For No Miser’s Sake

By Kuliundheft

Part XI

Vincent slept for fourteen hours. It was mid-afternoon when he woke, his entire right side stiff and aching, but his body was strengthened and rested overall. He found a water pitcher and two overstuffed sandwiches on thick slices of heavy bread at his bedside; William knew his appetite well. With vague memories of a tepid, half-eaten supper almost a day ago, Vincent had polished off the first sandwich before it even occurred to him to pour himself a cup of water. After he set the pitcher back down with a light thunk, he heard rustling on the other side of the chamber, beyond the privacy screens around his bed.

“Vincent?” Mouse called. “Awake?”

This was a conversation that Vincent didn’t feel ready for yet; there was little that troubled Mouse so deeply as being ignored or turned away. It reminded him too much of the dark silence of his early childhood, when his natural desire for care and attention had been nothing more than an aching hollow, a quiet torture in his endless night Below. Vincent was ashamed to have been so careless the evening before, when Mouse looked to him most of all, trusted him most of all, as the gentle voice that had invited him into the light, to be a child in a community that loved him in his presence and missed him in his absence. If Mouse’s hero worship bothered Vincent, it was nothing to the shocked hurt those trusting eyes could reflect.

“Yes, Mouse, I’m awake. How are you feeling?”

“Bored,” Mouse answered at once, his tone conveying only a mild frustration and none of the hurt or anger Vincent had feared. “Can’t get up. Father says. Sends people to spy.”

“Your wound is a very serious one.”

“Bored,” Mouse insisted. “Tell me a story, please?” His voice rose plaintively, and Vincent sensed his need for familiar, comforting words more than for entertainment. “About the lady in the tower. The one that rhymes.”

“The Lady of Shalott?” Vincent guessed; Mouse’s attention to literature had included little patience for structure or convention, and so poetry tended to be categorized simply as stories or ideas that rhymed. Unrhymed poetry just didn’t get separated from prose at all. “I’m afraid even I don’t have that one fully memorized.”

“The one about the sword, then.”

He smiled; Jabberwocky had always been a particular favorite among many of the children, and Mouse was no exception. Vincent had found himself so well acquainted with the poem after countless recitations that he had once amused Father and Peter over supper by trying to recite it backwards. After a few false starts, he had made rather a good show of it.

And so, after a couple hasty gulps of water, ‘twas brillig, and Mouse relaxed in his bed. The poem finished, Mouse didn’t press for any more, and Vincent took the opportunity to eat the second sandwich.

Michael came in as he was finishing and looked happy to see him awake.

“Father said you’d be awake soon,” the boy said. “But I’m to tell you that you’re not allowed out of bed until Father sends someone to help you to your chamber. And that’s only because you’ll sleep better in your own bed.” Michael grinned. “Then Edward said you’ve got a head like stone and the common sense of a particularly photophilic moth, and it’s a wonder we’ve been able to keep you alive this long, but I wasn’t s’posed to repeat that part.”

“Nor will I tell either Edward or Father about your accidental slip,” Vincent vowed solemnly, certain that Edward had fully intended for the words to be repeated when he uttered them in Michael’s hearing.

Michael’s grin widened. “Is that really a word, ‘photophilic?’ Sometimes I think Edward just makes things up.”

Vincent had to smile at that; Edward was absolutely notorious for telling the children tall tales and swearing to their truth, and Michael was just at that age when he knew enough to begin suspecting, but not enough to fully understand.

“Edward does indeed have a habit of…exaggerating at times. But I believe ‘photophilic’ is a real word, though it has more to do with botany than anything.”

“It means someone who loves the sun, right?” Like Vincent, Michael had always had a proclivity for words, and his new pleasure in the last months had become words that he could figure out from their Greek or Latin parts.

“Someone who likes light,” Vincent corrected.

“Oh! Like ‘photograph.’ Neat!” He checked the water pitcher and picked up the empty plate off the nightstand before leaving, but he paused at the screen to look over his shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Vincent.”

He disappeared then, his shoes scuffing the floor as he hurried through the chamber with a quick goodbye to Mouse.  

Regardless of Father’s warning, there was a conversation that needed to be had before much more time passed, and Vincent was not going to have it across a chamber and through several privacy screens.

Despite the deep, aching pain of his wounds, Vincent found that his legs were sturdy and well able to carry him the distance from his bed to the chair at Mouse’s bedside. He looked better than he had the evening before, more alert, but he was still pale, and he didn’t move more than his head.

“Breaking the rules?” he asked happily. “To see Mouse?”

“I wanted to see that you are well,” Vincent answered, “and to talk about what happened yesterday.”

“Oh. Should have used big stick, huh? Next time.”

Clearly, Winslow had been to see Mouse earlier in the day.

“I sincerely hope there won’t be a next time,” Vincent answered. “Mouse, I need to apologize for last night—”

“Father explained. Okay. Topsider hurt you, too. Bad. Worse, maybe?”

Even for Mouse, this was an odd observation to make; the fact that he was lying immobile in the hospital chamber while Vincent had crossed the distance to sit beside him could not have escaped his admittedly scattered attention. Manmade contrivances like the hours in a day and the finer points of social etiquette were regularly disregarded as entirely unimportant and therefore a waste of time and effort to observe, but Mouse had an impressive focus and understanding when it came to the facts of the world around him.

“My arm will heal quickly,” Vincent said. “It’s your injuries that we’ve been so worried about.”

“Not your arm,” Mouse answered impatiently. “Skin, muscle, heal themselves. No problem. Other hurts. Worse hurts. Don’t go away.”

Hurts that don’t go away had long been Mouse’s euphemism for scars left by the events of his earliest childhood that left him scrounging for food on the streets and eventually in the tunnels Below. He had shared some few details of those events with Vincent in rare candid moments as a boy and left a few more hints scattered along the way to be picked up and fitted into place, but it was a topic tacitly understood as closed and unacknowledged by all who knew Mouse well enough to wonder. Vincent took this oblique reference to past hurts with due solemnity

“Saw it last night,” Mouse continued into Vincent’s silence. Then he frowned almost comically. “Never run from me before.”

“What happened yesterday…bothered me greatly, and I’m sorry that I let it upset you.”

“Not upset. Worried.”

Even as the person who knew Mouse best of anyone, Vincent still found himself a little caught off guard, and he had to remind himself that, though the process was in many superficial ways different from his peers’, Mouse was indeed growing into a young man.

“Thank you, Mouse. But in the future, you shouldn’t worry for me. Please.”

Mouse set his jaw obstinately, and his brows drew low together in a stormy frown. “Have to. Friends.”

Footsteps saved Vincent from having to answer, and a moment later, Pascal and Rebecca appeared around the screen.

“I told you he wouldn’t be in his bed, no matter what Father ordered,” Rebecca said in an entirely audible aside to Pascal.

“Yeah. I’m surprised he’s still in the hospital chamber at all,” Pascal answered in the same would-be private tone.

“Broke Father’s rules to see Mouse,” the young man informed them proudly.

“How are you, Mouse?” Pascal asked.

“Good. Fine. Can’t get up. Bored.”

“I’ve come to read to you,” Rebecca told him, proffering a handful of books for his perusal.

“Vincent? Read?”

“I’m under orders from Father to take Vincent back to his chamber to rest,” Pascal said at once.

“After supper,” Vincent said to forestall the disappointment descending over Mouse’s face. “I’ll come back and read to you.” He rested his good hand on Mouse’s shoulder for a moment before pushing himself to his feet and starting an unusually slow pace through the chamber.

“Father’s not going to like that,” Pascal said in a real undertone once they were a little distance from the screens around Mouse’s bed. “How are you feeling, anyway?”

“Sore,” Vincent answered.

“Well, you look terrible,” the smaller man offered cheerfully.

Vincent’s retort was cut short when they left the chamber and found Brian in the corridor just beyond.

Brian looked up from his pacing, stopping short at the sight of Vincent in the doorway. He looked surprised, then he lowered his face, chagrined.

“I, um, thought I should talk to the kid. Mouse,” he all but mumbled.

Knowing Pascal as well as he did, Vincent could almost hear him recalculating his estimation of Brian, adding a few points to the top. Down the corridor, Joshua and a few of the other teenagers stood watching with open distrust; Vincent wondered if they had shadowed Brian since morning, self-appointed guardians.

For his part, Brian looked little better than he had the night before, but his fear was plaited with a strong cord of resolve, even as he dithered on the threshold—he hadn’t turned back, either.

In a pointed gesture of solidarity, Vincent placed his good hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You’ve given yourself a difficult task.”

Brian nodded. “Yeah, well, guess that makes it really important, huh? Is he awake?”

“He should be,” Pascal said. “Vincent, I need to have a word with our young audience.” He nodded down the corridor. “Why don’t you show Brian the way?”

With a look to say that he understood Pascal’s meaning entirely, Vincent turned back into the hospital chamber and led the way to where Mouse lay, Rebecca sitting in a chair on the far side of the bed. Both offered a pleasant greeting when Vincent first appeared around the privacy screen, but Rebecca’s eyes went wide with surprise when Brian joined him. Mouse gave Brian a malicious scowl before shifting his gaze away from him altogether to focus on Vincent.

“Stranger. Topsider. Doesn’t belong.” His gaze flicked back to Brian just long enough to size him up and find him entirely unworthy. “Doesn’t understand.”

“Mouse,” Vincent said. “Brian has come here to ask for your forgiveness.”

“Look, kid, I’m really—” Brian was stopped by the strength of Mouse’s glare, but he rallied and pushed on with more care and greater solemnity. “Mouse. I’m sorry. That’s all I have to offer you. What happened yesterday…I can’t tell you how terrible I feel. ‘Terrible’ isn’t even the right word for what I...” He raised his right palm to stare at it, as though the knife still rested there. “I don’t know how to tell you…just, I know you don’t have to forgive me. I don’t think I’d forgive me. But I am sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. For hurting you. And I needed you to know that.”

Some of the anger in Mouse’s eyes faded, but that only left a deeper, harsher distrust. “Hurt Vincent more.”

“Brian and I have made our peace, Mouse,” Vincent said.

“Just another Topsider who doesn’t see, doesn’t understand,” Mouse insisted. “Didn’t look.”

Brian frowned in the way that most newcomers did when confronted with Mouse’s fragments. And, also like most newcomers, he made the simplest inference instead of the most logical one.

“I saw you there, but it was too late. I know it’s a sorry excuse, but there was no way I could stop in time. I tried. You were just there.”

“He means when you decided Vincent was going to have Jamie for lunch,” Rebecca said impatiently. “You didn’t look. Like any Topsider, you saw something you didn’t understand, so you wanted to destroy it.”

Hot shame rolled through Brian; Vincent could see it in his face, feel it radiating out into the space around him. The heat of it quickly built into bright flames of anger and denial, but that faded almost as quickly as it had sparked to life, and he dropped his eyes.

“Brian has the chance to learn now,” Vincent said. “If there are those who are willing to teach him?”

“Won’t,” Mouse said.

“Mouse—”

“I won’t!” he snapped, and the malice in him surprised even Vincent. Mouse continued sullenly, glaring up at the ceiling, “Tired now. Should go. Father says to rest.”

“Yeah. Father’s right. You should rest. I hope you feel better soon.” Brian backed away a few steps before striding quickly out of the room.

Mouse’s gaze drifted down from the ceiling but darted straight back up when he found Vincent watching him. Rebecca met Vincent’s look impassively.

With nothing left to say, he left the hospital chamber, finding Pascal leaning against the wall just outside and the young people conspicuously missing.

“I gather it didn’t go very well.”

Vincent spared a look for Pascal’s sardonic tone, but didn’t rise to it. “Mouse is angry. Too angry for understanding.”

Pascal pushed himself upright from the wall to fall into stride with his friend. “Aren’t we all?”

Vincent glanced at him sidelong.

“He tried to kill you, Vincent.”

“Yes. I was there.”

“Look, I’ll give him credit for facing Mouse. That took mettle. But it’s like he threatened all of us when he attacked you. Sometimes, I think you forgive too quickly.”

“Brian is no threat to anyone anymore.”

“I’m not talking about whether or not he’s a threat, Vincent. I’m talking about forgiving him for what he’s already done.”

“I have no use for holding a grudge.”

“I have no use for Keats or Frost, but that’s never stopped me. Sometimes they just feel right.”

The remaining journey was short, and they made it in the silence of men who had known each other too long and liked each other too well to argue where neither could gain ground, effectively closing the matter for the time being. Vincent entered his chamber, intent on a bath and clean clothes, injuries and bandages be damned, and Pascal hovered by the doorway.

“Father will wait about twenty minutes after I tell him you’re safely back in your chamber before he comes to check on you,” Pascal said.

Vincent pulled his head out of his wardrobe to peer at the smaller man for a moment before smiling at the prediction. “You think I shouldn’t be too hasty in defying his orders.”

“I think you should be wise in defying his orders. Do you want company?”

“No,” Vincent answered, grateful to have no need to spare Pascal’s feelings with courteous words or excuses; it had been an honest question that required an honest answer.

“Then I’m going back to the pipes. At least try to take it easy, Vincent.”

Vincent raised his good hand in farewell.

The rest of the next few days were slow, punctuated mostly by Father’s scolding litanies of what was considered too strenuous for both Mouse and Vincent to do while they healed. Taken off of work schedules and sentry shifts, Vincent had no reason to leave the central hub, and he even made an effort to keep (mostly) off his feet for a solid two days.

He fell into a daily routine, visiting Mouse after breakfast and after supper; their conversation was strained for the first few minutes the next time they saw each other after Brian’s apology, but neither pressed the subject with the other, and as with Pascal, the matter was closed. Vincent conducted his classes from a chair, knowing that Father had his sources of information among the children, and he made a point of sharing at least the afternoon meal with Brian in an effort to ease the newcomer’s way into the community. He understood what Pascal had tried to tell him enough to see that acceptance would be slow and hard-won, but over the course of the following week, Melody and Andrea showed clear signs of beginning to settle into life Below and in among the other children, and Brian found the tunnel dwellers to be generally courteous, if cool and a little suspicious.

Between meals and lessons, Vincent seldom found himself alone for very long; an endless stream of well-wishers over the first couple of days turned into a trickle of hesitant, troubled conversations about any number and range of daily problems among his family members. For all that he had spent every day of the previous weeks Below dedicated to the service of his community, he began to realize just how completely he’d cut himself off from those he loved most dearly. It seemed that everyone had surprising bits of news and developments in their lives, and Vincent had managed to miss nearly all of it in a way that he never had before. He tried to apologize for his many lapses, but no one seemed to mind or even notice, instead being happy just to have him back and in their confidence. The realization humbled him and left him grateful anew for their love and acceptance.

Evenings found Vincent in Father’s chamber, first to read to the children, who were all happy to have more of his attention than usual, and then to talk late into the night over tea and chess. Sometimes their conversations strayed over the too-recent traumas, but most of their discussions left the recent fear and violence as a mutually understood point of silence between them, acknowledged with a look or a gesture but seldom brought to light.

On Sunday evening, as Vincent was taking a final poetry request from a group of children that included Melody, but, conspicuously, not Andrea, who remained wary and skittish around him, Brian appeared in the doorway of Father’s chamber. He leaned against the rock wall while Vincent read, and when the children filed out, he kissed the top of Melody’s head and sent her off to bed.

“I can’t believe my Mel sits still for a whole hour for anything,” Brian said with the kind of contrived lightness that suggested he had come to discuss something very specific and most assuredly uncomfortable.

“She’s settling in well,” Vincent agreed as he moved to tidy the chamber for the evening. If he was careful, he had limited mobility of his right arm without pain from the wound in his shoulder, but Brian’s knife had bit down deep into muscles he needed to flex and tense his fingers. His quick metabolism had done a great deal to heal both injuries, but he was likely to be maddeningly one-handed for another few days yet.

Brian came down the steps and invited himself to a chair; he was becoming accustomed to the informality of Tunnel etiquette. “Where’s Father? I didn’t think he ever left this chamber. I figured Mary just dusted him off with the rest of the furniture every week.”

It was an apt image. Smiling slightly, Vincent carried a couple books to the European history…mess, and after a moment’s dismay, gave up and set the Weimar Republic between the Black Plague and the French Revolution. He really did have to do something about that, before any of the children left Father’s chamber with a very confused notions about the orders and locations of past events.

“Father goes Above to have supper with a friend of his from time to time. I expect him home soon, if he and Peter haven’t started arguing politics.” Another look around the chamber, and Vincent’s good intentions deserted him. One-handed or not, the task was a fruitless one, and he spared a moment to marvel at Mary’s patience for it. “Tea?”

“No, thanks. I see Mouse is up and about now—more than he should be, by the looks of it.”

Vincent eased himself into a chair and settled back carefully, still finding himself fatigued by the end of the day; clearly his three weeks of sleep deprivation and skipped meals were not helping matters. “Mouse has always worked on his own schedule. Trying to make him do otherwise usually creates more problems than it solves.”

“He’s kind of an odd kid,” Brian observed, glancing at Vincent to gauge his reaction. “Everyone really likes him, though, huh?”

Vincent nodded, content to follow Brian’s lead until they reached whatever destination he had in mind. “Mouse is special to us. We found him as a boy, stealing food from us, watching us, growing up alone in the darkness beyond the inhabited tunnels.”

“How’d he get down here?”

“The details of his life before he came to us are largely unknown.” This was, in fact, a true statement; that Vincent was one of the very few who was privy to any of those details could be pointedly omitted to cut that particular thread of conversation.

“I guess you get a lot of kids with a rough past down here.”

Vincent nodded, but said nothing; Brian had started rapping a nervous rhythm on the arm of the chair with the backs of his fingers, a rise in outward agitation that usually implied a person was coming to the heart of the matter.

“So, do you have room for two more? For a little while?” Brian asked.

“Melody and Andrea?”

Brian nodded and looked away. “You’re right, they’re settling in here. It’s not even a week, and I keep seeing…it’s little things. They’re sleeping better. They’re starting to smile again, and to talk more. I didn’t even realize how quiet they’d gone. And I’ve started thinking, maybe they’ll really be all right. Not just hoping, but really thinking it’s possible. This place is good for them. You people have been so good to them. They need to stay. They need to be safe.”

“You would leave them here, with us?” Vincent asked, a little tentatively; this was surely what Brian was implying, but it made no sense. “Where would you go?”

“Back up topside. I think Maddie had copies of some of the financial stuff. I have ideas, where they might be. She never said anything to me. ‘Least, not that I understood then.” He passed his hand over his face. “I don’t know if she just didn’t want to worry me, or if she thought I wouldn’t listen, or if she thought she could protect us by not telling us, or maybe if she tried to tell me, and I just wasn’t listening…I don’t know. But Jackie’s the one she told. I’ve been resenting Jackie for that.” He paused at that thought, seemed to focus on it for a moment, examine it, before he shook his head and continued. “We thought Sharpe got to her before she could go to the police. I found out the hard way Sharpe got to her because she went to the police. But Jackie thinks there were copies, and knowing Maddie, I think she’s right. And Sharpe must have thought so, too. That’s why they trashed the apartment, why he wanted me alive.”

They observed a grim moment of silence for the terror of that night and the tragedy of his wife’s death before Brian surged up out of his chair and paced a few steps.

“I can’t hide down here forever, Vincent. Those bastards are still out there, going on, business as usual, when our whole lives, mine, the girls’…Maddie…” He swallowed and regrouped. “I can’t just let it go. They have to be stopped. I know…I know I’ve been rash.” He glanced at Vincent’s arm and away again. “More than rash.” He smiled a grim, derisive smile. “I thought I was being so strong, you know. I really did. I had a gun, and I was going to be the big man, protect the girls, avenge my Maddie, take on the drug smugglers and all the crooked cops in the city. I was going to kill Sharpe and anyone that got in my way. Turns out I was just lashing out, scared like a mutt backed into a corner. Turns out I didn’t even know what strong is, till I got a real up-close-and-personal demonstration.”

“No one can carry the weight of the world on his shoulders alone, Brian,” Vincent said. “Our world is strong because we all rely on each other, trust and do for each other.”

“There isn’t anything I can do for you guys to pay you guys back. Not yet.”

“It isn’t your time to help us. You’re still healing, and we have no needs that you can meet.”

“You think I shouldn’t go back Above yet, that I’m not ready.”

Vincent considered his answer for a moment before speaking. “I can’t tell you what’s in your own heart; only you can know that. But your daughters need their father; you’ll all heal faster together than apart.”

“I can’t just sit,” Brian protested.

“We have Helpers Above who might be able to help you, even while you remain Below.”

Brian pushed his hands into his pockets and rocked backwards and forward on his feet. “You’re saying I shouldn’t try going at this alone anymore. I should try and trust you guys to help.”

Vincent lifted his left hand, palm up with a one-shouldered shrug.

Brian paced a bit more, this time slowly, his hands still in his pockets, his frown contemplative. “I don’t know. I don’t know yet. I’ll think about it.” He stopped and turned to Vincent. “But first I need to know my girls will be safe. If I ask the Council, will you speak for me? God knows, no one wants to listen to me. But you, people here listen to you. They respect you.”

“No one will turn your daughters out to the streets, Brian; it’s not our way. They have a place here among us as long as they need it.”

“I need to hear it from the Council. I have to be sure.”

“Then hear it from me, Mister Kessler,” Father said from the top of the metal steps by the main doorway.

Vincent stood to pull Father’s preferred chair around for him. With a hand under his elbow, Vincent helped Father to sit, knowing how the long trek to Peter’s aggravated his hip.

When they were all settled again—Brian stowed his own agitation and sat—Father spoke again. “No one will put Melody and Andrea out, as long as they have need of this place. They will be cared for and loved with the rest of our children. You have my word on that.”

Brian stared at him for a long moment, his mouth slightly open, but he shut it quickly and spoke solemnly, “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. After everything—I mean, the start we got off to—I mean—I’ve thought about what you said, that day, and all I know is, if anyone ever tried to do anything to Andy or Mel…well, the guy sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting in my library, I can tell you that.”

“I appreciate that, Mister Kessler,” Father said.

“Brian, please.”

“Brian. The circumstances of your arrival are not…easy to ignore or forget, but Vincent assures me, assures all of us, that that is not the man you are.”

Brian’s gaze flicked to Vincent again, brief and grateful.

“And indeed,” Father continued, “these last few days, we have begun to see that Vincent is right, and we are thankful that there will be no lasting harm. For any of us.”

“I know it doesn’t make up for what I did, but anything I can do, any help I can be to anyone, I will. Just ask. I owe you everything.”

“You owe us nothing,” Vincent answered.

“We’d be dead—”

“Vincent is right,” Father said. “Though, we will no doubt find somewhere that you will be useful for the time that you spend with us. I agree with Vincent that you and your girls will all do better to remain here for some time. The troubles of Above will be there when you are ready to face them, but this is a place of healing. And as my son has seen fit to remind me, to remind all of us, sometimes it is those who do the most harm who need the most help. You are welcome to remain among us, Brian. And Melody and Andrea will always have a place with us.”

“I don’t know what to say, Father.”

Vincent smiled. “Say that you are grateful.”

Brian’s cheeks flushed. “I am. Of course I am. I’m grateful to both of you. More than I have words to tell you.” He looked at Vincent. “I’ll think about what you said. Thank you.”

Vincent stood, and Brian took the hint. They shook hands, then Brian shook hands with Father in farewell.

For No Miser's Sake, Part 12