I can't. I forget things." And though it hadn't happened, in this case, he let his very real feelings about the thing up. The moody, bubbling thing in his stomach twinged an angry circuit alive, and he felt his scalp tingling, his skull starting to ease apart, just slowly. When he glanced aside, he could tell his glitch hand had taken the initiative, and was unzipping his head.
"You may not have noticed, Acting Investigator Bernhaben," Ambrose said, taking up Bernhaben's impossible formality as sternly as he was able, "but I'm a rehabilitating headcase. I have two lobes, again," and they were now visible, "but the cerebral cortex can never really be fully repaired, and it causes a certain amount of 'glitching,' to borrow the term that the Princess Azkadellia coined after she had it done."
"Perhaps you have unresolved feelings concerning your treatment at the hands of the Witch Acting Through the Princess Azkadellia," Bernhaben suggested, looking up from his notes. His eyebrows had pricked just slightly.
Ambrose's righteous anger went cold. "Yes," he said, quietly, and tried to will his hand to zip him back up. "But we have a certain--bond, I suppose, and the Queen asked me to help, if I could. Azkadellia hasn't been doing so well, apparently." He looked at the table, unable to meet the unblinking gaze. "I don't think I did any good."
"Where was the Princess Azkadellia when you saw her outside of her quarters?" Bernhaben asked again, slightly slower, as if there had been no diversion, as if Ambrose only needed to be prompted like a nervous child.
Ambrose shook his head. "I don't remember," he lied, closing his eyes tightly.
"Can you reconstruct where she might have been from where you were, at the time?" Bernhaben persisted.
"No," he refused flatly.
Bernhaben circled back around, verbally. "Where were you at the time that you saw the Princess Azkadellia outside of her quarters?"
"At the--" The glitch hand started weaving blindly. "I don't know where I am. The exit that faces out over the field toward the cottage, I was heading home."
"She was visible from the exit, or very near to it," Bernhaben confirmed.
"Yes..." They'd be able to come up with an angle, from there, but at least it wouldn't contain the actual place. That was good, Ambrose thought.
"Did you see her again, after that?"
"N-no," Ambrose said. "I'm not sure where she went."
"Have you had any contact with the Princess Azkadellia outside of the palace, since you came to live on the grounds?"
Ambrose took longer than he should have, answering that. Would someone know about that? Could someone have seen?
"A little," he said, finally, noncommittal.
"How recently?"
"I don't remember," Ambrose said, this time very truthfully. "It's been a while. I've spent all my time with Cain--with Wyatt Cain--for a long time, now. I don't know how long. And we haven't seen her together, ever."
Bernhaben ticked a check by something on his page. "Where did you meet her?"
"I don't... somewhere in the woods," he said, vaguely. He was sure he'd gone green, now.
"Anywhere else?"
"No," Ambrose said, shaking his head. "Always in the woods."
"Would you say that she frequented the woods, when she left the palace?"
"I wouldn't know what she frequented," Ambrose said, stiffly. "I only saw her there."
Bernhaben leaned closer to his notes, poring.
After more than a minute in silence, he nodded slightly. "Thank you."
"Thank--what?"
"That is the extent of my questioning, for now."
"Can I--I can go?" Ambrose asked, collecting his sack into his lap, and starting to rise.
"Are you going back to Cottage-at-the-Field?" Bernahben asked.
Ambrose blinked. "Is that what it's called?"
"Yes."
"Then, yes," he said, nodding, his spirits soaring. The bullet was dodged, even if just temporarily. "Yes, I'm going home." He might even skip, on the way.
Bernhaben nodded. "Then I will accompany you."
Ambrose blanched, and fell back into his seat. "Why?"
"You have indicated Mister Cain in your answers to my questions, which requires me to speak with him to verify your answers." He folded his hands together over his notes; his first particularly human gesture.
Ambrose shivered a little. "What--why? It's just about--why is that even important?"
Bernhaben continued without answering. "I also have jurisdiction to search all premises on the palace grounds as are indicated in my questioning."
Ambrose shook his head, weakly. "When did I indicate them?"
"When you suggested that Mister Cain is..." He paused to consult the notes. "'Stuck' there. Again when you answered in the affirmative concerning your destination. Furthermore, you remain the last person known to have had contact with her, which suggests import to observing your residence."
Ambrose swallowed, as his heart raced violently, and consulted a mental list.
Could he outrun the Investigator?
Almost certainly.
Could he outrun a guard the Investigator could send after him?
Probably.
Could he outrun a guard and remove Azkadellia far enough from home that he wouldn't get caught at it by said guard?
Not a chance.
He cursed inwardly, and nodded, rising in a daze of panic. "Yes. All right."
What else could he do?
Bernhaben closed his folder, rising to follow him around the desk. When they'd crossed and exited the little room, Bernhaben gestured for two guards in the hall to follow; Ambrose didn't know if they were Bernhaben's escort or his own. He experimented with walking ahead, to see whom they'd keep pace with. They split the difference.
He clutched his sack up and to his chest, and tried not to shudder too visibly, while he walked, faster still, but only by habit. Frantically, he scraped for possibilities.
What would they see when they came in? Cain on guard, and a closed door with Azkadellia behind it. What options did that give him?
He couldn't implicate Cain. Oh, it would be the easiest thing--'Cain, what's she doing here?'--but it wasn't an option. Maybe 'Oh, Cain, where did you find her? Thank the gods, she's been missing apparently!' That would buy them a few minutes, at least. Maybe they could say she was half-mad, didn't seem to know what she was saying... The way she'd been shouting, when he left, it was likely she'd fit the part.
At least he couldn't hear her, now. That bought him a little more time still, didn't it?
The guards might follow him around back, if he led them there, and he could take them out without much difficulty, and the Investigator. The problem would be if one of them ran away, rather than stayed to fight; he could warn others, and they'd have all the resources of the palace instantly on them. Probably not a good idea. Even if he caught them all, he'd be stuck hiding a Princess, an Acting Investigator, and two guards.
He could say, 'Yes, I lied to you just now, but I swear I found her like this in the woods, I just panicked when you asked.' Oh, no, not suspicious at all. Especially not when she would say, after, 'Found me, ha! Kill them both for treason!'
He could come clean. Ha.
He was going to die. He was going to be caught out, tried, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and then he was going to be killed. He was walking the plank, marching to his death on his own power, and he would be taking Cain down with him.
He started to cry, again, unable to stop.
He wanted to fall into Cain's arms and just be held and weep. If they were thrown into prison to await trial, would they at least be together? Could he cry on Cain then? Or would they be held separate, tried separate, and die alone?
Ambrose didn't bother to cover his weeping. No one asked him about it.
He didn't want to die.
There might, just might be a little hope for the 'Oh-where-did-you-find-her' route, if Cain was in perfect form and caught on right away. If the concussion allowed it. Or at least forgave him being led. It was worth a try, worth the shot at avoiding... well. They'd bandaged her wounds--Cain could say he'd done it, that she'd even stumbled to their door on her own, that he hadn't had to carry her (since he'd be hard pressed to pass as able to). Maybe...
The hope was weak, a tiny light threatening to snuff out completely in the saltwater.
Never before had the sight of the perfect little door seemed so hateful, so cruel. This was refuge, even when it was sometimes also his prison. This was the safe place, in the world.
'Please don't scream, please don't scream, please don't...' he begged, silently, when he approached the door.
He could barely make himself reach for it. He could barely fight down a sob.
He rapped hard, three times, deliberate and distinct. "Cain!" he yelled, unable to even pray for a miracle, "Are you decent?" A little warning was as much as he could give. He had to give him that chance... Maybe he'd be able to sneak out, or play completely out of commission, and Ambrose could take the blame alone, without dragging his lover down with him...
He gripped the handle, and turned it, slow. "We have guests--an investigator from the palace and two guards--" he tried, "are you--are you fit for company?"
There was no response.
Well, he wouldn't have known what to say or do, either, he supposed. He closed his eyes.
And feeling like he was cutting through his own throat, Ambrose gave the door a gentle push, and let it swing open.
*** * * * *
(On to Chapter Thirteen)
Author: blindswandive
Characters/Pairing: Ambrose/Cain; feat. Azkadellia, DG, and one OC. Light references to Glitch/Azkadellia.
Rating: PG13 - PG16
Summary: Apparently no one's adjusted, anymore. But wounds are tended, souls are nursed, and treason is treason is treason. This chapter contains questions, manipulations, remembering, forgetting, forgiving, not forgiving, and a certain amount of screaming.
Warnings: An OC, a question and answer period, a hairbrush, and a sponge bath. And a cliff-hanger, but you're probably used to that, by now.
Disclaimer: Characters and Oz and O.Z. belong to Baum, SciFi, etc. Storyline/writing are mine, and I'm not turning a profit from it.
Word Count: 4764
Cross posted to tinman_fic.
Posting the shorter chapter seems to have had the desired effects, momentum-wise! This is the second new chapter this week, and we're getting into the meat of the thing. (So be forewarned if you're following and the last part you saw was a month and a half ago; see Ch. 11, linked below!) Thanks so much for patience and encouragement. Your feedback is love. <3
Previous chapters/series:
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Ten
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eight
Chapter Seven
Chapter Six
Chapter Five
Chapter Four
Chapter Three
Chapter Two
Chapter One
Previous Series
And now,
Chapter 12
"Do you remember baths at my palace?" Azkadellia whispered to Ambrose, as he worked to undress her with shaking hands.
Cain had elected to stay in the room, for her bath (such as it was), but wondered if he'd made the wrong choice.
Ambrose didn't answer her. "Hand me the bowl, please," he mumbled, and Cain reached to do it with his good hand.
"Oh, come now, Ambrose," she said softly, sweetly, "if you're going to keep me locked up, away from my family and away from my life, at least speak to me..."
Ambrose closed his eyes tightly, and the set of his jaw told Cain (even through the lingering mugginess of his skull) that he was fighting off tears. The glitch hand was fumbling for the washcloth in the soapy water, as if determined to go on, with or without him.
"Please, old friend..." Azkadellia twitched her fingers, as if she would move to touch him but didn't quiet have the strength. "You can't blame me for the things we did to you..."
"Hush," Ambrose guttered. "I don't know."
Cain looked between them slowly. He didn't know what? Didn't know if he could blame her...?
Azkadellia pouted, then, but the gesture was strangely false, and her eyes were cool. Pins pricked the back of Cain's neck, to see this, and tripped down his spine.
They were all silent, for a moment.
Ambrose finally gathered himself enough to start washing Azkadellia's body, and she sighed audibly as he began. She'd resisted and resisted being bathed (and eating, and having her splints checked, her surface wounds cleaned, her breathing listened to...), but when three days had passed, she'd acquiesced, bitter and weak. A strange stillness came over her, as Ambrose worked, and she was very quiet through the too-intimate task.
For his part, Ambrose was keeping up a detached distance and a kind of resentful thoroughness. At first. But as he shifted the blanket he'd laid over her, now to expose, now to cover, a softness came about his work, and a shyness, and the grace of familiarity and muscle memory.
Cain felt oddly like he was trespassing, and looked away. His throat felt constricted, or thick. It was a little hard to breathe, in the dim little room.
Azkadellia laughed very softly, once, and Cain looked up, but Ambrose had already withdrawn from wherever he had been, dropping the cloth nervously and reaching for the towel. He dried her cautiously, like he was afraid she would break (which she might), or bite.
"Brush my hair," she asked, all humility, when Ambrose had finished and covered her with the blanket, but Cain couldn't tell if it was false or not. Just looking at her was disorienting (though that might just as well have been the remnants of the concussion). And though he'd hated her, before, for whatever she might or might not have done with Ambrose in the early Spring, and in the Winter and in the Summer before, he hadn't felt so wary of her, hadn't wondered if she was any worse than just the broken figure he'd been told she'd become, with the petty hurts and allowances that entailed and perhaps forgave.
He did wonder now, just a little. He had a vacuum of suspicion to fill, now that... well. Now that he couldn't hold every hurt in his heart against Ambrose, for a while.
Cain had been strangely sobered, by the false inebriation of his injuries, and the world seemed under a cold new light, like a grey morning after a snow. He remembered why he had trusted Ambrose so little, but only in a clinical way. His trigger to action--his belief that Ambrose and Azkadellia had been entwined, just on the other side of the door from him--had been nothing, in the end, and all the assumed trespasses of before seemed petty and thin, next to their joint attempt at murder afterwards. If that was what it was.
Cain knew he had been trying to kill her, at least, if he knew nothing else.
Ambrose, even if he'd had some torrid affair with the Princess in the woods, even if he'd seen her a dozen times, even if he'd lied to Cain outright, seemed blameless in the face of that.
And the victim, strangely enough, did not.
Cain felt like a dog before a storm, ill at ease of her, and not just from the rational terror of being caught holding a royal. There was something wrong with her, and the animal in man cannot abide a wrongness, even if he is stupid or superstitious or mean, for it. The hindbrain resists, pulls away or blots out.
That didn't excuse his mad attempt to destroy her. But it did give him cause to wonder.
Ambrose sighed, shakily enough to pull Cain from his fearful reverie. He'd fetched the brush, and was rearranging Azkadellia as much as he needed, to free her hair from beneath her. They'd pulled the pins out of it, the day before, but the tangles had taken long before then, and the strange coils lingered, ghosts of good grooming.
"Watch me," he whispered in a plea, to Cain, "make sure I don't..." With much force of will, he indicated with the glitch hand. "...do anything," he finished lamely.
Cain nodded his promise he would, and Ambrose set uneasily to his task.
His fingers trembled while he worked (they had hardly stopped trembling, since they'd gotten her in), but if he pulled, Azkadellia made no sign of it, only closed her eyes as if soothed. And as he undid the knots and flattened the forced coils, she looked like she was melting into the cot, her inky hair fanning out around her like a nymph underwater, dissolving into a shadow.
About halfway through, she asked, sing-song and sighing, "Do you remember when I washed your hair for you?"
When Ambrose blinked, there were already tears formed and falling, landing quietly on the blanket below. He swallowed, and after a moment murmured thickly, "Yes."
Azkadellia smiled faintly, sadly. "You loved me a little bit, then, didn't you?"
Ambrose hitched a breath and brought his forearm up to his face, swiping at his eyes urgently. "Az, please..."
"You did," she whispered, "you told me. You hated me, too, but you loved me..."
Cain hobbled up to his feet, as Ambrose's shoulders started to shake in earnest and a panicked hiccough took his breath. He reached to take the brush away, and gathered his lover under his arm, half shepherding him, half making a crutch of him to get out of the room. "Come on. Finish it later."
He felt sick. But he guessed Ambrose felt sicker, so he bit it back, and guided him out to the sofa to fall into the upholstery and clutch him close while he sobbed.
********
Cain was thrust headlong back into the role of the sane one, the sober one, the protector, and he wasn't sure he was ready for it. Not sure at all.
Ambrose was pacing, agitated, outside the bedroom door, while Cain leaned on an improvised crutch to block his path. "Ambrose," he said, as sternly as he could, "go sit down and drink your tea."
"Please!" Azkadellia wailed, from the other side of the door, "please, mercy..."
Ambrose's knuckles were raw from his biting. Sniffing, he clutched his fists to his face, like he was afraid it would break open if he didn't brace it, didn't hold it. "I can't--she won't--"
"She'll calm down," Cain said, "she always does. This isn't gonna' kill her, and she can't honestly believe it is, so all the rest of this is just hysterics."
She was pleading for death, again. This had been the pattern; a few hours would pass quietly, and then she would snap. Nothing at all seemed to have set her off, this time; one minute Ambrose was finishing brushing her hair, and then she was begging, screaming. They'd strapped her down and tried to quiet her, but Ambrose hadn't been a match for it.
"But she's--I can't stand it," he said, shuddering, "I can't--"
"So go out, get out of here for a little while. Go pick up a game bird from the kitchens, listen and see if--see what anyone is saying. It's been awful quiet, yet, there's got to be something in the works."
"I shouldn't--"
"Ambrose," Cain said, firmly, "get."
Ambrose kissed him and fled.
***
Something was in the works. There was a definite buzz about the palace, with all of the curious whispering and conspiracy hashing that entailed. Ambrose ducked about his business quietly, but the crawling dread crept up on him too late.
Why hadn't it occurred to him he could get swept up in that?
"No, no, no," Ambrose pleaded silently, trying to shrink into nothing behind a cupboard, when he heard running footsteps. "Please don't see me, please--"
"Ambrose!" DG yelled, dashing through the door and to him, gripping his arm. He nearly dropped his sack. "There you are! Come on, Mom was just about to send someone out to get you, she says she needs you to talk to someone. I said you didn't know anything, but she said you might have maybe seen something when you were here, so..." She trailed off, but he was still being dragged off from the kitchen with no recourse. No unsuspicious recourse, anyway. If he bolted, he'd surely be chased.
"Az has been missing," DG hissed, conspiratorially, "longer than usual. Nobody's seen her in four days, and usually she's just, you know, locked up in her room, but they finally busted in this morning, and they don't think she's been in there for a while. And, I mean, she's disappeared before, but usually not for very long, and she always comes back on her own, you know, eventually..."
Ambrose's terrified brain tried to absorb all of this information, tried to formulate something--anything--to say, tried to order and shape all of the pieces into tools he could build with. He felt too frantic to go forward.
DG had more than enough momentum for the two of them, however.
"Anyway, this will just take a minute, you just have to talk to the investigator, and tell him you haven't seen her, so they can get on with it. It's so lucky you dropping in, right now! How've you been?" she asked, warm with concern. "How's Cain?"
Ambrose gaped for longer than he should have, but thought he remembered something about how lies that are closest to the truth are the best. "He's--he hurt himself," he stammered, "Fell. It's--it's been keeping us stuck indoors, lately, he's not walking so well."
"Oh, God, Glitch, I'm sorry, you know we could send over a healer, get him back up and running in no time... Or even Raw and I could come, I'm getting pretty good at bending my magic into healing, and you know Raw's good..."
Raw was also a little too good at seeing into people's souls.
"No," Ambrose said, too fast, and then scraped for a reason, "no... Cain's..." He shook his head, slowly, and took a sharp breath when he thought of it. "You know how proud he is, he's really embarrassed about it, it was--it was a really silly fall, he'd be upset I even told you. He's just going to lay up and, and be stubborn for a while, then he'll be fine..."
DG squeezed his arm, and smiled a little. "Oh, all right. I'm dying to try it out, though. It's like--something's been pushing me, or, or pulling me, maybe. I think I somehow knew Cain was hurt, maybe, I've felt like... like there's someone I love who needs healing. God, Ambrose, I hope that's all it is, just Cain's leg or whatever it is... You don't think..." DG's voice started to quaver, a little. "You don't think I'm feeling it because of... not Az..."
Ambrose shook his head, though the wave of terror threatened to sweep him under. And a wave of tears, to match DG's unshed ones. "N-no, she's really... really resilient, right? Nothing could hurt her." He squeezed her arm desperately, his glitch hand clenching and unclenching a fist in the space between them. "I'm sure she's okay."
"Thank you, Glitch." She stopped dragging him, then, and leaned to kiss his cheek. "You're so sweet. Take care of Cain, for me, promise? I just got a... a bad vibe, so make sure he didn't, like, fall again, okay?"
"Okay," Ambrose whispered, ashen.
"Okay," she said, nodding, and hugged him, before spinning him around. "Here you go, he's in there. You'll be fine!"
And just like that, Ambrose found himself nudged over a threshold, and right into the hard face of the law.
***
The man behind the table was unfamiliar, and Ambrose didn't recognize (or didn't remember) him, though time could have turned anything into the man in front of him. He was indistinct and worn, like an old coat, grown leathery and faded and bare of ornamentation, over time, a grey coat and white hair and brittle fingernails with nothing much in between.
Ambrose desperately wanted the man to be calm, and gentle, and kind. He looked like an old advisor ought to, or like a grandfather on a farm, stately and soft. He might be kind.
"I understand that the Princess Dorothy Gale intended to inform you that this is merely a formality, but I urge you to disregard her statement." The man hardly looked up from the notes he was scrawling into his neat, open folder, as he spoke, and his voice was low and grave and hard and even.
Ambrose felt dizzy. The door swung shut, behind him, and latched.
"I'm Acting Investigator Bernhaben," the man continued, "and I'll be collecting your statement and pursuing more information with you if necessary. Have a seat, Mister Switch."
"Ambrose, please," he said, nervously, "no one--nobody even--"
"Mister Ambrose," Bernhaben said, more slowly, "have a seat," and his gravity left no room for refusal.
Ambrose swallowed, and sat, like it was automatic. He felt nauseated and weak, and he knew he was sweating. Gods, he'd have known he was lying before he even spoke, if he'd been Acting Investigator and talking to him...self. He tried to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. "Sorry, but I hope this won't be long, my l--my... my person is stuck at home, waiting for me, and he's hurt right now. I need to bring back food," he said, gripping his sack, "we're just about out and it got completely away from me, you know how it can be when someone's sick at home... Or, well, not sick, but you know how it is, laid up..."
Bernhaben didn't spare him a glance for this, just made a note. "Mister Ambrose, I have been given reason by Her Majesty the Queen to believe that you are the last person known to have seen the Princess Azkadellia, as you were sent to her quarters unaccompanied shortly after the last time Her Majesty the Queen had contact with her. You left at an unspecified time, and have not returned since."
There was a pause, and Ambrose shifted uncomfortably. Was that a question? "I went to visit, but--"
"Did you enter the Princess Azkadellia's quarters unaccompanied, as instructed by Her Majesty the Queen, upon your last visit to the Palace?" Bernhaben's eyes came up, then, for the first time. They looked fathomless, and as pale as winter.
Ambrose felt cold.
"Yes," he said, and his voice was a wisp, "I did, but--"
"And was she there, inside, when you arrived?"
"Yes--"
"And how long did you stay inside of the Princess Azkadellia's quarters?"
"I really don't know, I--"
"Please make an estimate," Bernhaben said, calmly.
Ambrose was rattled. The man interrupted the way a mountain did by being in front of you; there was nothing sudden about it, it just was impassable.
"I--" Ambrose shook his head, trying to think. His glitch hand caught hold of a lock of his hair and pulled. "I'm not sure, maybe... maybe a half an hour?" Something about this man was unsettling, even beyond his task; he was as unmoving as the sky, as grave as the earth. Ambrose didn't know how to not move, anymore. How did you talk to someone like that?
"And then you left, taking approximately the same route by which you entered?"
"Yes, sir..."
"Was the Princess Azkadellia still in her quarters, when you left them?"
"No, she--I mean, yes, but she--" Ambrose could have strangled himself, if he'd had the leverage.
"Pardon," Bernhaben said, but it wasn't a question so much as an irrefusable demand. "Did you leave her quarters alone?"
"Yes," Ambrose said, trying to keep track of everything he'd already said and threatening to lose the thread quickly. He felt so scattered...
"And was the Princess Azkadellia inside them when you left?"
"Yes," he said again, this time nodding and lying as firmly as he could.
"Please enlighten me as to why your first answer to that question was 'No,'" Bernhaben said, perfectly unfazed.
"I--I saw her leave," Ambrose said, basically truthfully. "I didn't--"
"When?"
"When?" Ambrose repeated, startled.
"When did you see the Princess Azkadellia leave her quarters?" Bernhaben clarified.
"The same--well, almost the same time as I did. Not--not with me, but I--I saw her outside, when I was outside, and--and so I knew she'd left the palace."
Ambrose was half pleased with himself: that hadn't been a lie. He breathed a little easier, before realizing that probably didn't make him look any better. He tried to settle back into "concerned/flustered." It wasn't very hard.
Bernhaben glanced up at him, briefly, before returning his eyes to his notes. "Where was the Princess Azkadellia when you saw her, outside of the palace?"
"I don't..." Ambrose began, but thought better of denying completely. Better to give them something... He almost said "under her window," just to be telling the truth, but his brain caught up with him, and reminded him there would be grooves from the stretcher through the dirt, there, and while they might be lost in the long field, they'd still suggest a direction. After a terrifying moment, he shook his head, finally defaulting to the first answer. "I don't know. I don't remember."
"You cannot remember?" Bernhaben pressed, sounding as unconvinced as his steady tone allowed.
"I'm--" Ambrose set his jaw. "No, I can't. I forget things." And though it hadn't happened, in this case, he let his very real feelings about the thing up. The moody, bubbling thing in his stomach twinged an angry circuit alive, and he felt his scalp tingling, his skull starting to ease apart, just slowly. When he glanced aside, he could tell his glitch hand had taken the initiative, and was unzipping his head.
"You may not have noticed, Acting Investigator Bernhaben," Ambrose said, taking up Bernhaben's impossible formality as sternly as he was able, "but I'm a rehabilitating headcase. I have two lobes, again," and they were now visible, "but the cerebral cortex can never really be fully repaired, and it causes a certain amount of 'glitching,' to borrow the term that the Princess Azkadellia coined after she had it done."
"Perhaps you have unresolved feelings concerning your treatment at the hands of the Witch Acting Through the Princess Azkadellia," Bernhaben suggested, looking up from his notes. His eyebrows had pricked just slightly.
Ambrose's righteous anger went cold. "Yes," he said, quietly, and tried to will his hand to zip him back up. "But we have a certain--bond, I suppose, and the Queen asked me to help, if I could. Azkadellia hasn't been doing so well, apparently." He looked at the table, unable to meet the unblinking gaze. "I don't think I did any good."
"Where was the Princess Azkadellia when you saw her outside of her quarters?" Bernhaben asked again, slightly slower, as if there had been no diversion, as if Ambrose only needed to be prompted like a nervous child.
Ambrose shook his head. "I don't remember," he lied, closing his eyes tightly.
"Can you reconstruct where she might have been from where you were, at the time?" Bernhaben persisted.
"No," he refused flatly.
Bernhaben circled back around, verbally. "Where were you at the time that you saw the Princess Azkadellia outside of her quarters?"
"At the--" The glitch hand started weaving blindly. "I don't know where I am. The exit that faces out over the field toward the cottage, I was heading home."
"She was visible from the exit, or very near to it," Bernhaben confirmed.
"Yes..." They'd be able to come up with an angle, from there, but at least it wouldn't contain the actual place. That was good, Ambrose thought.
"Did you see her again, after that?"
"N-no," Ambrose said. "I'm not sure where she went."
"Have you had any contact with the Princess Azkadellia outside of the palace, since you came to live on the grounds?"
Ambrose took longer than he should have, answering that. Would someone know about that? Could someone have seen?
"A little," he said, finally, noncommittal.
"How recently?"
"I don't remember," Ambrose said, this time very truthfully. "It's been a while. I've spent all my time with Cain--with Wyatt Cain--for a long time, now. I don't know how long. And we haven't seen her together, ever."
Bernhaben ticked a check by something on his page. "Where did you meet her?"
"I don't... somewhere in the woods," he said, vaguely. He was sure he'd gone green, now.
"Anywhere else?"
"No," Ambrose said, shaking his head. "Always in the woods."
"Would you say that she frequented the woods, when she left the palace?"
"I wouldn't know what she frequented," Ambrose said, stiffly. "I only saw her there."
Bernhaben leaned closer to his notes, poring.
After more than a minute in silence, he nodded slightly. "Thank you."
"Thank--what?"
"That is the extent of my questioning, for now."
"Can I--I can go?" Ambrose asked, collecting his sack into his lap, and starting to rise.
"Are you going back to Cottage-at-the-Field?" Bernahben asked.
Ambrose blinked. "Is that what it's called?"
"Yes."
"Then, yes," he said, nodding, his spirits soaring. The bullet was dodged, even if just temporarily. "Yes, I'm going home." He might even skip, on the way.
Bernhaben nodded. "Then I will accompany you."
Ambrose blanched, and fell back into his seat. "Why?"
"You have indicated Mister Cain in your answers to my questions, which requires me to speak with him to verify your answers." He folded his hands together over his notes; his first particularly human gesture.
Ambrose shivered a little. "What--why? It's just about--why is that even important?"
Bernhaben continued without answering. "I also have jurisdiction to search all premises on the palace grounds as are indicated in my questioning."
Ambrose shook his head, weakly. "When did I indicate them?"
"When you suggested that Mister Cain is..." He paused to consult the notes. "'Stuck' there. Again when you answered in the affirmative concerning your destination. Furthermore, you remain the last person known to have had contact with her, which suggests import to observing your residence."
Ambrose swallowed, as his heart raced violently, and consulted a mental list.
Could he outrun the Investigator?
Almost certainly.
Could he outrun a guard the Investigator could send after him?
Probably.
Could he outrun a guard and remove Azkadellia far enough from home that he wouldn't get caught at it by said guard?
Not a chance.
He cursed inwardly, and nodded, rising in a daze of panic. "Yes. All right."
What else could he do?
Bernhaben closed his folder, rising to follow him around the desk. When they'd crossed and exited the little room, Bernhaben gestured for two guards in the hall to follow; Ambrose didn't know if they were Bernhaben's escort or his own. He experimented with walking ahead, to see whom they'd keep pace with. They split the difference.
He clutched his sack up and to his chest, and tried not to shudder too visibly, while he walked, faster still, but only by habit. Frantically, he scraped for possibilities.
What would they see when they came in? Cain on guard, and a closed door with Azkadellia behind it. What options did that give him?
He couldn't implicate Cain. Oh, it would be the easiest thing--'Cain, what's she doing here?'--but it wasn't an option. Maybe 'Oh, Cain, where did you find her? Thank the gods, she's been missing apparently!' That would buy them a few minutes, at least. Maybe they could say she was half-mad, didn't seem to know what she was saying... The way she'd been shouting, when he left, it was likely she'd fit the part.
At least he couldn't hear her, now. That bought him a little more time still, didn't it?
The guards might follow him around back, if he led them there, and he could take them out without much difficulty, and the Investigator. The problem would be if one of them ran away, rather than stayed to fight; he could warn others, and they'd have all the resources of the palace instantly on them. Probably not a good idea. Even if he caught them all, he'd be stuck hiding a Princess, an Acting Investigator, and two guards.
He could say, 'Yes, I lied to you just now, but I swear I found her like this in the woods, I just panicked when you asked.' Oh, no, not suspicious at all. Especially not when she would say, after, 'Found me, ha! Kill them both for treason!'
He could come clean. Ha.
He was going to die. He was going to be caught out, tried, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and then he was going to be killed. He was walking the plank, marching to his death on his own power, and he would be taking Cain down with him.
He started to cry, again, unable to stop.
He wanted to fall into Cain's arms and just be held and weep. If they were thrown into prison to await trial, would they at least be together? Could he cry on Cain then? Or would they be held separate, tried separate, and die alone?
Ambrose didn't bother to cover his weeping. No one asked him about it.
He didn't want to die.
There might, just might be a little hope for the 'Oh-where-did-you-find-her' route, if Cain was in perfect form and caught on right away. If the concussion allowed it. Or at least forgave him being led. It was worth a try, worth the shot at avoiding... well. They'd bandaged her wounds--Cain could say he'd done it, that she'd even stumbled to their door on her own, that he hadn't had to carry her (since he'd be hard pressed to pass as able to). Maybe...
The hope was weak, a tiny light threatening to snuff out completely in the saltwater.
Never before had the sight of the perfect little door seemed so hateful, so cruel. This was refuge, even when it was sometimes also his prison. This was the safe place, in the world.
'Please don't scream, please don't scream, please don't...' he begged, silently, when he approached the door.
He could barely make himself reach for it. He could barely fight down a sob.
He rapped hard, three times, deliberate and distinct. "Cain!" he yelled, unable to even pray for a miracle, "Are you decent?" A little warning was as much as he could give. He had to give him that chance... Maybe he'd be able to sneak out, or play completely out of commission, and Ambrose could take the blame alone, without dragging his lover down with him...
He gripped the handle, and turned it, slow. "We have guests--an investigator from the palace and two guards--" he tried, "are you--are you fit for company?"
There was no response.
Well, he wouldn't have known what to say or do, either, he supposed. He closed his eyes.
And feeling like he was cutting through his own throat, Ambrose gave the door a gentle push, and let it swing open.
*** * * * *
(On to Chapter Thirteen)