Mill "into the wild" Bagnold (faircop) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2008-08-19 11:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1979-08] august, alastor gumboil, millicent bagnold (née macfusty) |
Who: Millicent Bagnold and Alastor Gumboil
When: 18 August, 1979; early evening
Where: St Mungo's
What: Mill visits Al; she needs to apologise, and ask a favour
Rating: PG
Status: Complete; logged
Millicent Bagnold had seen far too much of the inside of St Mungos in the past year.
Being a hitwizard had never been the safest of occupations. She'd known that when she joined up, having watched for two years from behind a secretary's desk as the wizards and witches of the squad got their share of bruises and singes and near escapes. Injuries sustained weren't often as pernicious as those that the Aurors could expect, but ordinary criminals could frequently be far more violent (and far more unexpected) than dark wizards.
It had never been the safest of occupations, but she'd never had to watch so many of her boys cut down one after another. Maybe she'd been like all those bright and hopeful new recruits. Maybe she'd thought they were some sort of invincible - oh, they'd get battered, they'd bleed, but they'd never truly fall. Maybe she'd been unforgivably naive.
Maybe, if she'd worked harder, if she'd pushed harder, if she'd insisted on something, if she'd done something differently... maybe Alastor Gumboil wouldn't be lying here, with his future torn to even more shreds than his body.
"Hello, Gumboil," she said from the doorway. She wasn't even sure if he was awake, and pitched her voice low.
There were a lot of places Alastor could lay blame for the way his life had so suddenly and drastically shifted. He could blame Aaron and Tabitha Pryce for attacking him. He could blame Amycus Carrow for letting himself be knocked out when he had so desperately needed back up. He could blame Grady Bell for publishing his name about the werewolf attacks in London last month. He could blame Pepper for handing him the case even earlier. None of those fell with Millicent Bagnold. She was The Boss (or at least she used to be) and she was just doing her job. Al wouldn't place guilt with her. It wasn't her fault. And if he was honest, he thought it was his. Under any circumstances, he was the one to make the final call, to decide that he wanted to take the case, the patrol and he was the one that hadn't fought hard enough.
And lying in bed, somewhere in the limbo between consciousness and not, he bloody well looked as if he'd tried to carry the weight of the world and lost. Horribly. A pale man to begin with, Al was just a few shades darker than the sheets he was lying on. Bandages wrapped around his torso, right shoulder and both forearms and on his right side, just barely, the pure white of the gauze was starting to turn a dark red.
At the sound of her voice, his eyes opened slowly, blearily. It seemed to take a moment for him to find her and focus before he gave the slightest nod. "Evening, Bagnold." His voice was rather weak, all previous humour gone out of it. He just sounded tired.
There had been a lot of anger in Mill today - sometimes, these days, she found herself wondering if she was only getting by on anger and coffee and scotch - but it seemed to have drained away in that moment she'd stepped into the doorway, seen what had been done to one of her boys. They weren't quite her children (Kiernan would say - had said - that they meant more to her) but she felt a responsibility nonetheless, and a grief.
After he spoke, she was silent for a moment - couldn't actually speak, perhaps - and there were only the slight sounds of the hospital, voices down the hall. Then she came in properly, moving close to his bed, near the foot so Al wouldn't have to turn his head at all to see her. She looked tired - perpetually - and sad, but her eyes were free of tears and her voice didn't so much as tremble as she said, "I'm so very, very sorry, Alastor." That was the most important thing she'd come to say.
Al let his eyes close for a moment, pushing away a wave of pain that tore down his side. Those came often and strong when his pain potions were wearing off. But he wasn't about to complain, least of all in front of his boss. Or had been his boss, anyway. Authoritative figure. Ministry official. No matter, he was still stubborn enough to try and keep some of his weakness away from the surface. It was a rather futile effort, but Al had always been the sort of man to fight to the very end.
When he opened them again, she was at the foot of his bed and he slowly, almost reluctantly met her eyes. She was strong, even as tired as she looked. Stronger than him, anyway. At her words, he blinked slowly, unsure of how to take an apology coming from Millicent Bagnold. After a long pause, he shook his head with a soft sigh. "It isn't your fault."
"Maybe not." That was about as far as Millicent was willing to let go of her attack of the guilts (for now, at least; by tomorrow, she'd have shoved it aside entirely, knuckled down to the job at hand, and would never think about it again, except in the darkest, drunkest hours of the night). She smiled faintly. "I'm still sorry, though. That this could have happened to you..." She trailed off, shook her head, tried the smile again, though it was very small and crooked. "And I can ill afford to lose one of my best boys right now."
Again, a brief silence while he attempted to wrap his brain around everything she was saying. It wasn't overly complicated, it just felt different since it wasn't his job any more. He also didn't quite understand her smile, at least beyond the the natural purpose to try to break the tension. But he certainly hadn't smiled much over the last couple days. And he didn't now. "I'm sorry to be taken away from you. It's... my fault. Who the hell else is there to blame?" He shook his head.
"No," Millicent said sharply, stepping forward but stopping just shy of laying a hand even on the bed. She'd been, if not precisely here, then in similar straits, and she knew how much even the shifting of the sheets could hurt. "No, blame them." And there it came again, the anger that had been bubbling all day, boiling up again. "It's their fault, and I swear, Al, I'm going to make them pay for it." She'd even forgo the pleasure of killing them for the far more vicious - for a werewolf - notion of confining them forever.
Al opened his mouth to argue, to insist that he should have found a way to get out of this somehow. To save himself. To have fought harder and done better, no matter what the circumstances. But the idea of having to fight with Mill about this of all things only made him more tired. So he closed his mouth and only stared at the blanket, frowning a bit. It was probably a sign of how bad things were, that Alastor Gumboil wasn't mouthing off to his boss. "You'll do what you think is right, of course," he said finally, without meeting her eyes.
"Damn right I will," Mill responded, like the crack of a whip, but the certainty leached out of her quickly enough. Maybe if she'd insisted on what she thought - knew - was right before this, Fenrir Greyback and his pair of favoured lapdogs would have been in no fit state to do this. NOT helpful, Bagnold. She could only go forward.
"I hope I'll do what is right," she continued, more moderately. "And I need your help." Perhaps it was the phrasing, or the circumstances in which she'd asked that before, but something in her subconscious pricked up at that, and began working; Millicent ignored it as she went on. "I'm afraid I'll need a report of the attack. Although I technically have no authority to order it any longer, you were still a hitwizard at the time, and Carrow's report is... incomplete."
"Don't be ridiculous, of course I'll get you a report," Al answered tiredly, bringing up an arm to first run a hand through his hair and then rub his eyes. "Carrow..." he sighed and shook his head. "You'd better hook him up with someone good. He isn't ready. Not even close." Al frowned at the floor for a moment, recalling the attack all over again. He paled further for a second and his brow knitted together. A shudder ran through him and it hurt, but he tried not to acknowledge it.
"I don't know that I have anyone as good as you," Mill said, the touch of lightness in her tone belying the sincerity of the sentiment. When it came down to good - not efficient, not capable, not skilled or experienced, but good - Gumboil had always been nigh on one of a kind in the hitwizard squad. Which had occasionally been a pain in Millicent's neck, but she'd never wished him gone. Well, not seriously.
"I'm going to miss you, Alastor," she said, the lightness gone now. "We're all going to." She took a step closer to him, and smiled sadly down at him. "Promise you won't be a stranger."
Al snorted bitter laughter. "I'm all right with a wand, Mill, but I'm far from irreplaceable. Just don't let any trainees in my desk." He was joking... sort of. It was a half-hearted attempt to mask the hurt of losing his job, what he was good at. For a moment, anger flared in his chest - his job that had put him in this hospital in the first place - but it died quickly. Now was not the time.
"I don't think Werewolf Services will be letting me be any sort of stranger to the Ministry," he went on after a moment, frowning slightly. "I can make that promise, at least." He nodded, as if confirming something to himself before looking up at her again and catching her eyes. "You're good at what you do, Mill. You'll be fine. The Squad will be fine."
"Thank you, Al," was all the said. Not I wasn't quite good enough or fine like you? She's made her apologies. She's had her moment of recrimination. Wallowing in it would do no one any good.
Taking revenge for it was a different matter altogether, of course.
"I'll let you get back to the important business of recovering." Settling her bag more firmly on her shoulder, Mill gave Alastor a farewell smile. "Hope to see you up and about soon."
Al nodded (a bit stiffly) and said, simply enough, " 'Bye, Mill." What else was there to say? It was gone, over. What connection did they really have any more? It had always been the job before, but the job wasn't his. So he knitted his eyebrows together for a moment and then sunk lower in his bed. Healing and recovering sounded like a good idea, and as much as he didn't enjoy sleeping all the time, he reminded himself off all the hours he'd spent behind that desk, working on reports...midnight patrols. All missed hours of sleep. Al wasn't sure it physically possible for the body to catch up, if it worked like that... but he decided he didn't mind trying.