James wanted to protest. But he was still shaking. He curled his hand into a fist to see if he could make himself stop if he held it like that long enough. Cassian must have noticed.
“James,” he said, his voice stern but warm. “You need to rest.”
Frowning, James heaved a sigh and relaxed his hand. Cassian was right. James hadn’t fallen asleep earlier, not for more than a minute or two at a time, and maybe this new medication would help.
“All right,” James finally agreed.
Cassian nodded approvingly.
Together, James and Cassian walked back to the stateroom. On the way, James searched for John and Ethel in the crowds of people they passed, even though he still felt too unsteady tofocus well. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find them, though he wasn’t sure if that was because he and Cassian really hadn’t passed them or because his mind was too muddled to have registered their faces. Hopefully Cassian would have better luck on his own soon enough.
Once the men were back in the room, Cassian poured a teaspoon’s worth of medication onto a metal spoon and fed it to James, following it up with two more. James scrunched up his face each time, the medication’s bitterness almost unbearable. Afterward, James and Cassian shared a soft, brief kiss, and then Cassian left to find his friends while James climbed into bed.
Folding his slightly shaky hands atop his chest, James stared up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come. Soon, James’s hands stopped trembling, and a warmth needled over his skin, starting in his extremities and moving inward. Calmness overtook him, pouring over him like honey. Blanketed in a cocoon of warm tranquility, the echoing screams in his head faded to a whisper, and the flashing images of the horrors he’d witnessed became blurs. Not long after, James’s mind went blank, and then there was nothing except for the present—the still and silent stateroom and the heaviness of his fast-numbing limbs.
Finally, he felt at peace again.
Sometime later, someone knocked.
Bleary-eyed, James peeled himself off the mattress and sat up, wondering whether it might be Cassian in the hall. Had he locked the door earlier? He honestly couldn’t remember.
James shook his head once, hoping to clear the fog, but when it failed to work, he resigned himself to answering as he was. Reluctantly, James wobbly-walked to the door.
He opened it to find two people in the corridor, their worry-worn faces only vaguely familiar for the first half second before recognition hit him.
“John. Mr. Quinn. John,” James said. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m medicated. Sorry. I’m medicated and forgetting myself. I can’t remember what I’m meant to call you.”
“Well, John is more familiar. And we survived a shipwreck together. So maybe that one?” John said.
James smiled to himself. He liked that answer. Upon reopening his eyes, he immediately remembered that he hadn’t acknowledged Cassian’s ex-fiancée.
“Ethel, you’re here too. Do you prefer Ethel? Or Miss Barrington?”
“Ethel is fine,” she said with a warm, light laugh. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m not. Feeling. I’m not feeling much, I mean. Because of the medication I took.”
“Oh.” Ethel’s forehead creased again. “Have you eaten?”
James shook his head. “Not since the soup.”
“John and I brought a bit more of it,” she said, holding up a bowl. “Would you like some?”
It took James a second to comprehend what they were offering, and then, once he did, he immediately thought that he might cry. Good God, how kind these people were.
“I’dlovesome,” James said through a contented exhale. He covered his heart with his hand. “Thank you. Sincerely.”
Ethel and John both chuckled a bit, seemingly amused by his histrionics. James moved aside so that John and Ethel could come in.
Ethel handed James the bowl as John shut the door. Mind still hazy, James sat cross-legged on the floor to eat it. After a pause, John and Ethel sat on the edge of the bed.
“I promise I’m not like this normally,” James said. “However it is that I’m being right now. I have a feeling that I’m not behaving like myself.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Ethel said in a friendly tone. “You know, my mother is on some sort of medication right now as well. She’s absolutely shocked about the sinking. She really believed that she’d be brought back on the ship after a while. And then she spent hours thinking that she’d lost me. Even here onCarpathia, she hasn’t been herself yet. Despite knowing that I’m fine, she still seems... lost.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” James said.
“Thank you. Luckily, the physicians here think that she will recover in time.”
