#fff362

***

“Have some more broccoli, John,” my mother urges him.

He swallows thickly and looks at the almost grey bits of broccoli he is offered. I decide to rescue my poor boyfriend.

“I will have some,” I say, grip the porcelain bowl with the atrocities, and feign loosening my grip. With a spectacular crack, the bowl hits the tiled floor, spreading the disgusting vegetables far and wide, while the bowl only gets slightly chapped.

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes!” 

“Apologies,” I mutter and sweep up the gooey mass with some thick kitchen roll.

I catch John’s eye when I seat myself again, and I must look away quickly lest I fall into a fit of giggles. He is obviously aware that it was all a ploy to save him and his dignity.

***

“Thank you for that, love,” John whispers when we’re tucked up in bed later.

“I did contemplate to let you suffer through it, but I want you in her good graces. She already adores you for putting up with me, but I have no idea how she will react if she gets wind of your true opinions about her cooking.”

John shudders by the mere thought; Mummy can be quite intimidating.

“I guess this explains your aversion to eat properly,” he muses. “If your childhood was filled with overcooked – “

“It was, John. Only Mycroft and Father’s cunning ways kept me from starving. I didn’t have broccoli for ages until Angelo persuaded me to taste his after I had told him about my abominable experience with it. He was outright scandalised when I told him Mummy boiled them for twenty minutes.”

“It shouldn’t be done like that!”

John laughs when I imitate Angelo’s voice and accent, and he ends up gasping for air when I continue.

“She thinks the vegetables are alive and need to be annihilated?”

“Oh my God,” John wheezes, “he didn’t know how funny that was, did he?”

“Of course not, John. Food is a very serious business for Angelo. I thought you knew that.”

John sobers a bit and clears his voice awkwardly.

“Well, yeah, I do. Remember when I told him how my mum used to make Carbonara?”

It is my time to start laughing.

“Cream, onions, and garlic, John. What was she thinking?”

“Dunno, but I’ve never been more grateful for my mum’s passing than I was then. He was very gracious about it afterwards.”

“Obviously. Family is also extremely important to the Italians. You can dine there for free on your own now, you know. He felt awful when you told him your mother had been dead for more than a decade.”

“And why would I go to Angelo’s without you, my darling? To quote our Italian friend: “It shouldn’t be done!”

“Quite right,” I agree.

***

The next morning, John rises early to beat Mummy to the kitchen. 

“Heaven knows what she is capable of doing to the scrambled eggs, not to mention the bacon,” he whispers when I complain about him leaving the bed - and more importantly me - in favour of cooking.

All that aside, the breakfast is a great success if my mother’s gushing is any indicator.

“How do you manage to get the eggs so fluffy but not runny, dear?”

“It’s fairly easy. You just finish them when they’re still a bit wet. The temperature in the eggs will ensure that the mass keeps cooking for a few more moments after they’re taken out of the pan. And then they’re perfect.”

“I will try to remember that. Or perhaps you can remind me, darling?” Mummy addresses Father, who makes just as perfectly scrambled eggs as John does.

My Father agrees vigorously, but his expression is somewhat sceptical. Mummy’s ability to forget domestic chores in a heartbeat is after all legendary.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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“I was worried about you.”

“Liar.”

The sharp retort stripped the breath from all the other things I wanted to say. I waited for them to let their anger have its way, but they kept silent and only glared at me in lieu of further dialog.

After a minute of stinging silence, I tried again.

“I know this is a breach of protocol, but I couldn’t let you just… drift off without some kind of closure. Not for me, but for you and all that you had invested in this.”

I don’t know how they could hold themselves more still than all the secure restraints that kept them in place, but somehow they were making a gravity well out of themselves by no force other than their implacable stare. I couldn’t look away. Not even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. But that the choice had been taken from me without them lifting a single finger… hurt.

“I might be having this conversation too early. You have just returned, after all, and you likely haven’t quite settled down yet. So, I’m going to leave you in peace for the night and we can pick up where we left off in the morning.”

“YOU HAVE THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO SAY THAT TO MY FUCKING FACE AFTER WHAT YOU FUCKING DID YOU SHIT GARGLING EVOLUTIONARY COCK-UP?!”

They whispered so quietly that I had to strain to hear them. As I parsed their speech, I felt like they were assaulting me with acid and rust. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. This wasn’t what I brought them back for. This wasn’t the person I needed them to be.

This is who they had been the entire time but I didn’t want to remember. I was so sure that this time, I had prevented the distress that led to their chronic vitriolic outbursts.

“SURE! JUST TRUSS ME UP LIKE ALL THE OTHER FAILED EXPERIMENTS AND HOPE I DROWN IN SPITE AND VOMIT JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHERS THAT YOU THOUGHT I WASN’T AWARE OF! I WOULD COMPARE YOU TO A COCKROACH BECAUSE YOU RUN JUST AS HARD FROM THE LIGHT BUT AT LEAST THE ROACH HAS AN EVOLUTIONARY NICHE WHEREAS YOU ARE PROOF AGAINST A SENTIENT CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE!”

“No, this isn’t you. You just came back. It’s too soon for this conversation.” I took a step away from the chamber. I didn’t want them to overstress their body, their… restored… body. It’s too soon to be subjecting the circulatory system to any kind of stress. It’s too soon for this. It’s too soon.

“Just a night’s rest. The supports will take care of all your bodily functions. Just… just close your eyes and go to sleep. It won’t even feel like dying, because –“

“BECAUSE DYING PUT ME TO ETERNAL FUCKING REST BUT YOU ARE TRYING TO MOREAU YOUR WAY INTO A RELATIONSHIP THAT DIED BEFORE MY HEART FAILED! BECAUSE DYING LET ME ESCAPE YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL! BECAUSE DYING BEFORE YOU DID MEANT YOU HAD NOTHING TO DISTRACT YOU FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR DECISIONS AND INSTEAD OF LETTING ME GO YOU KEEP PULLING ME BACK FROM ETERNITY AND LET ME TELL YOU A GOD DAMN THING!”

I didn’t want to hear anything more but their voice was already fading and I didn’t want their voice to cease. They won’t last the night. They won’t last the next hour. They are spending their precious few moments shaping their hate into flecks of blood that stained the front of my lab coat.

Their eyes started to dry out and fade. Their gums and tongue were horrifically white. Despite all the work I had put into strengthening their heart, it was failing in front of me. Again. They were failing in front of me. Again. My work was failing me. Again.

“SINCE YOU WON’T LEARN A DAMN THING FROM THIS, LEMME GIVE YOU FAIR WARNING! I… I have. And… and… and eventually… this will get to a point… where…  you… you can’t call me back anymore. And… heh… and when that happens… huh… huh… I will wait for you… one… last… time.”

The restraints kept them perfectly in place this entire time, with only the ability to breathe and speak permitted. And somehow, they were suddenly, loose and soft in those same restraints. The inside of their mouth, now slack and hanging open, was as white as flesh could get. Their eyes were dry and milky from the lack of moisture.

They were gone.

I never understood why they were always so angry when I brought them back. Surely, they remember how I had promised we would always be together, no matter what. Surely, they forgave me my mistakes just as I had forgiven them their mistakes. Surely, they knew that the work had to be completed, no matter what. We had to be together, no matter what.

Once I perfected their body so that they would be my perfect partner again, we will present our findings to the forum together, as we always should have been. They were always saying that our experiments had to have limits, that there were certain experiments that shouldn’t be done because they were unethical or dehumanizing or whatever excuse they used to express their fear.

But I’m not afraid. And once I perfect their body, they won’t be afraid either. I just have to work better, because each time I bring them back, they stay a little less than before. There has to be a way to extend their life. There has to.

Because the alternative, giving up and just letting them stay dead, well…