Edited

Autumn of 1870

Anne's bones are prominent and jutting out of her back by the time Raymond reaches her. It has been nine days since the incident, and the only food that she has eaten are a few pieces of bread and some broth his Aunt Eleanor had gotten her to drink while she was asleep.

Raymond gingerly strokes her hair, letting the fine black silk of it fall onto her pillow. In the twenty minutes he has been there, she has not stirred once, and the rise and fall of her chest is troubled. It worries him to no end.

She is starving, that much is obvious, but nothing can be done about it. Even breathing is hard for her since the wounds around her neck have only just started to close. Eating, and even drinking would be painful. He manages to have her sip some water from a cloth, just enough so that she wouldn't thirst. She coughed, mumbling something about it hurting, before falling back into a feverish sleep.

He wants to hold her so badly, but he is afraid that he will harm her somehow. The fragile girl that lay almost unmoving on the bed is a far cry from the Anne that could throttle him in a second. For the first time in his life, he might actually lose her. The threat still hangs over him, and it makes him feel ill. No matter what happened, he cannot lose her. He would not be able to live with himself, and... perhaps he would not even be able to live at all.

He presses his lips to the inside of her wrist, which is covered in a thick bandage. Something happened to make her question herself again. She was always doing that, even if there was nothing left to be questioned. Raymond has known for years that it would be her undoing, but this? No. He never expected this.

Anne cries out his name. Her voice sounds like knives. The sound cuts into him.

Willing the thoughts away, he kneels beside her, looking to see if her eyes have opened. No. She is flushed, however. From the remnants of a fever that could have killed her mere nights ago. He runs his thumb ever so gently across her eyelashes, expression glum as he continues to think. He steers his thoughts away from things that would certainly haunt him, and he focuses on is was good. She is alive.

"I'm here now, kataigída. I'm here."

Kataigída. Storm. He ponders on it. A storm was something that is ruthless. He sees differences. Anne is kind, in her own way. He remembers how much she had cried for him when they were children, even if it was for the silliest things. She made him feel better when his bad lung troubled him, and she had always been there for him. A storm left ruin in its wake. She left places for things to grow and prosper. It is not destruction. She leaves life. Possibility.

They dreamed of those possibilities when they escaped to rooftops during summer parties. They were to be married. Five children, he had said. She laughed. They would travel the world together, fall in love with each other all over again every single day.

The only similarity between Anne and a storm? A storm relentlessly destroys everything until there is nothing left to do but destroy itself. Anne constantly tried to destroy herself. She would have, if the noose she tied hadn't been faulty. She had dropped before she could suffocate. Had she stayed aloft, she would have destroyed everything for him as well.

There is a gasp of a drowning man seeking air. Anne's eyes open.

"Raymond. Raymond, hold me, please. Ray, they won't leave, they won't leave!"

She is in a delirium. Her cheeks are red with it. The emeralds of her eyes are misty with tears. He knows better than to ask, and so he climbs into bed with her and holds her tight, fighting off her nightmares until the only sound is her ragged breathing. Fresh blood flows onto his skin as a wound from her wrist reopens from holding onto his hand too hard.

"Stop that. Don't speak. It is painful for you."

"You don't know that," she rasps, though she sounds as if she were choking on blood. Her nails dig into his arm even through the fabric of his clothes. He feels more blood seep through it. The feverish glow slowly fades from her face, being replaced by the palest shade of white he has ever seen. He sends up a prayer, finding little else to do.

"Kataigída? Anne? I need to let go. I need to call Aunt Eleanor, she needs to dress that wound again. It's bleeding."

"Don't go," she pleads, holding him tighter. He is afraid she would bleed herself out. "I can't do this without you." It is more than a delirium. Her eyes are dry, but her voice is a sob. It is pained. "Ray, I can't."

"But, Anne, the wound-"

"Let it bleed. Please. I can't do it. Ray, I don't know. I can't, I can't."

"What is it?"

"Stay. I won't let go of you. I can't."

And so he stays with her. There are no further questions. He stays with her until whatever demons chasing her in her dreams were gone. Until her eyes flutter closed and she knows nothing once more.

It would be two more weeks before Anne is fully conscious again.

It is a blessing, surprisingly. Her wounds heal because she no longer fusses about in her sleep. She has no dreams as long as Raymond holds her, and he has barely left her side. She had managed to remain asleep and recover, owing it all to him.

"God knows just how much she pined for you, Raymond," his aunt says, replacing the sullied bandages. "She stood up while she was delirious once, and I found her collapsed in the hallway. She screamed for you so loudly that if she didn't stop, she would have done irrevocable damage to her voice. She likely would never have been able to speak again if you had been gone longer."

Raymond sighs against Anne's hair. His father had told him as much. Faltering slightly, he continues to prop her sleeping form up. He dabs at dried tearstains on her cheeks, kissing her head as Eleanor pins the bandages in place. Anne remains asleep even as Eleanor goes out of the door.

"It's not your fault, you know. You couldn't have done anything to stop this," she says before the door closes.

He wants to believe her.

"I'm sorry," Anne mumbles as Eleanor leaves, sitting up and burying her face into his chest.

"For what? I'm proud of you, kataigída, you were very brave. No one would have been able to live through that. How do you feel? Do you think that you can keep food down? Should I fetch you something to nibble on for a while?"

"I-I can't. Even speaking still hurts," she hisses in pain as testament to that. "Ray, I'm really sorry for worrying you. I never meant to. I didn't know you would-" She coughs, and Raymond makes her stop talking before she accidentally hurts herself.

"You know, I am really happy that you're still alive. It was hell in that bloody carriage. I was so terrified of you simply... not breathing. I mean, could you... die, just like that? Without a goodbye, without at least eighty years' worth of memories? I never... I was never so terrified, but I am so goddamn happy that you're still here." He smiles at her, hoping to make her feel at least a little better.

His grin only appears to confuse her. She breaks free from his embrace, a deep uncertainty in her eyes. She looks scared. Worried.

He combs her hair with his fingers. He would ring for a warm bath for her once she was strong enough. It would help her relax. He would feed her those sweets she loved so much, and then he would let her ride around on his back just for the fun of it. Just so she would feel better.

With these sentiments, he cannot understand why she is still frowning.

"A-Are you angry with me?"

"No, excuse me? I am not angry. That would be silly."

"I... I pulled you out of your schoolroom right before they year finished, why aren't you angry with me?"

He wonders if he had heard her right. Lord, he needs to have his ears checked. She still has trouble speaking, so he has a difficult time believing that she said what she did.

"Anne, why would I be angry? Learning be damned, you are more important than any of that. I broke out of a Greek lesson the second I was informed that you... that you did what you did. I was so worried about you, but I am just thankful- so, so thankful that you're alive." He holds her close again. He does not feel how Anne's heart crumbles as he does this. She can only close her eyes. How could he be happy?

She begins to cry. She does not fight his embrace, but the tears still come. He does not notice it at first, and she doesn't know whether or not she should be thankful, but her tears slide down, soaking through his clothes and he turns to look at her, her expression hurt and terrified.

"Anne, are you all right?" His eyebrows furrow in worry, and he pulls her closer. This time, she tries her hardest to shove him away. He only holds on tighter.

"Go away," she hisses. Her terror is replaced by fury and she begins to scream. Neither of them know what is happening.

"Stop!" He clamps a hand over her mouth, but that only makes her resist him more. It only makes the blood on her bandage spread. There is a wild look in her eyes, one he is sure does not belong on anything human. She thrashes wildly, kicking and scratching at him.

"Let me go!" she shrieks, slamming her head onto his face. Raymond tastes blood in his mouth, but he swallows it back. He cannot let go of her, not while there are so many things in the room that she can use to harm herself.

The door flies open and Eleanor storms in, George close at her heels. Anne only continues to scream, tearing at her bandages and at Raymond's skin. He grits his teeth, eyes burning with the effort as he tries to restrain her legs too.

Eventually, George and Eleanor manage to hold her down, and Raymond is told to leave the room. Almost immediately, the screeching stops. And then it continues again, expletives and curses thrown at his aunt and father.

Weak and aching, Raymond sinks down to the floor, unable to process what had just happened. He runs his thumb over his lip, finding it covered in blood. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. What happened to her?

George is at his side before he can turn away and lose himself in his mind.

"It was like she didn't even recognize me," mumbles Raymond, haunted. It was true. She looked little more than a wounded animal as she resisted him.

"You have to understand, it isn't easy, what she's going through. I can only imagine how distressed she is right now."

"Well, of course it isn't damned easy! She tried to kill me!"

"Raymond, this isn't about you," his father says in the cold tone he had only ever heard as a child, unruly and misbehaving. "If she doesn't want to see you, then don't make it more difficult for her. If she does, then make sure she is the happiest she can be, given the current situation. I know you are distressed too, but..."

"I understand." Truly, he does. Anne needs space, but she never did. When she said so, when she pushes him away, it is an invitation to stay. He knows Anne. Knows that when she wanted him to leave her alone after she had cried, she was telling him to stay and hold her. But it is different. He wishes it isn't different, but his father is right. If he did anything wrong, he would be making it more difficult for Anne to recover.

"Eleanor gave her a sleeping draught. She's fine for now. She may not be able to come back to her old self soon, but at least sleeping can help her wounds to begin closing. One day, she'll be okay."

Raymond could only nod, feeling empty. It hurt, seeing her like that, but it isn't about him. His father is right. It is about Anne somehow getting back on her feet, and though he doubts that he would ever look at her the same way, he hopes with all his heart that she would fight it.

She has to.