For a heartbeat that stretched into an eternity, Alistair was frozen. The world had narrowed to the horrifying sound of his sister drowning on his own table, the bright, frothy blood a vivid accusation against the pale linen. He had done this. His arrogance, his beautiful, precise, terrible science, had led him to this moment of absolute failure.
Mrs. Dobbs's wail of despair was the thing that shattered his paralysis.
"Do something! For God's sake, Doctor, do something!"
But he was empty. His mind, usually a library of solutions, was a blank, white page of shock. He had no next step. His masterpiece had failed.
It was Elara who moved. She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh with a strength that belied her illness. "You have to drain it," she said, her voice low and fierce, cutting through the panic. "You have to get the fluid out. Now."
He stared at her, uncomprehending.
"A tube!" she insisted, her eyes flashing with a frantic urgency. "You must have a tube! Something hollow. You have to suction it out!"
Her words, born of the intimate knowledge of what it felt like to have your own lungs betray you, broke the spell. He blinked, and the world rushed back in. He spun around, his eyes scanning the shelves, knocking over bottles in his desperation. He wasn't thinking, only reacting. His hands closed around a long, thin, hollow metal tube he used for irrigation. It wasn't designed for this. It would have to do.
He rushed back to the table. Clara's coughs were weakening, her struggles growing fainter. She was fading.
"Hold her!" he barked at Mrs. Dobbs, who, though terrified, obeyed, placing her hands on Clara's shoulders to steady her.
Alistair's hands were shaking violently. He couldn't do it. He would puncture something. He would kill her.
"Elara," he gasped, the admission of his own incapacity tearing from him. "I can't… my hands…"
She didn't hesitate. She took the tube from his trembling hands. "Tell me where. Guide me."
He could only point to the spot, just below the clavicle, away from the major vessels. "There. Gently. Angle it down. You will feel it give way."
Elara's face was a mask of concentration, pale and beaded with sweat. She positioned the tip of the tube. With a deep breath, she applied a steady, firm pressure. There was a soft, sickening pop as it penetrated the pleural space. Alistair flinched. Clara jerked.
A gush of foul, yellowish fluid mixed with blood surged up through the tube, overflowing onto the table, onto Elara's hands. The smell was rancid, the smell of sickness and death.
"Suction!" Elara cried, holding the tube in place.
Alistair fumbled for a large rubber bulb syringe, attached it to the end of the tube, and squeezed. He drew back the plunger, creating a vacuum. More fluid rushed up, filling the syringe. He disconnected it, squirted the contents into a basin, and reattached it. Again and again he did it, the basin filling with the awful proof of his sister's inner decay.
With each syringe full, Clara's breathing changed. The desperate, wet rattle lessened. The frantic heaving of her chest slowed into something deeper, something less tortured. The bloody froth at her lips subsided.
Finally, the fluid flowing became a trickle, then stopped. The only sound was Alistair's ragged panting and the drip of liquid into the nearly full basin.
He looked at Clara.
Her chest rose and fell in a slow, deep, and most miraculously quiet rhythm. The terrible hitch was gone. The ghost of a breath, a soft, clean sigh, escaped her lips. The violent blue tinge around her mouth was receding, replaced by a faint, healthy pink.
She was asleep. Truly asleep. Not unconscious. Not dying.
It was over.
The silence in the wake of the storm was deafening. Alistair's legs gave out. He crumpled onto the stool, his head falling into his sticky, blood-stained hands. He didn't weep. He was too hollow for tears. He just sat, shaking, the enormity of what had just happened crashing over him in nauseating waves.
Mrs. Dobbs was weeping openly, tears of shock and relief. "She's breathing," she sobbed. "Lord above, she's breathing proper."
Elara slowly withdrew the tube. Her hands were covered in fluid and blood, her borrowed dress was ruined. She was trembling from head to toe, her energy utterly spent. She leaned heavily against the stone slab, her eyes fixed on Clara's peaceful face, as if she couldn't quite believe it either.
She had done it. When he had fallen apart, she had held them together.
He lifted his head and looked at her. The words "thank you" were too small, too insignificant. They died in his throat. All he could do was look at her, and in that look, he tried to pour everything, his gratitude, his shame, his awe.
She met his gaze, and for a moment, the unspoken understanding passed between them. The battle was not won, but the first, most critical skirmish was over.
Mrs. Dobbs broke the moment, her practical nature reasserting itself through her tears. "We need to clean her. And this mess. Oh, the mess." She looked around at the horrific aftermath of the surgery, the bloodied instruments, the basin of fluid, the soiled linen.
"I'll see to Clara," Alistair said, finding his voice, though it was rough and raw. "You should… you should clean up." This last part was directed at Elara, a gentle suggestion. She was still standing in the wreckage of it all.
She nodded mutely. She looked dazed. She moved toward the washroom like a sleepwalker, clutching her stained hands to her chest.
Alistair and Mrs. Dobbs worked in a tired, wordless tandem. They cleaned the incision, applied a clean bandage, and gently undid the leather restraints, rubbing feeling back into Clara's wrists. They changed her into a clean nightdress. Throughout it all, Clara did not wake, but her breathing remained deep and even. It was the most beautiful sound Alistair had ever heard.
By the time they were done, the first thing Elara saw when she emerged from the washroom was Clara, clean and peaceful, sleeping under a warm blanket. The horrific table had been cleared, the instruments taken away to be scrubbed later. The basin of fluid was covered with a cloth.
Elara had cleaned herself up as best she could. The dress was still stained, but her hands and face were clean. She looked exhausted, her energy completely spent.
Mrs. Dobbs looked from the sleeping Clara to Elara, and her expression was utterly transformed. The bewilderment and suspicion were gone, replaced by a look of profound, awe-struck gratitude.
"You saved her," she said to Elara, her voice thick with emotion. "When the Doctor… when he… you knew what to do. You saved my girl."
She didn't wait for a response. In a move that shocked both Alistair and Elara, Mrs. Dobbs stepped forward and pulled Elara into a tight, heartfelt embrace. "Thank you," she whispered fiercely into Elara's hair. "Thank you, my dear."
Elara stood stiffly for a moment, stunned by the contact. Then, slowly, her own arms came up, returning the hug awkwardly. Over Mrs. Dobbs's shoulder, her eyes met Alistair's. They were wide with a confusion that mirrored his own.
The lie had become truth. In Mrs. Dobbs's eyes, Elara was no longer just the Doctor's mysterious woman. She was a heroine. She was family.
And as Mrs. Dobbs finally released her, wiping her eyes, she said the words that sealed their new, complicated reality.
"You must be exhausted, child. Come. Let's get you upstairs. You shouldn't be down in this dreadful place. You can take the small room next to Clara's. I'll make up the bed."
Elara's eyes flew to Alistair's, a silent question flashing within them. Upstairs? Out of the basement?
He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. The danger was not over. The world outside was still a threat. But in this moment, Mrs. Dobbs had offered a kindness, a chance at something resembling normalcy. To refuse it would be more suspicious than accepting it.
As Mrs. Dobbs gently guided a shell-shocked Elara up the stairs, out of the dungeon of death and into the world of the living, Alistair was left alone with his sister.
He listened to her breathe.
He had almost killed her.
A stranger he'd dug from a grave had saved her.
And now that stranger was being tucked into a bed in his home, her safety dependent on a web of lies that had just grown infinitely more complex.
The cost of his miracle was still unknown.