There was something slippery on the floor. Because he had fallen. This was logic. He was having a little trouble with everything else right now, but he was pretty sure about there being something slippery on the floor. Because he hadn’t just fallen a little bit, like, Oops, are you okay? and he’d nod, and he’d go back to work. That wasn’t happening. That would’ve been happening by now if he’d only fallen a little.

They kept talking to him and they were holding fingers in front of him like he could do something about that. He didn’t know what to do to make them go away. He tried nodding but he couldn’t do that very much because it made him feel sick.

He was lying on the leather couch in the office and he didn’t know how he got there but he was pretty certain he just threw up in the wastebasket. He wanted to sleep. It seemed like a nice place to sleep. They were talking near him but not to him and he didn’t think he minded about it. He heard someone say, “machine oil,” and, “liability.” Then he heard someone say, “he needs to go to the hospital.”

There seemed to be a very small, very clever animal living inside of him that did not want to go to the hospital. Like a hamster or something. A smart hamster. He agreed with it.

It made him sit up. The room tilted sideways and tried to throw him off, but he managed it. He became personable. He made eye-contact. He smiled. He spread his hands and he made every positive gesture he could think of, sometimes two at once. He nodded a lot. He nodded so much he couldn’t even see people anymore, just coloured lines. I am fine! I do not need to go to the hospital! I will go back to work!

It was a very smart hamster.

They would not let him go back to work, but they said he could go home. He nodded. He smiled. He signed, OK! They took him to the front door and released him into the wild. He turned at random and walked.

He got maybe three paces past the southeast corner of the building before he and the hamster decided, (Hey! Why not?) Let’s drop to the pavement on our hands and knees and throw up again! Then he wanted to sleep. But he knew you didn’t sleep on the street. People would see you.

He crawled into the alley and slept there.

When he woke it was starting to get dim and he didn’t understand anything. His head hurt. He thought maybe he needed to find somewhere to sleep off the ground, because there was gas at night. Second storey was ideal, someplace with stairs so you could get out quickly.

Things seemed to be unusually okay. The buses were running.

He stared at the buses and taxis with a vague idea rattling around in his head that he couldn’t quite grasp. He conferred with the hamster.

Maybe if we get on a bus, we can go home!

This was a brilliant idea. They agreed. It seemed vitally important that they get home for some reason.

“Build Me Up, Buttercup?” Were we going to go to the zoo?

Well, either way, the bus was required!

Now, how do we do that?

The hamster seemed to have some idea. Maybe the ability to take buses was programmed somewhere lower than his headache and the hamster had access. He walked until he saw a sign that said BUS. He stood next to the sign. There were other people also that wanted to stand there, but they looked at him and edged away. He smiled at them. I’m okay! I don’t need to go to the hospital! They didn’t try to get him to go so he must’ve looked okay.

He couldn’t remember how change worked. He seemed to have a large amount of foreign currency in esoteric denominations. There was a slot in the metal box on the bus that wanted coins but he didn’t know which ones. He handed all of his coins to the driver and smiled. The driver put three in the slot and handed him back the rest. How generous! He smiled and nodded and he wandered until there wasn’t any more bus and he sat down. He went back to sleep.

“Hey. Buddy. End of the line. Do you want off?”

End of the line! He had no idea what that meant! He smiled and nodded.

Now he was not on the bus! He had successfully taken the bus!

Where was he?

He found an alley. He found, also, a cardboard box. It was very nice to have a cardboard box. If he could’ve found some newspaper it would’ve been heaven, but his head hurt very much and he didn’t think he was cold. He wanted to throw up again but he didn’t think he had to. He slept in his cardboard box. Later, he was vaguely aware of it raining. It was kind of a nice sound. It was kind of cold in his room. He couldn’t remember if Cin had left the roof on or not.

A woman in a nice blue uniform wanted to know if he was drunk.

Blue serge! He recognized it. He smiled and handed her a card.

“Well, all right,” the policewoman allowed.

He got to sleep in a car! It was much warmer than the alley, but he thought maybe he threw up in it.

◈◈◈

“Milo!” shrieked Hyacinth.

He smiled at her. His glasses were broken and hanging out of his shirt pocket. His braid was untucked and coming undone. He had mud in his hair and mud and grime all over the rest of him, particularly on the knees of his trousers and down his right side. He was missing a suspender. There was vomit on his shoes. He had a dark red bruise under each unfocused eye.

“Oh, my gods! Where did you find him? We’ve been looking all over!”

“Sleeping in an alley. He often wander off like that, ma’am?” She showed Hyacinth the card.

“Yes, all the time. Thank you. Goodbye.” She rapidly collected Milo and bundled him inside, leaving the policewoman on the porch with her mouth hanging open.

“That guy threw up in my car!” the policewoman said. When no restitution was forthcoming, she grumbled and stalked off to drive back to the station with bile in her heating vent.

Hyacinth was dragging Milo into the kitchen and interrogating him at the same time. She didn’t think she could get him to talk, but maybe she would get some sense out of him. “Milo, are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

He broadly shook his head. He was still smiling. He was fine! He sat down in the middle of the front room. Oh, this was nice. Maybe he’d sleep here.

Hyacinth took this opportunity to lay both hands on his face (also, she sort of had to, he wanted to lie down). “Concussion,” she decided, but he was mildly hypothermic and dehydrated too, which could not be helping his cognitive function. Of course, he’d been out all night doing the gods alone knew what, and it had rained.

He was trying to pass out on her.

“No-no, Milo. Not until I know how bad this is. Come on. Come on. Eyes open.”

He did that, but it didn’t look like he was going to manage it for long.

“Hey, is anybody home?” cried Hyacinth. “I’ve got Milo but I need help with him!”

They had been looking for Milo, but they had to do it in shifts. Somebody had to be here for him to come home to. Maggie and the General were doing a magic-assisted aerial survey of San Rosille, and she was pretty sure Calliope had gone out to get copies made of a hand-drawn flyer. Mordecai might’ve gone with her, or he might be here watching the baby.

The yelling produced Mordecai, and Erik too. Barnaby either decided that he would not be helpful (true) or that he did not care (probably also true). Room 101 remained silent.

“Oh, my gods!” said Mordecai.

Milo was bruised and damaged and smiling. This wasn’t the proud, happy smile he had seen from Milo after the brownies, or the small, sweet one that sometimes slipped out on its own. This was the hopeful bewilderment of a lost man in a foreign country who has no grasp of the language and can’t even decipher the street signs, desperately looking for help. Train station? Train station? Please? Anyone? Train station…?

“Yes!” said Hyacinth, struggling. “Oh your gods and oh everybody else’s gods — just help me get him into the kitchen!”

Between the three of them, they managed. Mordecai and Hyacinth were on either side of him and Erik pushed from behind. Milo didn’t fight them, but he wasn’t doing much to help them. He surveyed the house (or possibly the train station) with bemused interest. Wallpaper! Tile! Oh, look, chairs!

They put him in one. He put his head on the table to sleep.

“Uh-uh, Milo. Don’t sleep. Sit up. Look at me.”

He did look at her. Right at her. His eyes were glassy but they met hers. He smiled again. Hi, Cin!

She recoiled slightly, but she kept talking. She needed some way to separate cold and exhaustion from actual damage. “Milo, did you hit your head? Do you remember what happened?”

Milo shook his head. He spread out his hands. I’m fine! See how fine I am?

“Milo, do you know what day it — oh, gods, what the hell am I saying? Milo, is it Sigurd’s Day?”

He nodded.

Hyacinth considered that. “Milo, is it Tiw’s Day?”

He nodded to that too.

“Mordecai, what did they say at his work? He was sick?”

“They said he didn’t feel well and they sent him home.”

“That could be anything! Is that all?”

Erik lifted an urgent hand to interrupt. They gave him the space to talk, “Auntie… Hyacinth, do you want… Auntie…”

“No,” said both Hyacinth and Mordecai.

“But…”

“Erik, we know he’s got a concussion,” Hyacinth said. “Auntie Enora can’t fix that. I don’t know if he’s going to get sick, because he is not in really great shape here, but he’s not sick now. The important thing is how he’s hurt. Let me deal with that.”

Erik nodded.

Hyacinth was frowning. The trouble was, all those questions you were supposed to ask — What’s your name? Who’s the Prime Minister? Do you know where you are? — were of no use with Milo. He had already flubbed the one on what day it was.

“Hey, Milo! Wake up. Did we win the war?”

Milo blinked at her for a while. When she was on the verge of asking him something else, he shrugged.

“Milo, is the siege still on?”

He smiled again and nodded to that. Yes! He found a cardboard box! But the buses were running. That was nice. Where was he? He looked around.

“Yeah, okay, he’s not with us,” Hyacinth said. “I need to find where he’s hurt. I can’t tell if he’s bleeding with all this damn red hair — and it’s all full of mud! Mordecai, wet me a dishtowel. I’ll see if I can get this braid out.”

Milo objected slightly to their touching his hair, turning and looking back at them and putting his hand up. The dishtowel was of only minor assistance, its surface area was insufficient to remove much mud. Hyacinth checked it for bloodstains before dropping it on the floor. Then she put her fingers in the damp mess and attempted to find Milo’s head.

Milo objected strenuously to that. He gasped and jerked backwards at her first touch. He snatched her hand at the wrist and pulled it away from him, his expression wounded. Why are you hurting me? What did I do?

“Milo, I’m sorry, but I need to know where you’re hurt! If you don’t let me do this, I’m going to have to cut off your hair!”

He began to cry. No, please don’t do that. I won’t pull it out anymore. I promise.

He made sounds. Very soft, voiceless little gasps, but entirely unlike his normal crying where he held his breath until he could let it out silently.

Hyacinth’s mouth did something involuntary and she issued a noise she had never before made in her life. She simpered. “Okay, Milo. Okay. Stop, stop, stop. I’m sorry. It’s okay.”

She came around to the front of the chair, leaned over him and held him. This would have been cruel under normal circumstances, but nothing had been normal since Milo came home and she wasn’t really thinking about it. She just made Milo cry.

It was warm. She was soft, and she was so careful. He was always so scared when it was hugging because he didn’t know how and he would get it wrong and they would be mad. They would know how wrong and how stupid he was, and how stiff. Like a sack of flour. They would pull back from him and they would look at him like they didn’t like him. He had to pull away from them first.

But now he was too scrambled to remember any of that. Things just kept happening to him. Buses and cardboard boxes and police. He wasn’t even certain why he was crying. (His head hurt a lot, though. Maybe… Maybe because that?) All he could do was the thing in front of him. There was this warmth and he wanted to keep it. He put his arms around her.

Hyacinth gave a gasp and pulled back.

He sobbed once sharply and held tighter. No, please don’t go.

She didn’t go. She held him. She didn’t dare stop. “Milo is hugging me,” she managed in a thin little voice.

Mordecai nodded at her, wide-eyed, somehow terrified. He wondered if they could be one-hundred-percent certain this was Milo.

“I think we need to take him to the hospital…” She was going to have a real hard time explaining smiling and hugging as a symptom. Maybe she’d have to say “abnormal behaviour”…

Milo bit her. He dug in like he really meant it and he moved his head like he was trying to tear off a piece.

“Ow!” She staggered back from him and clapped a hand to her shoulder. He hadn’t torn her dress, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

He wasn’t crying anymore. He was staring at her. The smile was gone too.

“Milo would like very much not to go to the hospital,” Erik said gravely. “He thinks they will hurt him and they won’t let him go.”

Hyacinth was at a loss. She wanted to argue with Erik. That would be as pointless as chasing her own tail. It was really hard to get past Milo being completely unhinged in her kitchen, though. Hugging was one thing, biting was quite another. She knew he was hurt, but what if he hurt somebody else?

Mordecai filled the silence, “Erik, what else do you know about Milo?”

Erik closed his eye and thought. (He covered the metal one with a hand so he could have thinking without random lines.) “It was Thackery’s Machine Oil in a black and white can. They’re scared he’s going to sue. He wanted to sleep upstairs because of the gas but he forgot. He gave the bus driver all his coins and the bus driver was nice and gave some back. I think that’s all. Wait…”

He opened his good eye and uncovered the metal one, which made a soft whir of adjustment. “A cardboard box is nice and newspaper is nicer because it’s warm. You can crumple it.” He made the motion with his hands.

“Mordecai…” said Hyacinth. She appreciated that they were trying to help, but this was stupid.

The red man shook his head at her. He put a hand to his chin and began to pace. “Now, wait. Now, wait. It doesn’t make no sense at all. He did say he thinks the siege is still on, so that explains it about the gas. He must’ve got on a bus and that’s why we couldn’t find him. I can’t think of anyplace he’d have machine oil except at work. Do you suppose someone dropped a can of it on him?”

“There’d be a gash,” said Hyacinth. “Of course I didn’t get a very good look at it and I’m sort of afraid to now.”

Milo had put his head back on the table to sleep.

“Erik, do you know if he’s going to hurt anybody?” Hyacinth asked. That would be helpful.

“Do you want Cousin Violet?” Erik said.

“No,” said Hyacinth and Mordecai.

“Well, I don’t… know,” Erik replied shortly. He threw up his hands. “I think he’s just really… scared of the… H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L.” Hester, my uncle says you shouldn’t do that or I’m never gonna learn how to spell.

I’m sorry, dear. It seemed important.

I know. Thanks. Just, the other thing also, okay?

“I’m scared he’s going to have a seizure,” Hyacinth said. “At least at the hospital they’d have something to…”

Milo gasped and sat upright. He slid out of his chair and under the table. He pulled the chair down after him and curled up behind it, against the legs of another. Hyacinth and Mordecai both went down on their knees to get him.

“Honestly, Hyacinth!” Mordecai said. “Why did you think Erik spelled it?”

“Why does Erik do anything?” Hyacinth snapped. “That kid is a wind sock! Milo, honey,” she continued, much more gently. “You don’t have to go anywhere. Okay? You’ve convinced me.”

“Has he?” said Mordecai, from the other side of the table.

“I don’t know! I’d just like him out from under the table! And he’s crying again,” she added. He had just started.

“I’ll get him,” Erik said.

“No-no-no!” said Hyacinth, but she couldn’t catch him. He was small and the chair legs were less of a hindrance. He crept under the table.

Milo slid back from him.

Erik sat at the other end of the chair Milo had pulled after him like a tamed lion. He didn’t look over. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know it’s scary when you can’t understand. It’s just because you got hurt. Do you remember it a little?”

Milo nodded, then he shook his head.

“We won’t hurt you because you need help. You don’t have to pretend it’s okay. I know nobody ever took care of you. I’m not supposed to remember, but I do right now. And you like ginger ale.”

“Oh, shit, I’m supposed to get him ginger ale!” Mordecai cried.

“What?” said Hyacinth.

“I promised Auntie Enora! She’ll alter me if she ever finds out I didn’t. I’ll spend the rest of my life chain-smoking and volunteering at hos… at H-O-S-P-I-T-A-Ls!”

“Mordecai, can’t we do this later?”

“I have to do it later! That’s what I’m telling you!”

“We won’t ever hurt you like that, and we won’t let you be anywhere it could happen,” Erik said softly. “Auntie Hyacinth and Uncle Mordecai don’t understand why you’re so scared, but they know you’re scared. They just want to help. They’re messing it up because they’re worried about you.”

Milo nodded.

“Can I come over and try to help you? I’m very small and I wouldn’t be able to hurt you very much anyway.”

Milo nudged the chair aside. Erik crawled closer and sat beside him. He hesitated with his hand up for only a moment. Auntie Enora really hurt Milo when she did that, but he knew where Milo was hurt and he didn’t have to touch there. Milo was sick and scared and this was to help. He brushed Milo’s hair out of his face and tucked it behind his ears.

“You cried a lot,” Erik said. He pulled his hand back into his sleeve and used the cuff to dry Milo’s eyes and nose.

Milo felt… better. He blinked. It was like… It was like only good things would happen. Did Erik promise? He didn’t think Erik said, but… It was like he promised.

Do you remember when you made pancakes for my birthday, and you brought home cupcakes, and you gave me a watch to help me when I was hurt, and you held my hand when I was sad, and you slept on the floor so I didn’t have to be alone when my uncle was sick? Do you remember when you gave me the puzzle and you were scared I wouldn’t like it, but then I smiled? Do you remember when I was so scared you were hurt and I hugged the card where you drew how you wished you could hug me?

(Yes. I do.)

Do you know how much I love you?

(Oh. I do now. That’s warm.)

It’s going to be okay now, because I love you and I’m going to make sure. We’re all going to be kind to you and keep you safe. Do you believe me?

(Yes. Yes. I do.)

Erik smiled at him. Milo smiled back — his own sweet smile. He was still shedding tears, but he only felt relief. Erik took his hand, like when he held Erik’s hand because Erik was sad and afraid.

“Can you be in a chair for a little so Auntie Hyacinth can help you? Then you can have your own bed. It’s lots better than cardboard.”

Milo nodded.

They helped him into a chair. Hyacinth wanted to know where it hurt and he showed her. It hurt a little while she looked for it, but she gave him her hand to hold and told him to squeeze if he wanted her to stop. That made it easier. She wrapped up ice and gave it to him to hold there while they did everything else.

They came up with something so he didn’t have to nod, he could just show fingers. One for yes and two for no and three if he didn’t know. Sometimes he forgot and nodded anyway, but it helped not to do it always.

They asked him what hurt and what was okay. They wanted to know if his nightclothes were in the closet. Mordecai wanted to know specifically if he didn’t have anything but nighties, and of course, he didn’t. Em seemed a little upset about it, but Milo smiled at him so it would be okay.

Hyacinth gave him tea to drink, and aspirin to take with it. Erik said, “Let him read the bottle so he knows it’s safe,” and she did, but he already knew it was safe, because Erik promised. He guessed he would’ve taken anything they wanted to give him, even a shot. It wouldn’t be to hurt him. They didn’t want to do that.

They made him a bath. Erik sat in a chair and didn’t look and Hyacinth and Mordecai helped him wash his hair. It hurt some, but he knew it wasn’t on purpose because they kept saying “sorry.” After, he could have the ice again. There was a soft towel. It was pink like one of Ann’s dresses. It smelled clean and a lot nicer than anything had in a long time and he just wanted to have that and sleep. They let him hold it, but they had one of his nighties and they helped him wear that.

He was very tired by then, and he wasn’t sure how they got him upstairs. He tried to help them, but he couldn’t remember where his room was.

They let him have his bed. No, they wanted him to have his bed. Because they were kind. They made sure he had ice, and lots of blankets. Hyacinth sat with him. He wanted her to hold him again, but it was nice just to have her near. She didn’t say ‘hospital’ anymore. Erik told her how that would hurt him and she wouldn’t make him go. She said she would stay and watch him so he was safe. He wanted to ask her if she loved him, too, but then he forgot. He didn’t remember sleeping, either, but he did.