"Mr Bingley." Mary did not turn. "Come here."
He started, then crossed the room. He stood on the opposite side of the bed.
"You carried him." It was not a question.
He flushed beneath the dirt. "The cart would have taken too long. The storm... the lightning was striking the oaks. I could not leave him."
Mary raised her eyes to his. She saw the exhaustion etched into his features, the mud that stained his skin, the sheer, undeniable reality of him. He was not a poet. He was not a dashing rake. He was a man who had lifted her father out of the mud and run through a storm because it was necessary.
Item Five, her mind noted automatically. Atlas is a Gentleman.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"I would have carried him to London if I had to," he shrugged, and then winced as his shoulder cracked.
A low rumble came from the bed. Mr Bennet's eyelids fluttered. He groaned again, shifting slightly. The cat, sensing movement, hopped onto the coverlet and settled near the injured leg, purring like a small, orange engine.
"Papa?" Mary squeezed his hand.
Mr Bennet's eyes opened. They were glassy, unfocused, floating on a sea of opiates. He blinked at the ceiling, then drifted his gaze to Mary, and finally to the muddy figure of Mr Bingley.
"Charles," Mr Bennet rasped.
"I am here, sir." He leaned in, anxiously.
"Your North Pasture," Mr Bennet whispered, his voice slurring slightly. "It is... excessively muddy."
"It is, sir," Mr Bingley laughed, a sound that was half-sob. "It is a swamp."
"Good." Mr Bennet closed his eyes again. "Excellent for... growing... character."
His breathing deepened into sleep. Mary exhaled. She looked across the bed at Charles Bingley. He was dirty, he was shaking, and he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"He will recover." She forced the steel back into her spine. "He is too stubborn to die."
"He has excellent care," Mr Bingley said softly.
He reached out, as if to touch her hand where it rested on the sheet, but pulled back at the last second. Mary saw the hesitation.
She reached across and took his muddy hand in hers.
"Thank you."
Mr Bingley gripped her fingers. "You are most welcome."
And with that he turned, and the door clicked shut, sealing the scent of laudanum and mortality inside the Green Room.
Mary stood in the corridor. The silence of Netherfield at three in the morning was not peaceful. It was heavy, pressing against her ears with the weight of unsaid prayers.
For hours, she had been the Mule. She had been the wall against which her mother's hysteria broke. She had been the anchor for Kitty's gothic terrors. She had been the stone statue holding her father's hand while Mr Jones committed necessary violence upon his bones.
But walls, even stubborn ones, eventually crack.
The fierce resolve, which had served as a rigid corset holding her upright since the first peal of thunder, vanished. It did not fade. It abandoned her without notice.
Her knees turned to water. A tremor started in her hands, violently shaking the spectacles she removed to wipe her eyes. She gasped, a jagged, ugly sound that tore through the quiet hallway.
The Ledger opened in her mind, unbidden.
