“How do you feel?” Sofia said. “Are you cold? Do you recall feeling cold while you were on the other side?”
“I do feel a little cold, Sofe,” Fred said.
“Leave it with me,” Sofia said and left the room.
Fred turned to Jane. “You held my hand,” he said.
She looked to him. An excited feeling welled up inside her.
“Why did you say such things to me?” he asked.
She was unsure as to which things he referred. Did he mean the things in the pool, or the things in the hospital bed? Did he refer to the declaration of her identity, or the declaration of her love? He had heard the first; she was unsure if he had heard the second.
“Do you mean in the baths?”
“Of course,” he replied. Those things were easier to speak of.
“I could not lie to you,” she said. “I am who I am.” Jane swallowed at the memory of it. “It does not matter if you believe me,” she insisted. “I am who I say I am. It is the truth.”
“I never said I didn’t believe you.”
Jane commanded her heart to stop its thumping.
“You are Jane Austen.”
Jane nodded and cleared her throat. She shifted in her chair.
“On some level, I’ve always known,” he said.
“You have?”
“Something was strange, at least,” he said. He smiled.
“You will not have to worry about it too much longer, in any case, for I shall be leaving soon.” She said it lightly, but she searched his face for his reaction. “Your sister has secured the means to return me to 1803. She has been a valiant helper, quite the heroine.”
“She’s good like that.”
“So I shall be on my way. I have books to write.”
“Of course. As you should,” Fred replied with a nod. He paused. “Or do you think you might stay for a little while? I know you need to get back, but Sofia will leave me to fend for myself with a bottle of sherry and a pile of blankets. Just a week.”
Jane considered this. “I suppose I could stay one week. To help you get back on your feet.”
They stared at each other. An excited, terrified feeling moved through Jane at the way he looked at her.
“I have one more request,” he said.
“Goodness. You are a demanding person, sir,” she replied, trying to sound calm.
“I’m quite the dictator when I want to be.”
“Name your demand, then,” she said. She coughed.
“I should like to do the thing I wanted to, before.” He moved his eyes to her mouth, then back to her eyes.
She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid your demand is more of a request, sir,” she said in a voice gone hoarse. “You are not much of a despot.” She reminded herself to breathe.
“True. I can’t demand this, in fairness. Unfortunately, this is one of those things I can only do if you want me to. Do you want me to?”
She breathed out finally; their eyes met. She looked away. “Promise me your heart won’t stop again? From the exertion?”
He laughed. “I promise.”
Jane swallowed. “Very well, then.”
He leaned forward, slowly, and placed his lips on hers. If Jane lived another thousand years, if she wrote a hundred novels, she already knew she would never know another feeling like it.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sofia returned with the blankets, and Jane left Fred’s bedside. He waved her goodbye as she left the room, grinning with a wide smile.
Sofia looked around the room. Flowers, cards, and balloons from the kids at Fred’s school festooned the area. “You’re so cool, Mr. Dub,” she said to Fred in a juvenile voice, slapping his arm. He shrugged and smiled and looked out the door. “I see you two made up.” She nodded in the direction Jane was walking down the hospital corridor.
Fred wiped the smile from his face and scoffed. “What are you on about?” he said, forcing a laugh she only heard him make when he’d been caught.
“Don’t play coy with me,” Sofia replied. “You must think I’m pretty stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” he replied. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You like Jane. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“As if,” he said. He folded his arms across his chest, like a teenager. The machine wires connected to his forearms twisted in a bundle and an alarm went off. He uncrossed his arms and apologized to a nurse who rushed in.
Sofia laughed and shook her head. “You also do that thing with your shoelaces whenever I mention her name.”
“What thing?” Fred said, scoffing a second time.
“I mention Jane’s name and you tie your shoelaces. Even if they are already tied. You bend down and untie them, then tie them back up again. You used to do that whenever you liked a girl at school. Like Molly Parson! You tied your shoelaces every time someone said ‘Molly.’”
“You come out with some whoppers, Sofia, but this takes the cake.” He placed his hands on his hips. If he intended to look serious, he did not pull it off, dressed as he was in a backless cotton gown, lying on a hospital bed.
“That whole year, you had perfectly tied shoelaces, double knots, triple knots.”
“Complete rubbish.”
Sofia raised both eyebrows and rested her chin on her hand, like a professor posing a philosophical question. “Where is Jane now?”
Fred bowed his head and gazed at the end of the hospital bed.
“See! You looked at your feet! Ha. You’re thinking about tying them. You’re not even wearing any shoes. You should get it checked out, your shoe-tying, love-concealing compulsion.”
“Sofia, shut up.”
“You also smile more. It’s nice. I don’t blame you, Fred. She’s quite the woman.”
He swallowed.
“You two had a fight, didn’t
