4th August, afternoon

Paol nodded to show he understood. "C'mon," he said, putting an arm around Charcot's shoulders and steering him toward the house. "Let's get back inside."

The interior of the house seemed disproportionately dark compared with the sunlit courtyard and Manuela, with her dark dress and black hair, seemed not unlike some creature of shadow drifting ahead of them as she led the way through to the kitchen.

Charcot's laughter had died away, but his mood was light. "Did you get the bottle back?" he asked Paol as the girl directed him to a chair. She placed him there like a little child and then went to fetch a basin of water and a cloth.

"Aye. Her father gave it back. No harm done." he replied. Contrary to his fears, Charcot did not seem about to spiral into despair and Paol felt himself relax marginally. A mistake, he realized, gripping the edge of the table suddenly for support and shutting his eyes until the weakness passed.

Manuela had returned and set the bowl of water on the table. The big Frenchman was gripping the table as if he might topple over, and his eyes were closed at first. When he opened them, she was watching him with concern. "What's wrong? Here, sit down."

Paol flushed, embarrassment temporarily lending his face some color, but he was not about to turn down the offer to sit and sank gratefully into the chair with a murmured thanks. "She's brought some water for your hand," he told Charcot, "Just to clean it like. It ain't bad, just scraped up."

She wiped at his hand quickly, but the cuts and scrapes were minor. A bandage to stop the bleeding was in order, but mostly to prevent the blind fellow from accidentally smearing blood on everything he touched. She wrapped his hand wordlessly, but she was more concerned about his friend.

"There," she said when she was done. "Paolo. Are you hot? Very hot in the face and the head?"

He couldn't understand what she was asking; none of the words sounded like anything in French, though he guessed the question had something to do with his idiotic display of a moment ago. "I'm fine. Uh... good. Bueno. Just tired. Tired."

"What's wrong, Paol?"  Charcot immediately tried to remember if there had been any instance where Paol could have been injured, perhaps attacked by the little girl's father.  Damn this blindness!  It made him so useless. But no, the girl was saying caliente, a word he had learned in connection to food. "You're hot? Is she asking if you're too hot?"

Oh, hell. "What? I--I dunno. Maybe? No. Not caliente," he told her, shaking his head emphatically, "Fine. Bueno."

"You don't look fine," Manuela said, shaking her head uneasily. She had backed away a few steps. "Are you sick? Do you have fever?" Suddenly she looked at the younger fellow and wondered if that could have been the cause of his blindness. That happened sometimes, didn't it? "Does he have fever?" She pointed at him accusingly.

Why was she backing away? "Fiebre?" he repeated in confusion. "What—" He broke off. Caliente. Hot. Fever. She thought they were sick. "No. No fever. No fiebre," he said hurriedly. What had he done? If she thought they had brought some sickness into the house... "Not sick. Not--" Hell, what was the word Martita had used? "Not enfermé."

The girl began to relax then, but not Charcot. "She thinks you have the fever? Why does she think that?" He could suddenly picture Paol getting sick and dying, leaving him alone in the dark forever. He would never survive without Paol. Panic was already clouding his mind. "Paol, are you sick?"

"No. I don't--" He stopped himself, struggling to force the agitation out of his voice. "I don't know why she thinks that. I'm not sick." Gripping the table, he pushed himself up from the chair. "C'mon, we should get back up stairs." Preferably before he managed to endanger them third time. "Gracias," he told Manuela, "For the...the agua and the bandages. And everything."

She nodded and watched them go.

Charcot lowered his voice as they climbed the stairs. He didn't want to have this conversation in the room with Bright. "If you were getting ill, would you tell me? You wouldn't try and hide it till it was too late?"

There was a pause, and Paol could feel the sick, sagging pressure as everything he'd been struggling to hold together came closer to collapse. "I don't know," he said at last. It was a lie, a smaller lie, but that would make little difference when Charcot inevitably found out. He had told Charcot, told himself that he was alright so many times that he almost believed it, but he couldn't deny that he was running straight at a wall. "I don't know what I'd do. I don't know what I'm doing."

And that brought about a realization of something that Charcot had never yet suspected. "You want to be dead too. Just like I do."

"No! I don't want die. I never -- No one's dying!" he burst out, his voice cracking.

Charcot was quiet a moment, taking it all in while he stood on the stair. Really, he had hardly given a thought to how Paol was coping with this ongoing disaster. Being blind made it far to easy for him to be utterly self-absorbed.

"Good. There's too many people who still need you." Especially since Rosy was gone. "You'll get back to them. I know you will."

Paol stared at him until he felt as though he would choke on the helpless anger rising in his throat. It was a goodbye of sorts; at least that's what it felt like, and there was nothing he could do about it.

A harsh, shivering breath burst from him, somewhere between a laugh and a sob and he bit out a curse. One foot dragged against the riser and found the next step, then the other followed. Back to the room. Just get back to the room.

Charcot heard the sound and lowered his head. He was sad, infinitely sad that he would never see them again, all of his friends, nor his family neither. At any other time he might have cried. He sat down on his step, still dripping. "I'm going to stay here for a while."

For a moment he hesitated, then continued wordlessly to the top of the stairs. At the landing, he threw himself down, cradling his left arm. Shame had turned his anger inward now. He had only wanted Charcot to share some of... What? He could not now remember what it was he'd felt in the courtyard earlier. He'd been a fool and his poor judgment had made everything worse. And now he was sitting up on the landing like a coward when he should have stayed with Charcot.

Paol was still there. Charcot could hear him sitting just a few feet or yards away, probably at the top of the stairs. Poor blessed Paol. Charcot stood and brushed his fingers along the wall, feeling his way downstairs once again.

"Where are you going?" Paol demanded, struggling to his knees and then with the aid of a doorpost to his feet.

"I'm going to find that French officer at the carpenter's house."

"Why? To ask if he'll kill you?" The words came out harsh and bitter and he regretted them the moment they left his mouth.