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forasecondtherewedwon · 2 months

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remember it once - epilogue

Fandom: The Artful Dodger Pairing: Jack x Belle Rating: E Chapter: 8 / 8 Word Count: 2816

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Will it be the same? Belle wonders this, not in her mind, but in her limbs. She drags her heavy tread up the steps, her tired body aching to be swept from the ground by Jack’s arms. She tugs at the fingers of the tough leather gloves that cover all the way to her elbows, rubbing her chafed skin once they’re off, yearning for fingers that will slip gently between her own. Will either of us be the same?

Belle leaves it in her body’s hands—that if there’s any back to get back to, her body will find the way when the time comes, will walk the old paths again, will find the high hills with the clear views and feel what it is to be home.

In the meantime, her mind bends to science, to medicine. She works from the morgue long enough to discover a method for stabilizing the wounds, burning away necrotic skin and halting the symptoms’ progression, though not reversing it. Thankfully, it neutralizes the aggression, drastically reducing the risk of patient attacks. The military maintain their perimeter, but slowly, slowly, Prof, wielding his rusty authority, is able to convince them to let in new patients as their others calm.

While in the hospital, she wears the long gloves, cutting up and sewing more pairs for Sneed and the nursing staff, all made from fine, barely-worn boots and hunting attire her father scavenged from Government House. They are protection from the patients’ nails and teeth; Belle deduces, by the comparatively generous development of her own symptoms, that she could only have been scratched. Small mercies. Used to reading her body as another would a book, she learns and records her limitations. She rests as often as it feels right and necessary to, applying herself to her study of the disease at all other times, at the odd hours they have all adopted at the hospital that feels like an island surrounded by the hazy waters of a dream.

Belle conducted her preliminary experimental treatments on Sneed. She would’ve done them on herself, but he stopped her, reminding her of her condition. As though she did not feel the weight of her belly, bearing it with her feet, back, and hips—another process she leaves her body to manage, trusting it to see her through. But she conceded, and so he exhibits the most breath-stealing scars. He was off his feet and wearing a single boot while he recovered, adapting readily to making his rounds of the wards in a wheelchair as he had done after Fagin shot him.

Because she has been able to help, because the disease is no longer spreading within the hospital walls, because, after treating Sneed, she treated herself, Belle recognizes when it is time to leave the morgue. She’s many months into her pregnancy, and her fathers—she’s found she has two—insist that she carry on with her experiments from the home laboratory Jack set up, always planning for it to be something they shared.

In the transfer, Fagin and the Governor driving the carriage with Belle stowed inside, they are beset. The Governor is yanked from the carriage and bitten. The teeth marks are close to his heart, as Belle has been, he tells her softly, since the day she was born. Since even before. She tends to him in the parlour of her home with what supplies Jack has not taken with him onto the ship, feeling Fagin’s watchful presence at her back. They were going to return to the hospital, to bring the rest of what she needs. Fagin is reluctant to go back alone—not out of fear of what’s out there, but that Belle will be in danger from her own father in here. Eventually, she forces him out, the weeping that threatens to break from her body like water from a dam too clear in her voice. He goes. He returns. She tries and tries, but her father worsens. She did not start soon enough, he is not a young man, he has had a fondness for drink.

There is no violence, no confusion of mind. There is no time.

Quietly, Belle’s quantity of fathers drops back down to one.

She can’t always trust her mind, which sometimes forgets. If she thinks, if she makes herself remember too clearly after a hazy waking, it seems so daunting to just… go on. The dread grips her and pins her to the bed. So she doesn’t think; she works, and her body wonders. Her lips and her wrists and her hips miss the one who would comfort her most, because she forbids it of her mind. She puts her ring away.

Following the death of the Governor, Belle dismisses Fagin. Well, she tries. She dismisses him several times a day: when he comes poking around the second-storey laboratory, when he nudges plates of plain crumpets along the table at which she labours. Infuriatingly, he stays. Weeks become months and she quits trying to convince him not to. Thank god for it, because he cautions her against testing solutions on her skin before they’re truly ready, keeping her whole as she inches towards a cure. He’s there to hear her, just down the hall, when she cries out twice in succession. The first time, it is in pure joy. The second, in shock at the sudden gush of fluid over her slippers.

—

Jack is aware of his flaws. The quick thinking and even quicker hands demanded by his profession have not made him a patient man. His history has meant he is kind by effort, not by nature. Both his patience and his kindness are tested continually onboard the ship. Some days feel endless. He has the people he’s brought, and those who brought him. Hetty’s presence steadies him; Fanny’s reminds him of Belle in the oddest ways, at the strangest moments. Mostly, it is tense, but they are living, and so it’s difficult to complain.

They make port with great wariness, taking on supplies but never new passengers or crew. Jack often goes ashore; it breaks up the tedium. He always takes his sword. What he observes is that some towns appear unaffected by the disease, others have discovered methods of containment, and still others are so spookily empty that they are underway again without bothering to disembark. He doesn’t know what’s happened in those places, whether they’re empty because the people were smart and fled, or…

Due to their extreme care and the sharp orders of Lady Fox, who doesn’t allow anyone’s guard to lower, all onboard remain healthy. Except for the seasickness. But that is manageable and endurable, and bringing water to the green-faced passengers gives Jack a feeling of usefulness when he stalls in his research. He and Hetty have been at work in the captain’s quarters, transfigured into their floating laboratory. They have their meticulousness in common. He conducts thorough (if slow) experiments, and she notes everything down to ensure they do not repeat their mistakes. They work so seamlessly together that the only thing Jack ever gets cross with Hetty about is the fact that she’s not doing something as Belle would, that she’s not reading that case in the medical text in Belle’s voice, that she’s not Belle.

But they form a community. They sew and read and play cards to pass the time. Children cavort on the deck in clear weather. Of course, beneath it all, as surely as the hull of the ship, is the grief. The fear and anxiousness. There are no complete families here, only siblings without parents, mothers without daughters, men without their wives. For the most fortunate, it’s temporary; there is the hope of reunion upon their return to Port Victory. If Jack ventures from the lab, drowsy and stretching his arms high over his head to crack his stiffened back, someone will inevitably inquire about his progress. Charlie has taken to attempting to shield Jack from these questions, but whacking the members of a closed community in the shins with his crutch is an untenable solution. Occasionally, Jack must try to come up with answers to How’s it coming? Anything new? When might we see home again? and How do you think they’re getting on without us?

The trouble is that it’s all wrong. Until they met, Belle was very much the expert on the theoretical side of things, Jack the hands-on experimenter. Now, Belle is back home, confronting the disease every day in the flesh while Jack drifts with the tides on a ship full of people who are perfectly well. He can’t advance by active testing; he must puzzle things out with his mind alone. At some point, Fanny joins him and Hetty. She’s been privy to her sister’s methods, though she didn’t pay them the strictest attention at the time, and if there’s anything she can do that will lead to her sister being helped, then she’s prepared to do it. Especially as the theoretical process rather appeals to her for its distinct lack of blood and guts.

So it is just their minds, their three minds, until. Until. They are finally close enough that Jack and Hetty both go ashore at the next docking (Jack won’t, can’t, risk Fanny). They’ve never done so before, afraid to send the two people with the greatest medical expertise, but they’ve traveled as far as they can—almost literally, upon the waves for many long months—and they need a human subject. They’re in search of someone who isn’t too far advanced, someone who can still give conscious permission, someone who understands that this isn’t a guaranteed cure, though they do promise to return with one when they can.

After their first small triumph, they change the ship’s heading. With each successive bit of progress, they advance towards home. All along the coast, they apply measured treatments, docking longer so they might observe their patients. This makes their passage back to Port Victory a crawl. They hunker down rather than attempting to beat bad weather, they hug the shore and avoid the faster currents farther out. They watch symptoms halt. They watch people get better. One man, a tradesman turned doctor by the circumstances, improves so quickly that they decide to invite him aboard. Apparently, the man has delivered five babies since the current state of affairs began—three to the same woman without losing a single soul. Jack tells the man there will be a place for him at the hospital (if the hospital still stands—it is horrifying to let his thoughts linger too long), that he has hoped to hire more talented doctors, no matter that he didn’t go to Oxford like Sneed (Jack even misses Sneed). Jack also sees how Hetty is with this man, how he is with Hetty. He longs for Belle more than ever. The nearer their journey comes to its end, the more he fights the urge to dive overboard and swim to her.

It's been years since Jack last saw Port Victory from the sea—and then, he never saw it and thought, Home. Nor did he feel it deserved its name, but he feels differently now. He’d survived so much when first he reached that port. He’s done so once again. It is a victory to have protected these people, to have worked alongside Hetty and Fanny to devise a treatment, a cure. Really, it’s a victory to be alive. He stands on the deck as the blue sky blanches, giving way to the orange and gold that will accompany the sun to its rest. For the second time, he is filled with joy and dread, doubly flooded, too much emotion for one person to hold. Will she be waiting for him as he once waited for her? Will either of them be the same?

—

Belle stirs, waking. Even with Fagin living downstairs, she’s become a fearfully light sleeper, her fragile oblivion shredding like a cobweb at the slightest sound. Groggy, she sits up to find there is still some light seeping through the bedroom curtains. What was it this time? Fagin banging around in the kitchen? A soldier at the door wishing to issue the report she demanded on the state of the hospital? The baby?

In case it is the latter, Belle makes herself get up. Her memory is still a project for her, improved through effort, but at the moment, it will not yield the location of the robe she removed before climbing into bed. No matter. It isn’t as though Fagin has never seen her in her nightgown. Her slippers are next to the bed, so she dons them. She pads across the hall.

What would this room have been, had the house belonged to another man? For Belle, it is a sanctuary. Because of the hour, she doesn’t bring a candle; even in darkness, she would know her way, having fallen asleep here many nights over the past several weeks since giving birth. There are no surprises in the weight of the door she now eases open, in the welcoming creak of the boards beneath her feet as she steps inside. What startles her is herself: an involuntary sound leaves her as she takes in the shape of a figure standing over the crib. He sees her at the door and turns.

“I hoped this might become the nursery,” he says.

Belle stumbles across the floor and into Jack’s arms, blinded by tears of love and relief, heedless of the baby’s confused cry at the sound of her mother’s distress.

For several minutes, she has less to say to him than she has since they first made each other’s acquaintance. The sun slips peacefully away as they hold each other harder than they ever have. Jack is scarcely more composed than she is, and promises that everyone who boarded the ship is fine, that her sister and mother are fine. Hiccupping her words, she tries to tell him about her father. He hushes her and holds on all the tighter; Fagin explained when he let Jack into the house. She doesn’t need to say. Jack is here now.

“I should probably keep going, see the hospital,” he says before sighing his regret into her hair.

Belle draws back a little.

“But—”

“We found a cure,” they say together.

The baby’s cries are rising into a blaring, ripping wail, obscuring her parents’ words. They look at each other with confusion, unsure of what they heard.

“You didn’t.”

“We did.”

“So did we.”

After the attack that introduced the disease into her body, they have been careful about their contact. Even through affection, rather than violence, there was a risk of Belle infecting Jack. She has yearned for so many months to be kissed as he kisses her now. Her fingers delve into his hair, his grip into her waist through her nightgown. She has made herself think of nothing but what was necessary to find a cure, then, once that was accomplished, what was necessary to preserve the life of their daughter. Now, the kiss is thought as well as feeling, every memory of his touch reinstated in her mind. Every look, every brush, every closing of his hand over hers as he guided her scalpel on an incision.

They separate and a high laugh leaves Belle. She bends over the side of the crib, collecting their child, easing her body into the bouncing sway the baby prefers. Jack begins and begins again, trying to tell her of their methods for combatting the disease. She hears enough to understand that they’ve found two different cures, arrived at two different solutions, both sound.

“Incredible,” she breathes.

“Yes,” he agrees, but he’s looking at the small, soft creature in her arms.

“Oh, yes,” Belle says. “Your daughter.”

Jack does not appear ready, but neither was she; she offers the baby and helps him correct his hold until he has her tucked against his chest.

“Daughter,” he chokes out. And this makes him cry like nothing else has.

“Norma,” she provides.

Jack nods, sniffling. She wipes the tears from his cheeks.

“Like the opera,” he says. “The music you had Fanny play.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Belle releases a heavy sigh, pressing a hand to her heart. “I didn’t realize how worried I was that you might think it was some derivative of ‘Norbert.’”

“A PERFECTLY GOOD NAME!” Fagin calls up the stairs.

Jack cranes his head away from the baby before shouting back, “QUIT LISTENING IN!”

“I’LL JUST MAKE US SOME TEA THEN!”

Jack looks at Belle with an expression of exasperation and he is here, and they are whole, and it is just as it was before.

Norma shrieks as though tacking on instructions for how she takes her tea.

It is, inarguably, even better.

#my writing #dodgerfox #The Artful Dodger #Dr. Jack Dawkins #Lady Belle Fox

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thedepthsoffandomminds · 3 months

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More than skin deep.

PT 1

Request:

The reader just have a very sensitive skin (so they wear 'comfortable' cloths to wear and feel against their skin, like they have Gloves on most of the time), (maybe with a skin disease? And maybe having them *die*? Or in a life or death situation? I kind of want *drama*, and hurt-comfort-bit of fluff because of their disease? Or something a bit related to it?) Nervous anon

An - please don't be nervous Anon. I hope.ylu like it.

The cotton gloves felt good against your skin, and aided to cover the scars that riddled your forearms.

Are you ready my dear?" Your father asked, peaking around your bedroom door.

"Are you sure we need to go out Father? It is very hot out today." You ask.

"Oh my dear, he patted your right shoulder. We need to make ourselves known around town. I am the new Patron of the hospital, I have paid a great deal of money to expand it and the queen has given us a great deal of money and trust to help Governor Fox make this little town into a bustling civilised city." He repeated the words he had told you several times over the four months journey from England to Australia.

"But why do I need to go? It isn't like I will have any more suitors here than I would in London." You reminded him.

"My sweet, you must try to look past your misgivings. We are not in London anymore. Come, the carriage awaits us." He gives your hand a small squeeze and you follow him out the door. Your light blue, cotton dress swishing around your legs.

The Carriage journey is thankfully short. Your home is large but close to the main town, so you're arriving in no more than thirty minutes. Your father steps out first, he is a tall thin man, with dark hair cut neatly to his head to match the slightly greying sideburns. He turns his hand to you and you step out of the carriage. Your hat keeps the sun from touching your eyes but you are quickly reminded of the heat as your skin starts to heat up.

"Your parasol, my dear." Your father reminds you and you lift the dark lace parasol above your head. It gives you just enough shade and protection that you can feel somewhere close to comfortable. You take your father's arm and he leads you up into the hospital. An older man who stank of alcohol approached the two of you and greeted your father with a hearty handshake.

"Oh Lord Hastings it is a delight to see you again."

"Thank you Professor McGregor. My daughter lady y/n." He introduced you. The prof kisses the back of your hand and you give him a small smile. The two men turned and walked into an office leaving you in the corridor. Turning around you decided to look at the hospital. It is a busy place with many people entering and leaving. You see two large men walking a shrouded body through the halls. Nurses went about their rounds, changing bedding and cleaning wounds. You hear a voice on one of the wards and you are sure you recognise it. A blonde woman about your age is ordering the staff around.

“Open these windows.” She says; the nurses begin to argue but are quickly rebutted.

“Belle!” You smile wide.

“Y/n!” she comes bounding over to you and takes your hands, “It is wonderful to see you again at last!” She giggles.

“Belle, what on earth are you doing in a nurse's outfit?” You ask, twirling your friend around.

“It's a very long story, but I am one step closer to my dream.” Belle smiles.

“You will have to tell me everything over dinner.” You say.

“Oh god, are we to be overrun by pompos women today?” A man stood behind you with his hands on his hips.

“Excuse me?” You ask.

“Doctor Dawkins this Lady y/n Hastings. Her father is paying for the new wing in this hospital.” Belle informed him.

The blonde doctor cleared his throat.

“Oh, I apologise, Lady y/n. How can I help you today?” It doesn't go unnoticed by the nurses how his eyes linger on you.

“My father has come to inspect the building, he is with the Professor at the moment.” You explain.

“I see, well would you like to be shown around?” The doctor asks.

“Yes, thank you.”

“I can do that for you, Doctor.”Hetty asks.

“No, no. I will do it. Shall we?” He holds his arm out to you and you take it keeping your touch light.

“This is my ward, over here is the operating theatre.” Jack continues to tell you what each room was as you walked until his arm closed too tightly on your arm. You winche and draw in a hissing breath at the pain.

“I'm sorry, did I hurt you?” He asked, concerned.

“No, please I have…I have a condition on my arms.” You say, fiddling with your fingers.

“May I have a look?” He asks, holding his hand out to you. Hesitantly you allow him to remove your gloves, revealing the scars.

“What happened?” He asked, eyes meeting yours. You take in a shaky breath and press your lips together.

“It's okay you don't need to tell me. Was it a chemical?” You nod to his question, “come with me.” He shows you into a private room and asks you to take a seat on the bed before he darts out of the room. As you wait you look at the way your once clear, porcelain skin was now chard and pink. Swirls of uneven skin painted your arms. When the doctor returns he is holding a tin in his hands. He opens it and pulls a chair up to the side of the bed.

“With your permission?” He asks and you nod holding one arm towards him, “It must be a struggle for you here with the heat?” He says as a cops the white substance onto his fingers.

“Yes, I try to avoid leaving the house whenever I can. Although the hospital is very cool, it is helping.” You admit. .”Good, I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable here.” He catches himself and clears his throat, casting his eyes to your arm where he gently rubs the ointment into your skin. The relief is almost instant. The heat that had been captured in your skin seemed to lift away.

“This is not a cure, Milady, but it will help. Is it just your arms?” He asks.

“No, my shoulder and back as well.” You say before capturing your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Take this with you and I will make up some more for you. Apply it each morning and night and whenever you feel your skin becomes too hot.” He explains. You purposely do not acknowledge his hand still holding yours.

“My dear, is everything alright?” Your father stands at the door.

“Yes father. This is Doctor Dawkins. He has given me an ointment for my burns.” You say gleefully. Your father eyes the doctor who drops your hand and stands quickly, like a soldier standing to attention.

“Yes, yes this is our young Jack Dawkins. Very promising lad. A naval lieutenant comes very highly recommended by the admiral.” the professor announced.

“I spoke to the admiral myself, wonderful to meet you, my lad.” He shakes the doctor's hand. Soon after you return home, finally happy to step outside and feel the sun without a fear of your skin peeling away.

In your happiness you didn't notice the eyes watching you from the street corner. Or how those eyes followed you home.

#jack dawkins x y/n #jack dawkins x reader #lady belle fox #the artful dodger x reader #thomas brodie sangster

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