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ollieofthebeholder · 2 months ago

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And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 14: But silent made my choice

The sun rose, which was probably a good sign.

Both Tim and Gerry had been tense, tenser than either of them had been willing to admit, the entire two days it had taken them to reach the Faroe Islands. They were far from the only people with the same idea, and it had taken them quite a while to find somewhere to stay while they waited—for the eclipse, for word from Gertrude, for the world to end. They’d stood on the shoreline with hundreds of other people, clutching one another without speaking as they, with the aid of the last two pairs of eclipse glasses in northern Europe, watched a shadow slowly, inexorably blot out the sun, and they’d slowly, ever so slowly, relaxed as the corona grew bigger and bigger until the moon slid fully out of the way and the sun was visible again. Even then, Tim had found himself waiting for the world to end after all, maybe when they least expected it.

When it hadn’t, he’d relaxed and driven them back to the hotel.

He texted Gertrude to let her know they would be back to London sometime on Monday morning and he’d be back in the office by that afternoon, and received a reply telling him there was no real rush and to take the rest of the week and come back on the thirtieth. Something about it niggled at him, enough that he was almost prepared to disregard the instructions and go in anyway, but Gerry convinced him to accept the offer.

“If someone stole her phone and lied to you, she’ll get in touch well before that,” he pointed out. “Or she’ll yell at you come Monday morning. Either way, let’s just take the extra few days and…do some moving?”

He looked so bright and hopeful that Tim couldn’t have said no if he’d wanted to.

It took them the better part of four days to pack Tim’s belongings, take what he didn’t want or need to a charity shop, and move the rest into the rooms above Pinhole Books, which still left them the entire weekend to relax. Tim had enjoyed traveling—well, the parts of it that hadn’t involved the Fourteen or medical emergencies, anyway—and it had been good to get the chance to see his grandfather, but still, it was good to be home. Not to mention to have a bit of breathing space before he had to go back to worrying about the Unknowing.

Monday morning dawned crisp and cold, and Gerry whined in his sleep and burrowed under the quilt. Tim tucked him back in with a kiss, then got dressed. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he chose to wear, not the comfortable business casual he normally wore to work, but a button-down shirt and a tie, although he forewent the suit jacket. He fixed a quick breakfast, left a note on the kitchen counter promising to call Gerry later if Gertrude wanted or needed him to come by, donned his coat, jammed the hat Gertrude hadn’t seen yet onto his head, and ventured out into a typically grey London morning. Clouds were already starting to gather, and if Tim’s nose was right, it was going to rain before the day was out. He didn’t mind, though. He’d seen enough sun to last him a bit.

The Institute, unsurprisingly, was right where he’d left it. It still looked the same as ever, weathered stone and off-center steps and beveled windows and all. There was no real activity around the front, which wasn’t unusual. He’d come a bit early on purpose, as was his habit—he wasn’t the only one, but one of the few who wasn’t a department head—so no one would notice him avoiding the front steps and going in the side door of the Archives. Skirting the building and hoping Rosie couldn’t see him through the windows (unlikely, but never a guarantee), he made his way to the courtyard and the direct access to the Archives.

The side door was locked.

Tim frowned. The ominous feeling that had been eating at him since getting Gertrude’s text came back full force. If Gertrude was in, she would have opened that door—it was the one she used unless she had a very compelling reason to let Rosie know she was there on any given day—and even if she’d slept there the night before, she knew Tim would be back. For fuck’s sake, she was the one that had told him to be back. She was always up early, too, so there was no cause for her to still be asleep at—he checked his watch—seven twenty-three. Something was wrong.

He considered pounding on the door to wake her, then decided, no, that would only call attention to things in a way he didn’t want. If he was going to have to let Rosie know he was in anyway, and risk whatever came with that, he might as well just go in the main entrance. At least that way he stood a chance of avoiding her, albeit not much of one. Perhaps—probably—his opinion had been influenced by his boss’s rather. Gertrude valued Rosie’s knowledge, considered her a useful asset, but she didn’t much like her. Then again, Tim didn’t know if anyone in the Institute actually liked Rosie, other than Elias and possibly that guy up in the library who seemed to get on with everyone. Martin, that was his name. Nice guy, if a little too apologetic for his own good.

He lucked out. Rosie was distracted when he got in, deep in conversation with the head of Artifact Storage—who bore an expression of grudging tolerance—and the IT guy who had installed the computer in the Archives, whose expression was perfectly blank, almost glazed over. Artifact Storage caught Tim’s eye as he passed; Tim made a series of subtle hand gestures that he hoped conveyed Don’t let her know I’m here and wended his way towards the Archives. He had almost made it to the top of the steps when a voice called, “Oh, Tim—”

“Morning, Rosie,” Tim called over his shoulder without breaking stride. Practically jumping the top step, he made his way down to the Archives.

Here, at least, the door was open. Which would have been comforting, except that it was open open—not just unlocked, or even just ajar, but open to its fullest extent. They normally kept the door shut to protect the documents, even if the rarest ones were in an extremely tightly climate controlled room. Tim took an experimental sniff as he stepped in, but couldn’t smell anything that might indicate the place was being aired out for some reason. Maybe that was a comfort, but maybe not.

He tugged off his hat, stuck it in his coat pocket, and hung the coat on the rack by the door, then ventured cautiously deeper into the Archives. They felt…not empty exactly. Tim had never quite been able to articulate what the feeling was he got when he was alone in the Archives, but it wasn’t emptiness. The best he could come up with was the different types of darkness described in the Terry Pratchett books, and how darknesses that looked and felt different got different names and different signs. The Archives without people in them felt like the way he imagined the Waiting Dark felt to dwarfs.

This felt different, though. It felt more like the Gathering Dark must feel. Something was very, very wrong.

“Hello?” he called, despite knowing it was useless. “Gertrude? Ms. Robinson? I’m back!”

There was no answer. Honestly, it might have worried him more if there had been. He was sure she wasn’t in here, but…

But she knew he was coming. She’d told him to come in. First the locked door, then not answering his calls…maybe she’d left a note, maybe she just hadn’t wanted people wandering in from the outside, but then why would she have left that other door open wide? He tried not to look like he was afraid as he moved into the space.

To cover up his nerves, as was his wont, he babbled. “Honestly, seemed like everything in the universe was conspiring to keep me out of England. Fog in Turkey, plane trouble over Germany, and the ferry from the Faroe Islands was bonkers. It’s a shame they got rid of the service to Orkney, but, you know, returning the rental would’ve been a trick. But I did what you wanted, I hope.”

His desk was exactly the way he’d left it five months previously (Jesus, had it actually been five months?), the surface neat as a pin and cleared of all work—Tim hated leaving things on his desk overnight, he always put them away or locked them up before leaving—unadorned except for the chipped teapot he used as a pen holder because he couldn’t find a match for the tiny missing piece and it wouldn’t hold liquid any longer. Mister Megabytes loomed silently on its desk, which meant it was powered down. There were no files, no papers, no tapes, no indication that any work was being done. More crucially, there was no note, no ring of keys, no folder informing Tim he would need to handle things for a little while.

And Gertrude’s office door stood open as well.

Tim stared at it for a long moment, biting his bottom lip. The sense of unease had grown into full-blown fear. There was no way Gertrude would have casually left her office door and the door to the Archives open like that, not willingly. She was too careful, too close with her secrets, too protective of the work—and, frankly, of Tim. Something must have happened.

But what? Other than the open doors, nothing was out of place. The Archives hadn’t been ransacked, nothing had been damaged…and Tim wasn’t stupid, Gertrude wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. Unless someone had cleaned the place up, which might explain why all the doors were standing open, if they had used industrial strength cleaning solvents—but no, that made no sense, either. It had been a week. Surely someone would have called him if anything had happened. None of this made any damned sense.

Twisting the ring around and around on his finger, he slowly approached the door to Gertrude’s office and stepped inside. Someone had definitely been in here cleaning; it smelled faintly of bleach and furniture polish. They’d also, Tim noted, moved things around. Just subtly—the desk was slightly angled, the desk lamp had been moved to a corner instead of centered on the end and the cord had been shifted to the long side rather than the short (and also wasn’t plugged in), and her own pen cup was missing entirely—but enough that it bothered him. It could also have been his imagination that the surface of the desk looked like someone had scrubbed away a large portion of the stain on its top, but he didn’t think so. Her cardigan was still there, hanging on the back of her chair, but it looked like she had spilled something on one of the sleeves—ink, maybe? Either way, that wasn’t like her either.

“Ah—Tim. Welcome back.”

Tim spun on his heel to see Elias Bouchard standing behind him, an extremely solemn expression on his face and hands folded in front of him. He tried to cover up his surprise and alarm. “Uh—thank you, sir. It’s good to be back…is Ms. Robinson in?”

Elias’ expression grew, somehow, even more solemn, even sad. “Come up to my office, please. We need to have a little chat.”

He turned and strode out of the office. As Tim began to follow, he heard a very, very soft click from somewhere to one side, and turned to see a small pocket tape recorder that had somehow slipped off the shelf and been caught by the strap on a protruding bit of plastic; it was swinging back and forth gently from the last bit of momentum.

Driven by an impulse he couldn’t explain, probably borne of having witnessed Gertrude dictate notes or chronicle statements on them over the last year and a half, Tim quickly palmed it and tucked it into his pocket before hurrying out to catch up with Elias.

It was closer to eight now, and more and more of the Institute’s employees were filtering in. Most of them gave Elias a polite greeting and a wide berth; Tim didn’t expect the same courtesy exactly, but to his surprise, nobody bumped him. He could feel quite a few of them watching him follow Elias through the crowd and wondering what the hell he’d done to get in trouble first thing on a Monday morning. The only one who addressed him directly, though, was that weird guy from Research who dressed like he was aiming to be the diversity hire at Grace Brothers, and that only by a mumbled thanks to Tim for avoiding a collision he seemed too preoccupied to preempt himself.

Tim decided he liked him, if only because he was the only person not looking at him like he was heading to his own execution.

Elias waited for Tim to come into his office, then shut the door and indicated the chair in front of his desk. Tim slipped a hand into his pocket and squeezed the tape recorder for comfort as he took the seat, satisfied to feel that, apparently, he’d hit the button to record in doing so. Whatever happened to him in here, there would be a record of it.

“I trust you had a fruitful trip,” Elias said in a calm, composed way as he seated himself behind his desk. He wasn’t looking at Tim, though, instead reaching for one of the drawers.

“I…think so,” Tim said cautiously. “Gert—Ms. Robinson seemed pleased with what I was finding, anyway, enough to keep me on the trail.”

“It’s all right, Tim, I know she asked you to call her Gertrude, and you won’t be punished for referring to her that way.” Elias must not have his drawers as well organized as the rest of his office appeared, because he seemed to be having difficulty finding whatever he was looking for. “And yes, she seemed quite pleased with your work. Certainly enough to forward your expenses for reimbursement…when was the last time you spoke with her?”

“Uh—spoke? The fourteenth.” Tim considered giving Elias the details of the call, then decided, on the balance, no. He hadn’t been asked about that. “She texted me a couple times since then.”

“When?”

“The fifteenth, about two in the afternoon—so probably about one here. And then again around noon on the twentieth.”

Elias pursed his lips thoughtfully. “That does add a new layer to things. Tell me, did either of those texts seem…odd to you in any way? Unusual for her?”

The sense of dread and unease rose in Tim’s stomach and chest again, threatening to strangle him, and it was a moment or two before he could speak. “It’s hard to tell. We didn’t text often, and you can’t always tell tone in text, you know? The one on the fifteenth was pretty normal, just a change of plans. But it was a little weird that—I’d texted to tell her I would be back to the office by Monday afternoon, and she said there wasn’t a rush and to take the rest of the week off too. I called back to confirm, but it went straight to voicemail, so I just texted her back and said I’d see her today. She, uh, she never texted me back.”

Elias sighed and looked up at Tim. His eyes radiated sympathy and concern, and even knowing Gertrude distrusted him so much, Tim had a hard time not believing it was genuine. “I apologize, Tim, I should have reached out to contact you sooner, but I had hoped I would have better news for you by now.”

That thing in Tim’s stomach twisted. “Better news? About what?”

Elias took a deep breath. “I had a query about a statement one of our researchers was after and went down to the Archives. Gertrude wasn’t there, but her desk was covered in blood. Naturally I called the police immediately, but…they have been searching for the past two weeks, and there has been no sign of her. Alive or dead.”

Tim sucked in a sharp breath. No. No, that wasn’t possible, it wasn’t—she was careful, she knew what she was doing, and she’d promised, for fuck’s sake. She had promised she would—it had to be a mistake, it had to be.

Elias was still talking. “The police took a sample of the blood from her desk, but as I understand it, it may be a while before they are able to conclusively identify it. As you were out of town, there were no witnesses to…whatever might have happened. And as you know, there is no CCTV footage in the Archives. Some on the ground level, but I think you are well aware of the fact that Gertrude rarely used the main parts of the Institute to access the Archives.”

Tim nodded, still in a bit of a daze. “I thought…maybe she’d just gone off somewhere again. Somewhere she didn’t want to send me. But she didn’t leave a note or anything…”

“Tim,” Elias said, in a sympathetic and understanding tone of voice that instantly put Tim on edge, “the police estimate there was almost a gallon of blood on the desk. Far more than the human body can lose and still live.”

“Then she couldn’t have got out of her office under her own power,” Tim pointed out. He was keeping his voice shaking by an extreme effort of will. “If it was actually hers. You’d have found the body. And there would have—was the place a mess? Or just…just the blood?”

Elias hesitated. “It was only the blood, but…I must say, the place seemed…off. Now, you know Gertrude’s filing system better than I do, of course, so you would be far better prepared to tell if someone…perhaps attempted to put things back together and failed. I can only go with what I saw, which was that nothing appeared to be out of place. I—”

The phone on his desk buzzed, and he pressed the button. “Yes, Rosie, what is it?”

“Police for you on line one, Mr. Bouchard.” Rosie’s voice crackled over the line.

“Ah, yes, put them through.” Elias held up a finger to Tim and picked up the receiver.

Tim tuned out Elias’s conversation and used the opportunity to try and get his thoughts in order. First order of business, calming down. Second order of business, figuring out what the fuck was going on.

He might need Gerry’s help on the finer details, he thought, but once he pushed down the immediate reaction of no no no no no, he could see at least the shape of it. There were two possibilities here. Either Gertrude had surprised an intruder—probably someone from the People’s Church of the Divine Host who’d got wind of her attempts to stop the Extinguished Sun—killed them, and taken the body with her to do whatever it was she’d done to stop the world from ending, or she had, for reasons of her own, faked her death by pouring enormous quantities of blood on her desk and absconding. Probably she had used pig’s blood—that seemed to be what got used in all the mystery stories. On the other hand, that was fairly well known as a substitute, so maybe she had used something else.

“Thank you. Yes, I understand.” Elias hung up the phone and looked at Tim seriously. “They have received the results of their testing back, Tim. They were able to match it to a sample of Gertrude Robinson’s blood. Why they have it, I do not know, but they did confirm that the blood on the desk was hers. I’m sorry.”

Tim added a third possibility to his list, which was that Gertrude had surprised an intruder and killed them, or at least fought them off successfully, but had herself been injured in the process. It wasn’t like they’d tested all the blood. Surely it couldn’t all be hers.

He kept that thought to himself, though. If Gertrude had been avoiding the Institute for two weeks, it had to be for a good reason. Either she was lying low until whatever was left of the Dark’s cult got bored and left her alone—unlikely, since any attacks on the Institute would leave him vulnerable and she seemed keen to avoid that—or she had plans that she particularly did not want Elias to be aware of. That was the better thought. He’d have to wait and hope she got in touch with him somehow. Maybe he’d start reading the personal ads in the Times again. If it was good enough for Arthur Conan Doyle, it was good enough for Gertrude Robinson.

“So now what?” he asked. “What do we do now? Are the Archives still an active crime scene?”

“No. The police released them last week, so you are in no danger of getting in trouble for interfering with a crime scene.” Elias looked into his desk drawer again, gave a small ah, and pulled out a stack of folders in one hand and a ring of keys in the other. He laid both on the desk in front of him and looked back up at Tim. “Obviously without a body, there will need to be a wait to have her declared dead, but really, it’s a formality at this point. Meanwhile, we will need an Archivist.”

Tim raised an eyebrow, but didn’t speak. If Elias thought he was going to jump up and say me, me, me, he had another think coming. He’d happily do the work, but he didn’t want the title. Partly because there were things out there that would definitely be after the Archivist, but…

“I will, of course, be opening the position to internal candidates first, as I don’t believe that a head of department should come from outside the Institute,” Elias continued. “It may take some time to evaluate candidates, so the Archives will run without an official Archivist until that time, which I’m sure will be no trouble at all.” He hesitated, then added, “As for you…well, you have a choice.”

“A choice,” Tim repeated.

“You can choose to continue working as an Archival Assistant, in which case you will receive a small raise due to your seniority. There will likely be two other assistants coming in as well, and while you will nominally have the same title and responsibilities, of course, you will have more experience with the Archives themselves than they will, and an increase in pay seems only fitting.” Elias folded his hands on his desk and gazed levelly at Tim. “Or you can choose to be released from your contract with the Institute, in which case you will receive a generous severance package consisting of a year’s salary—at your present rate, of course—and a reference for your next job. I would even be willing to contact Louisa Wexler directly and see if your position at…” He rustled through the paperwork on his desk, which looked like a few different CVs, and pulled out one that looked familiar. “Ah, yes—at Velvet and Crow Publishing—is still available.”

For a moment, Tim considered calling Elias’s bluff. He knew damned well that walking away wasn’t an option. Gertrude had made that clear from the start. He could practically hear her voice echo in his ears: An appointment to the Archives is an appointment for life. It was anybody’s guess what Elias would do if Tim said he wanted to leave. Kill him, most likely. His contract was practically signed in blood, and he was part of the Institute, for better or for worse.

As if reading his thoughts, Elias added, “Your bond was to the Archivist, Tim. Not the Institute as a whole, or even to the Archives specifically. Without her to keep you here, you can walk away with no harm done, if that is your decision.”

Tim stared into Elias’s calm grey eyes and, somehow, knew he was telling the truth. If Gertrude Robinson was dead, Tim could leave the Institute behind forever, or he could bind himself to the service of the Archivist who came next, likely someone much younger and more likely to last years, even decades. He would once again be bound to the Institute for the rest of his natural life.

When he put it that way, it was really no choice at all.

As calmly as he could, he said, “While I’m in here, I need to update my address in my personnel file. I’ve just moved in with my partner and I’d hate for the new Archivist to try to reach me at the incorrect address.”

Elias sat back and smiled. He looked pleased, and satisfied…and something else, something Tim couldn’t quite identify. “I take it that means you’ve chosen to stay.”

“Well. Like you said, I know Gertrude’s filing system. If nothing else, I’ll need to get things straight for the…new Archivist.”

He wouldn’t call them that. He knew himself well enough to know that. Gertrude Robinson was still alive out there somewhere; she’d be back eventually, maybe even before Elias finished getting his ducks in a row and put out the internal job posting, let alone actually selected a candidate. Even if someone did come into the Archives, they would just be a placeholder, a temporary stopgap until Gertrude returned to take her rightful place, and then they’d be demoted to Assistant. She’d probably have kittens over coming back to find out her staff had quadrupled, unless the appointments weren’t binding because the Archivist hadn’t made them, but that seemed like something to worry about in the future.

In the meantime, he accepted the keys from Elias and headed back down to the Archives to figure out where to start.

#ollie writes fanfic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #and if thou wilt forget #tim stoker #gerard keay #elias bouchard #paranoia #unease #blood mention #manipulation #denial

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