singillatim | 3. You may be a warning of things to come.

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3. You may be a warning of things to come.

Who: Harry Goodsir and divers hands
What: La'an's postmortem and after
Where: The Milton church
When: After the Darkwalker claims its victim
Warnings: There's an autopsy. Goodsir has some PTSD. Fun for the whole family.

The unheated church basement will do for a mortuary. Someone finds a long table and Goodsir has La'an's poor cold corpse laid out on it, covered with a sheet.

He hasn't performed an autopsy—

(Twenty. I have performed on—)

—here, not yet. The deaths that have occurred so far have presented no mystery, but La'an's is something new and terrifying, and Goodsir feels he must get to the bottom of it.

[ There are a couple of prompts for Goodsir specifically, but feel free to start your own threads. ]

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“As it was in the Arctic,” he repeats, sounding haunted. Goodsir may have a healthy sense self-preservation this time, but all it does is make him sick with guilt and burden. “Christ. Christ, I can’t do it again-”

Crozier presses the heel of his hand into his eyes.

Goodsir moves closer to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"It does not fall entirely to you here," he says. "I know that's small consolation, Francis, but—for all the cruelty of what we must suffer again, you are not so alone this time."

Suffering again doesn't feel like his penance, but continuing to live does.

"Everyone is so young," he remarks with a shake of his head. "And far outside the realm of what we've faced before. We know not to balk at the supernatural, but this is..."

He covers his mouth with his hand, quiet and contemplative. After a few beats he sits himself straight.

"I have no sense of what's to come next. None."

"Nor I," Goodsir says, and he's quiet for a long moment, not knowing what else to say.

Then—he doesn't know what makes him think of this, but it seems right—he says, "Did you see the white stag? A month or so back?"

He recalls the stag, the choice offered to them, the gift. "I did."

And it had unsettled him, though he's almost certain that it wasn't malevolent in intent.

"I don't know what it was. I don't pretend to understand it," he says. "Miss Marsh and I—we saw it together. And it struck us both as a mystery—in the sense of the religious or the spiritual, like a burning bush. No doubt my brother Joseph would have something to say about it. But it tells me that not everything here is malign."

It surprises him to hear Goodsir speak about his brother. He knows about his family, the illustrious doctors from Scotland, and he doesn't doubt that he spoke about them at length whilst on Erebus, but that was ages ago. Lifetimes.

"I feel the same." He just doesn't appreciate being caught in the middle of whatever battle of good versus evil is happening here. "Tell me about him? Your brother."

Goodsir smiles, fondly. "Joseph is the second eldest of us, and the only one whose calling was not toward medicine or natural history. He's a minister. Studied divinity at the university in Edinburgh—became the minister at the church in Largo two years before we sailed."

He can't know Joseph's miserable fate—that he will resign from the ministry and spend the rest of his life railing against the church, against men who he believes impugn the memories of his brothers; that he will die in the Royal Edinburgh Asylum.

"We were all very close, you know—my brothers and sister and I. Joseph lodged with John and myself and Forbes in Edinburgh for a time. Though, truthfully, Joseph and I had few little interests in common—little enough to talk about save for family matters."

Goodsir pauses, hesitating, before deciding it might do Crozier good to hear it: "He is prone to melancholia, in fact. A strain of it runs through all the Goodsirs, I think, to a greater degree in some and a lesser in others—alongside certain eccentricities, as well." A wry, self-deprecating smile; he knows that some people find his own fascination with, say, the microscopic parts of crabs to be incomprehensible. "On his darker days, one's instinct was always to try to help, but in time I learned that sometimes it is enough only for him to know that one is nearby."

This had been a perfectly serviceable conversation about family and nostalgia, and then Goodsir had to go and say that. He hates being seen, even if it's absolutely spot on and actually fairly good advice for his brand of melancholy.

"You, eccentric?"

He smirks softly.

Goodsir can't help chuckling. "Commander Fitzjames used to say that he had never seen a man care so much for a fish or crab unless he was eating it, and possibly not even then. He meant it kindly, though."

"Of course he did." Fitzjames had adored Goodsir for all of his eccentric behavior and wonderment. The day he was stolen away by the mutineers had been difficult for him for a multitude of reasons, but the loss of the gentle doctor had been a significant blow.

"He used to speak about your research, the way you took over the Great Cabin with your specimens."

"He and Sir John were patience incarnate," Goodsir says. "And Fitzjames himself was very interested—he was interested in all things, it seemed. For all his talk and his stories ... he'd a quick mind and curious instincts. I liked him very much."

The memory of Fitzjames's laugh and his gentle jibes—your invisibly-pointed pencil, Mr. Goodsir—is almost enough to erase the memories of what happened the day Hickey despoiled the man's cairn.

All his talk...

Crozier's eyes begin to glisten, hidden by the darkness of the church. How right Goodsir is about James Fitzjames, but he mustn't let him know. Fitzjames bore his soul in secret to him, and it's only right that a secret it should remain.

"You made a fine team. The brave and dashing James Fitzjames, and the brilliantly eccentric Henry Duncan Spens Goodsir."

Goodsir doesn't see Crozier's face, but there's something in his voice ... Goodsir will do him the kindness of saying nothing about it.

"I should have liked to know him better."

That 'something' in his voice is immeasurable grief and sadness, something he tries so desperately to keep locked down. Yes, it's in his body, the way he carries himself, in his eyes, in the wrinkles in his skin, but he keeps it away from his voice most days. He can pretend that way.

"He would have liked the same of you."

Goodsir is silent for a moment, then:

"I am sorry, Francis. For the burden you've been carrying all this time. To be the last of us standing in that place—that is not a mercy, but a torment. You deserve better."

The last of us --

Crozier turns and looks at Goodsir sharply.

"Who said I was the last?"

"I—"

Goodsir thinks: no one told me. I'd only—

"I assumed," he says, soft and embarrassed now. "I thought ... if there were others, surely you would have ..."

Found them? Seen them taken in by the Netsilik as well? Spoken of them?

Jopson knew too. Jopson had seen --

Thomas Jopson knew him, knew his mood by the curve of his spine or the single quirk of an eyebrow. How is it that Harry Goodsir can see what the others cannot?

"Surely I would have said as much."

And he isn't wrong. If there'd been a success he would have said as much. His demeanor wouldn't be like...this. He wouldn't seek his own loneliness as penance or refuse the company of others for fear they could smell death on him.

"You're right. There are no others."

Goodsir has had that bleak assumption in the back of his mind since Crozier first arrived, but to have it so bluntly confirmed still hits like a blow. He exhales as if he's been struck.

"Mamianaq," he says softly.

It had been just as awful when Jopson guessed the truth, but Crozier didn't feel near as close to having a complete mental break as he does now. The gentle Inuktitut phrase picks at his resolve, and he crumbles forward to hang his head between his knees.

Goodsir's breath catches; he hadn't meant to hurt Crozier. It was only that ... well, the English of I'm sorry scarcely seemed able to encompass what he felt. He moves closer, cautiously, and puts a hand on his shoulder, offering a wordless gesture of comfort. Maybe even absolution.

Goodsir isn't at fault, but the gentle tone in his voice and depth of horror and resilience in his eyes is too much to bear. He saved him, and how did he repay him? How did he repay any of them.

"Please," he says softly, "there's no need."

"Nevertheless ..." he begins, and can't quite find his way to the words he needs. He isn't sure that he needs to forgive Crozier for anything, but he offers that forgiveness; he is sorry for having abandoned Crozier in the way he did, and lives his repentance in every good action that he undertakes here. He understands, in some small way, what Crozier must be suffering, and feels nothing but compassion.

He can't finish the sentence, but he keeps that comforting hand where it is.

Nevertheless, Harry Goodsir continues. Crozier doesn't quite weep, but his breath has the unsteadiness of a person just barely keeping it together.

He soaks in the comfort despite his own resistance to the idea, the touch...the touch so damned welcomed, a flickering candle in the overwhelming darkness.

After a while he sits up and gently pats Goodsir's knee. "You're a good man. Take care of yourself, Doctor."

Re: Afterward

bestsir - 2024-02-20 15:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Afterward

goingtobeunwell - 2024-02-22 02:48 (UTC) - Expand

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