Gin Mills and the Goods

They'll Change Their Tune

PART 2: THEY'LL CHANGE THEIR TUNE

Tedros has a lot of dreams.

His father stands over his hospital bed, swigging from a bottle, staring blankly over his head. Rhian sits in the Sister's chair at the end of the ward and smokes and smiles in equal measure. He can hear someone shouting outside. Gunshots go off for what seems like hours, and his ears ring. Hester stands at the foot of his bed, considering him with an unreadable expression. Beatrix dances a Charleston, just slightly too far away for him to see properly. Agatha holds out a tattooed arm for a needle, and, later, she enters silently and puts his pearls in the side table.

They're still there when Tedros wakes up.

He picks them up and carefully scrapes off the mud and blood-- his blood, that's his blood. They're probably some kind of hygiene risk, but he doesn't care. He puts them under his pillow and carefully untangles them when he's alone. They're only broken in one place, so he's only lost one or two at most. They must have been expensive; they're a proper set, knotted between each pearl like they're supposed to be. The black pearl remains. He needs to restring them, though. It'll be messy if he just tries to repair the current one. He can't look foolish.

The pearls are here, but Agatha isn't.

None of them are, apart from his "sister".

"They couldn't risk being here for too long." Beatrix whispers as she leans down to hug him. "Agatha was already toeing the line. I think the nurse got suspicious, but she's charming enough to convince her otherwise, and clever enough to drop the slang."

Tedros understands that. He thinks. Understanding, in general, is hard work at the moment. Between blood loss, a concussion, and shock, it's apparently some kind of miracle he's functioning at all.

They keep asking him to recount what happened. He's not sure. He was at a club, he was shot by Rhian. Maybe. Maybe it was Japeth. Who's Rhian? Who's Japeth? He can't say. He didn't do anything wrong, though. He didn't. They assure him that of course he didn't, dear, look in his eyes and tut and ask him to recount the 6 times table. They clearly think he's making dubious progress.

---

It probably doesn't make it better, then, that when they come in and tell him his mother's here, Tedros is only half awake. He's still only half awake when she shuffles in, clutching her felt hat so hard she's sure to rip it.

Flailing in the riptide between dream and reality, Tedros stares at Guinevere for a long time before he realises she's actually there.

"Mother?"

Guinevere tries for a wobbly smile, but it's clear she's seconds away from bursting into tears. Tedros struggles to sit up, dislodging his pearls. He catches them just in time and shoves them back under his pillow. Guinevere follows the movement, but her eyes are quickly back to his face again.

"How did you--" He starts.

"Merlin."

"...Merlin?"

Guinevere nods quickly.

"Apparently he's one of Lady A's Chicago contacts, he sent me to her--"

"Agatha knows Merlin and didn't tell me?" Splutters Tedros. Guinevere blinks.

"She didn't? Oh-- well, never mind that now, you can always ask her when you get... um, when you see her again."

Tedros, who had been busy deconstructing the typical-of-Agatha "it's too dangerous" argument in his head, still notices the change in direction.