WHO: Petrana de Cedoux + open. WHAT: This month, after more than a year of dithering and planning, Madame de Cedoux had her anchor-shard amputated. WHEN: Across this month. WHERE: The Gallows infirmary, primarily. NOTES: Starters in the comments.
Julius is at her side as much as he's permitted to be. The fact that he listens when Strange says he needs to step out likely ensures he's allowed to stay as much as is practical, or so he assumes. Petrana isn't the only one who has done some delegating in advance, and while he won't be on bed rest after, he's made space to be at her side without worrying about what isn't getting done. (Much.)
They have a quiet moment, just before, when the preparations don't involve Petrana directly. And when she looks for Julius ... there he is, moving from the edge of the room to her bedside at her glance. Neither of them is great with moments where they have no task in front of them.
It's a moment before he says, "It's strange to think that the day is here. Is it for you, too?" Something that she'd been thinking about so long.
As he comes to her side she reaches for him with both hands, gripping tightly with the hand that is, in all likelihood, holding his for the last time. Warm and whole and unmarred but for the anchor-shard she has long since grown accustomed to the presence of; not for the first time, she thinks, how mad to part with a perfectly good limb, how well it has served her. How mad it would be not to, with all that they know and all that they might learn.
βTo think that we must write him of it,β she says, quietly. When she had first begun this conversation, she had β the rare times that she allowed herself to do so at all β imagined it arriving differently.
Courage is not, she reminds herself, the absence of fear. It is the action.
"I know." He's had the thought, perhaps a bit selfish, that if Marcus were here, he wouldn't have to sit outside through the surgery alone, just waiting to learn if anything goes wrong. He'd thought through who else to ask, and those he has a few people he suspects would have said yes, the person who comes close to Julius wanting them there is Strange (who will be otherwise occupied).
He lifts her hands to press a kiss to the one that will soon be gone. "I'll start the letter to him, after, if you like. You can add your pages when you feel up to writing. Or I can take dictation, if you'd rather." They'll get word to him one way or another. Both of them.
She knows him well enough to know his quiet confidence that nothing will go wrong is at least in part a choice. For her, and perhaps a bit for himself as well. Even so, his hand is steady where she grips it.
βOh, it must be dictation,β she says, a wry murmur. βHeβll find that very amusing, Iβm sure.β
After all the fuss that she had made when it was Marcus so obligedβ
and isnβt it rather similar, she supposes. She flexes the hand soon to be parted with in Juliusβs grip; it isnβt as if she has no alternatives before her. Both paths hold risk ahead of them, and she is choosing which danger she prefers. It has become clear, in all the months of her worrying on it, that this is the course she prefersβ even still.
It makes him laugh, quietly. "He will, too. And maybe that will get it on its way a bit faster." She might feel up to dictating her thoughts sooner than to writing herself, after.
Julius studies her face, intently, as if to evaluate how she really is behind the quiet resolve. It's not an expression without affection, but she also knows how observant he can be when he puts his mind to it. (A more morbid frame of mind might suggest he's memorizing her in case anything goes wrong.)
"I would he were here with us," Julius adds, quietly, which can't be a surprise. He doesn't expect she feels any differently.
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before
They have a quiet moment, just before, when the preparations don't involve Petrana directly. And when she looks for Julius ... there he is, moving from the edge of the room to her bedside at her glance. Neither of them is great with moments where they have no task in front of them.
It's a moment before he says, "It's strange to think that the day is here. Is it for you, too?" Something that she'd been thinking about so long.
no subject
βTo think that we must write him of it,β she says, quietly. When she had first begun this conversation, she had β the rare times that she allowed herself to do so at all β imagined it arriving differently.
Courage is not, she reminds herself, the absence of fear. It is the action.
no subject
He lifts her hands to press a kiss to the one that will soon be gone. "I'll start the letter to him, after, if you like. You can add your pages when you feel up to writing. Or I can take dictation, if you'd rather." They'll get word to him one way or another. Both of them.
She knows him well enough to know his quiet confidence that nothing will go wrong is at least in part a choice. For her, and perhaps a bit for himself as well. Even so, his hand is steady where she grips it.
no subject
After all the fuss that she had made when it was Marcus so obligedβ
and isnβt it rather similar, she supposes. She flexes the hand soon to be parted with in Juliusβs grip; it isnβt as if she has no alternatives before her. Both paths hold risk ahead of them, and she is choosing which danger she prefers. It has become clear, in all the months of her worrying on it, that this is the course she prefersβ even still.
Even still.
no subject
Julius studies her face, intently, as if to evaluate how she really is behind the quiet resolve. It's not an expression without affection, but she also knows how observant he can be when he puts his mind to it. (A more morbid frame of mind might suggest he's memorizing her in case anything goes wrong.)
"I would he were here with us," Julius adds, quietly, which can't be a surprise. He doesn't expect she feels any differently.