Magic is also control, knowledge and secrecy!

AU in which Nathaniel survives the explosion aka it’s Kitty’s turn to suffer :)

Breathe, bastard. What’s the effort?

In, out. In, out. Kitty clenches her knuckles on her knees. Clenches her teeth. Breathe, or I’ll hate you forever. Or you wouldn’t have done anything but the lying magician, as you did all your life.

Suddenly, it seems to her that the room is suffocating. This is why Nathaniel can’t breathe, there’s no air. Kitty rushes to the window, opens it wide. It’s cold outside and, if she focuses, she can still catch burnt smell. But maybe it’s just suggestion: St. James’s Park is pretty far and there is no wind. Who knows if they’ve started to clean up, bring away the bulkiest debris, if they’ve found some miraculously-survived splinter from Gladstone’s Staff to make a relic.

Kitty turns to Nathaniel: he doesn’t seem to breathe better, to her. Absurd, that a thing so stupid must require so much work, and so much anguish. Bartimaeus doesn’t even breathe, just saying.

As if on cue, the boy’s dark head peeks out from the half-closed door. The djinni’s Londoner look amuses Kitty: it suits him, this mask of a clever-handed gamin. He has the pockets of his hoodie full of snacks from the vending machine.

Bartimaeus tilts his head on the side and stare wordlessly at the wide-open window. Kitty feels embarrassment crawl up her backbone, but refuses to give in. «The air was stagnant».

«Yeah» says Bartimaeus, almost wary «but there’s no reason to catch up a pneumonia, or make him catch it. He’s already in a bad way as he is».

Kitty stares at him with the best scowl she can conjure. Bartimaeus smiles angelic at her and offers to her some disgustingly sweet, covered-with-chocolate abomination.

«All this stuff is for me?»

«I didn’t want to leave all that around, Kitty. That machine must be broken because it continued to spit them out without need of money». Sure.

Nathaniel makes a sigh that seems a little louder than usual. Maybe she’s going crazy, counting breaths and weighting them on the tip of her fingers.

The problem is not death, even if she sometimes feels it pressed against the glass of the little hospital room; Kitty buried all her old comrades, so to speak. The problem is this waiting, this agony that drags on and seems to not end. Kitty has never had to wait so much, and not even hope so desperately.

She wonders, almost distractedly, how would Bartimaeus handle it if Nathaniel died. She does not dare wonder how would he handle it in the opposite situation.

Nathaniel sighs, again.

«Do you think he can hear us?»

Bartimaeus is bent over the bed, a finger in the air as if he wanted to poke Nathaniel’s pale cheek, or stick it in his eye socket. Kitty shrugs, sits again. «Some doctors say he can. They say talking to them helps».

Kitty doesn’t do it because she knows that from her mouth would come out about only insults, and she doubts it’s an optimal therapy.

«Even usually his cerebral activity is what it is. I know, I was in there…»

Kitty lets the djinni’s chatter pour over her. It’s comforting.

She looks at Nathaniel’s livid lips scraped to blood: they’re half-open. His chest raises and lowers: it doesn’t seem he has half of his side charred, after all.

This is actually part of an AU thay maybe I’ll write some day: essentially, Nathaniel keeps his promise to Kitty at the end of GE but doesn’t know he’s being watched, so, as a traitor, he’s forced to flee with her and Jakob (and Bartimaeus, of course) and has to mend with commoners. Then they’ll start the revolution, fall in love etc etc, but after the angst I wanted something light and stupid.

There was a horrid weather in London, as always. The torrential rain poured over roofs, along the streets, went and swelled the Thames. And here, nothing weird. We were in London, it was November, what would you expect? No, the problem was that it was raining inside too.

Even normally the hole Nathaniel had managed to get presented various flaws (of which the mould and the draughts were by far the most pleasant) but, while I was trying to pass my time waiting for the master to come home, I had noticed a puddle of water near the so-called window.

When Nathaniel was back, the puddle had decisively become wider. The master had put his hands in his few left hair[1] and had yelled why wouldn’t I have done something about it.

«And how so, with spit? Do you perhaps have a toolbox here?»[2]

«You could always put something under there!» he had burst out, flinging on the ground the basin for dirty dishes.

Mh. Maybe yes, actually.

Some hours later, the basin was still there and it had been emptied more times. Nathaniel seemed on the verge of throw it out of the window with a kick, and, since this would just have worsened the situation, I coughed discreetly: «What if I called Kitty?»

The boy stared at me with bloodshot eyes. «What help would that be of? So there will be two of you watching me emptying the basin?»

«That too, but I have a lot more of confidence in her than in you in practical business. And it’s clear that in your relationship she’s the man».

The furious blushing was replaced by another kind of blushing. «There is no relationship between Kitty and me».

«Then I guess I’ve gotten the wrong door».

As in the best comedies of errors, Nathaniel became whiter than milk.  I let out a cheerful howl; Kitty smirked, shook her umbrella and closed the door behind her.

«Insulating tape» she suggested, going around the little salt statue that Nathaniel had become. «Or just pure and simple tape. I know that kind of window, you can’t really fix it in another way. And pray it won’t snow this winter».

Nathaniel sighed.

«This house really sucks, you know» I commented stretching. «It makes you think about the thousands of people living in houses like this, while ten or so is enjoying life in their Hampstead mansions…»

The master glanced at me, fed up. «Why are you here?»

«You summoned me».

«I gave you free access, you’re not forced».

«It’s raining».

«Did you go grocery shopping?»

The boy and I stopped our squabble and stared at Kitty; she was examining critically Nathaniel’s pantry.

«I… yes, I’ve bought something».

The something was the saddest assortment of tins. Kitty opened up in a merciful smile. «You can’t eat only that stuff. You have to learn to cook a little!»

«Doing the mum doesn’t suit you» the boy went off, trying to be indignant. It was a scene really sad: he made a step that wanted to be disdainful, met the basin, tripped and rainwater ended everywhere.[3]

Now, I wouldn’t want to be misunderstood: it was one hundred times better this Nathaniel, trying desperately to survive in the world of normal people, than “Mandrake”, the little ambitious who would have sold his grandmother for a promotion. But, in front of these scenes, I felt embarrassment for him; with a guest in the house, moreover!

I tried to make him notice this with usual tact, but as an answer I received a furious growl.

I exchanged with Kitty a desolate glance.

Hopeless, this boy.

[1] Thanks goodness, for better hiding, Nathaniel had accepted to shave it. The greatest satisfaction of the last two hundred years.

[2] I am ready to admit that, maybe, even in this case I wouldn’t have been a lot of help. DIY has never been one of my strenghts.