After Times of Tender Agony: Ch. 35

Unwilling to Share

Notes:

Okay...an explanation (and an apology!) for the sporadic posting as of late. Normally I post daily. My readers know this. You know this. Posting every other day is not normal for me. I've been fighting a really bad cold for the past week, and it has not been a pleasant way to spend my last week at home before going back to college. HOWEVER I am glad I had it at home and not at college, otherwise way more tears would have been shed over it. Of course, the issue comes in that I am going back to college tomorrow, I am definitely not over the horrible cold, and then I will be away from my family. With this monster of a cold. Yay.

That being said, that's the real reason I haven't been posting daily, and hopefully daily posts will resume until the end of the story. Hopefully.

In other notes! This is one of those chapters I re-wrote, like, five times. That usually doesn't happen. Normally when I write a chapter, it's practically the final draft, and I'll made a few edits before posting. This chapter did not want to be written. I tried Janner's POV, Jebsun's POV, Artham's POV, Sara's POV, Janner and Artham's POV, etc. etc. But I think I have it where I want it, and now the chapter is at least tolerable <3

*****

“Janner, I really think you need to sit down,” Sara told him gently, the sudden grey pallor of his face scaring her. He hadn’t looked quite that pale moments before, and now he staggered. His breathing had become ragged a few minutes earlier, and while it had worried her than, now it genuinely concerned her.

It seemed as though her words fell on deaf ears, though, because he didn’t even shake his head, indicating he had heard her.

“Janner,” she said again, this time more sharply. He swayed again, and Sara wrapped her arm around him tighter. She could feel the next shallow breath as it rattled through his chest. “Janner, can you hear me?”

He blinked, once, twice, rapidly—she couldn’t count the number. “I’m fine,” he whispered, his lips a concerning purple. His head lolled to the side, and Sara caught him as he crumpled, easing him to the floor. 

Laying his head in her lap, she cupped his cold cheek in her hand and did her best to hold back tears. She should have forced him to sit down or take a break sooner—she had heard his breathing. She should have refused to let him try walking that day—she had seen how pale he was. She should have asked Artham to intervene when Janner protested her concerns—he always protested when she guessed the truth. She should have done something. 

The sound of someone running up the stairs pulled her gaze away from Janner’s ashen face, and when she looked up, she saw Artham in the hall, his hair mussed by the wind. She had heard him tell Joe he was going outside to split wood; he must have just come inside. 

“Artham, is something the matter? Is Janner alright?” Addie called from downstairs.

Gritting his teeth briefly, Artham responded to her without missing a beat. “Everything’s fine, Addie! I have it covered.”

Sara doubted Addie would actually believe such a meager, quick response, but perhaps it would suffice for the meantime.

“What happened?” Artham asked sharply, quietly, as if trying to keep it private, striding over, his brow furrowed.

Sara shook her head and fumbled for Janner’s hand, needing moral support. “He fainted when we were walking. It’s my fault; I should have made him sit sooner.” 

Artham studied Janner’s face silently before scooping him up in his arms. “It’s not your fault, Sara,” he said as they walked back to Janner’s room. “It’s not as though you made him fall.”

“But—”

“He’s ill, Sara,” Artham told her roughly as he laid Janner in his bed, his countenance dark with worry as he watched the shaking rise and fall of his chest. “You’re not to blame and I’m not to blame and he’s not to blame. The Overseer’s to blame, and I don’t want to have any more of these discussions of blame, alright?”

Sara couldn’t help but flinch when he said it. Artham hadn’t seemed to notice her reaction, so she didn’t bother mentioning it. Instead, she sat down on Janner’s bed and reached for his freezing-cold, gaunt hand. “Shouldn’t his lips be less blue by now, Artham?” she asked instead of responding to him, new worry flourishing in her heart. 

Artham sighed, and when she looked at him, Sara saw that the angry concern had fallen away from his face and retreated to his eyes, replied by weariness. He had every right to be tired. One of them was nearly always with Janner, even when he slept. Especially when he slept. When Janner slept was when nightmares plagued him, meaning the sleep he managed was not restful and many nights were spent awake, drowsing worriedly but not truly resting.

“They should be,” he murmured. “Why don’t” —he paused, his eyes flickering between her face and Janner’s— “Why don’t I go get Jebsun? Stay here; maybe get Janner an extra blanket? I’ll be back, alright?”

Before Sara could either agree or disagree, he had left, shutting the door quietly behind him. She thought she heard Addie’s voice again, likely trying to get an answer from Artham, and assumed she would have company in the next few moments. 

In the meantime, though, she retrieved an extra few pillows and a blanket from the storage chest at the end of the bed, using the former to prop him up and hopefully ease his breathing troubles and covering him with the latter. As she tucked the warm quilt around him, she smiled a little, glad to see his lips returning to their natural color, though his face was still concerningly pale. 

“I know it’s nowhere near the worst it’s been,” she murmured, stroking the scar on his cheek. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not worried.”

There was a gentle knock at the door, but it still made Sara jump a little. “Come in,” she said sweetly, unsurprised to see Addie poke her head in the door.

“Hello, dear.” She nodded to the armful of wood she carried. “The fire’s looking a little low; would you like some wood for it?”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Sara returned, checking to make sure her lips were still curved into a smile. “Would you like some help?”

“No, Sara, sit back down.” Addie waved her off with a chuckle. “I can load and stoke a fire, you know.”

Nodding tersely, Sara pressed her hands together and shifted her gaze back to Janner again, only to see him blinking slowly.

“Janner, it’s alright, you’re safe,” she said softly, close to his left ear, squeezing his hand in reassurance. His lips parted, as if he wanted to say something, but she shook her head. “No, don’t talk. You fainted because you weren’t breathing enough, and talking won’t help that.”

The look in his eyes broke Sara’s heart.

“Sorry,” he murmured before drawing a wheezing breath. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Sara shook her head and cupped his cheek. “Janner,” she whispered lovingly. “There’s no need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He had scared her, but she didn’t blame him for anything. “It’s alright. I love you. It takes more than a faint to hurt me.”

Something unreadable flickered in his face, and deep in her heart, something else ached, but before she could ask him about it, the sound of quick steps down the hall diverted her attention. “It’s just Jebsun,” she said quickly, Janner’s hand she held tensing in fear. “We just want him to check on you.”

As Jebsun opened the door and stepped into the room, Addie left, giving her a reassuring smile.

Squeezing Janner’s hand, Sara smiled at him before retreating to the armchair so Jebsun could have as much room as he wanted or needed. 

“Where’s Artham?” she asked as Jebsun opened his bag and retrieved a few things from it. 

Jebsun shrugged. “He stayed downstairs; said he didn’t want to crowd the room too much.”

Sara nodded, accepting the explanation, then watching and listening silently as he told Janner to breathe shallowly, deeply, the latter sending him into a concerning, wheezing coughing fit, and asked a few quiet questions about lightheadedness.

Perhaps what she heard the most, beginning wearily and ending in murmured exhaustion were the words, “I’m fine,” again and again and again, Janner’s response to nearly everything Jebsun asked him. 

*****

Artham took up his position beside Janner after Jebsun left and he forced Sara to go downstairs and focus on something else. Janner was sleeping; there was no need for her to sit there, staring at him, worrying, thinking about what she could have done differently when, if she really thought about it, nothing she did or thought or said would have changed a thing.

That was his job.

Correction: it was a part of his job, not a part in which he necessarily took pleasure. The fact of the matter, what he tried to tell himself, what he had told Sara earlier when he had carried Janner back to his room, was that they couldn't hold themselves responsible for something they hadn't done, and Janner couldn't either.

When you hold yourself responsible for something you didn't do, he mused. A wall of cheaply painted blame arises, one that can still smother you, even though it is a lie. The worst part about that sort of responsibility is that there is no real deposit for the blame, since you've taken the false blame on yourself. You have become the deposit.

Janner hadn't placed blame on himself, though. He had been tortured into submission and grief and confusion and uncertainty and fear, and it had created a new version of him. Artham wasn't certain he liked this new version of Janner that had escaped the Overseer. It wasn’t that he was cruel or mean or inconsiderate or obnoxious or unyielding. He was, in fact, quite the opposite. Not that Janner had ever truly been cruel or mean or inconsiderate or obnoxiously unyielding—the last three weren’t completely foreign; what person wasn’t a bit of those at times?—but now he was too nice, too considerate, too compliant.

In truth, he would have preferred Janner come away from the Overseer angry and noncompliant, because then at least what he had been through would have come out and they—or Janner and Sara—could have talked it over and worked through it.

Instead, Janner was silent. Not silent in the sense that when he was awake, he was only halfway there and in actuality stuck in some prison in his mind. No, Janner was silent in that he spoke to them, he smiled a little without it reaching his eyes, he listened (normally) when they asked him to do something, and he practically refused to impose.

The trouble was that when he spoke, he didn’t really say anything. He never said what was on his heart, his mind. He wouldn’t talk about what plagued him in the waking or sleeping hours, and when he woke up screaming from a dream, he refused to tell them what had happened in it.

It worried Artham. It worried him dreadfully, and he wasn't exactly certain what to do about it.

*****

Downstairs in the sitting room, reading while Addie knitted, Janner’s words still echoed in Sara's mind: I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.

But he wasn’t fine, he was quite the opposite of fine: he was ill and liable to become more so, weak and gaunt and pale, likely crippled, psychologically demolished—the list went on far longer. Janner was nowhere near fine, and she didn’t think he’d be fine for quite a while. He was doing it again, shoving down what he truly felt, lying to everyone, including himself, and hoping whatever was wrong would simply fade and get carried away by the wind.

It didn’t work that way, and none of his attempts to do such a thing had ever ended in anything except failure. What was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking, she supposed, not really, he was trying not to think about what the Overseer had done to him, to his mind, to his heart.

They were all guilty of it, though. It was easier not to burden someone else with your troubles, to just keep them to yourself, locking them away. Some of that was necessary, of course, otherwise everyone would be permanent puddles of misery and depression. Sometimes sharing, too, was necessary. It was all about balance, creating the balancing act of the right amount of sharing and hiding. 

Janner, though, he needed to share. He couldn’t keep hiding the pain in his heart and mind, and he certainly couldn’t hide when he was physically unwell. That could very easily be the death of him.

He didn’t know if he was safe, she knew. She didn’t blame him. For months after leaving the Fork! Factory!, she hadn’t been able to walk down the streets without nearly jumping out of her skin at every sudden sound; nowhere had seemed safe. She had tried to create a safe place for Janner, to tell him it was alright, to show him that he could trust her, to reassure him she loved him. 

It hadn’t worked, though, in the six weeks they’d been together. Yes, sometimes he smiled and chatted, sometimes he contributed to the conversation, and he always complied, but he wasn’t there. He wouldn’t tell her anything, he wouldn’t pour out his heart, he wouldn’t just allow himself to weep in her arms. 

And in all the time they had been together again, he had never hugged her, never kissed her, never once said I love you. Had she done something wrong? Did he hate her for not finding him sooner? Had his love for her faded?

Damp spots now puddled among the words on the page, and she closed the book quickly, not wanting to ruin it. The sound of it snapping shut drew Addie’s attention, and in a moment, Sara found herself drawn into a loving embrace.

She did not push Addie away, nor did she protest. It was an embrace of freewill and kindness, and Sara allowed herself to find the Maker’s peace in the grandmotherly comfort.

Her only desire was that Janner find the same.

*****

Notes:

Okay, the point of this chapter is to a) show something that happens between those 3 weeks when Nia gets the letter and then arrives in Glipwood, b) give a brief example as to how Artham is thinking about what's going on inside Janner's brain incorrectly because why would he be expected to read minds? and c) introduce a real struggle Sara has been going through this entire time: a lack of affection. She and Janner are betrothed. She and Janner have openly been in love with each other for years. Likely, he hasn't gone a day without expressing his affection for her and telling her "I love you." Now he hasn't done it in all the time they've been together, and she is worried. Why? Because she's a girl, and a girl would be worried about something like that. Of course, Janner, does, in reality, still love her, he's just *sigh there's a lot of stuff going on with him right now....

Also, I realize Artham and Sara's portions (the latter two of the three parts) cover similar ground, and if they're too similar, please let me know^^

OH, and what's going on with Janner medically. Haha, no clue if it's accurate, but my thought process is that it's a combination of anemia + bronchitis + pain + exhaustion + hypotension (low blood pressure) = pretty high likelihood of fainting in the middle of activity and taking a while for the blood to come back to the head (that latter bit is due to anemia and hypotension)

ANYWAY-

Please tell me if there's anything noncanonical or wonky <3