Nothing But Time (40 page)

“
Not that drunk
,” she denied.  “
David used that time machine to send him
and me
back in time, to your time, just as I said.  Last night, I had him bring you here, to the future, back to my time to save your life.  I knew that the medical assistance you needed couldn’t be found in your time, so I brought you to mine.  I brought you to doctors who could give you the help you needed.”

“That’s preposterous.”

Kate
let out a
sigh
,
squeezing his hand between hers. 
“
I know you didn’t believe me, but it was all true.  This is where I am from, well this time, anywa
y.  I am from the United States
.  Everything I told you about my family is true.  Everything I told you about my life, my education and my job were a
ll true.  Except that it is 2012
, not 1876.”

“It’s not possible.”

“I know you don’t want to believe it, Brand.  I didn’t either when I was sent back,” Kate went on.  “But look around.  See the truth with your own eyes.  I didn’t want it all to go this way, but denial can only take you so far.”

Harrowby looked around the white room, taking in the unfamiliar material of the walls and floors.  The railings of the bed wer
e neither wood nor metal.  H
uge sheets of glass covered the floor to ceiling windows. 
It was all very different than any hospital he had ever visited but
not
catastrophically so. 
Then
o
utside
through those massive
windows
, he saw something that he could not deny.  Towering buildings in the distance that seemed to be made
of
glass and mirror.
  Dozens of them.

It was a nightmarish scene with
monstrous edifices dark against the gray sky, shadowing the smaller buildings below. 
A haze hung over the sky that had nothing to do with coal or fog.  It was alien yet here and there amongst the wreckage, Harrowby recognized a building or two.  A shiver of dread crept through him settling nauseatingly in the pit of his stomach. 
“What city is that?”

“That’s London, Brand.
”

Tearing his gaze away from the sight, Harrowby noticed the
tube protruding from his arm and followed
its length
up to a bag of clear liquid that dangled from a metal stand.

“Take
me home,” he commanded hoarsely, pulling at the tubes as alarm descended.

“Don’t do that!” Kate cried jumping up to grab his hands but Brand flung her away.  “Okay, I won’t touch you but please leave those alon
e
.  You’ll only hurt yourself otherwise.”

“Take me home!” he demanded once more, though he let the matter of the strange tubes lie.

“I can’t, Brand,” was her soft reply.  “
And
David
doesn’t believe he should.  He doesn’t believe it would be ethical.”

“You took away my life and you want to argue ethics?” he said a
ngrily.  A feeling
akin to panic was e
ngulfing him and, strangely, the racing of his heartbeat was b
eing matched by a steady beep
from nearby.  Turning his head
the other way
, Brand incredulously watched a little green line
zigzag
its way across a small b
lack area while numbers changed
, magically increasing in quantity while a tiny flashing heart kept pace with the audible pinging sound.

“You need to calm down,” Kate insisted
,
coming to her feet, ignoring the fact that Brand
turned his head away from her
.  “You were going to die
, Brand.  Can you understand that?  I did
what I had to do to save your life
and I’d do it again if I had to.  Whether you should go back or not,
I’m not sure
. 
A
ccording to
David
, if you were supposed to die and you went back again, we would be changing history.  Changing the future of too many people.  I hate to agree with that, but I can see his point. 
Look
at it this way, Brand, you have a new life to lead!  A chance to have the life you’ve always wanted, have the career you’ve always wanted to have!  You can have that all here… with me, if you like.”

“Go away,” he muttered, raising his hands to cover his face
, noticing something clipped over the top of his finger before he plucked it off and tossed it aside
.

“Brand, I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling Brand
’s emotional
withdraw
al
from her.  “I couldn’t just let you die when you could be saved.  I love you.”

“Go away!” he yelled then and Kate stumbled
back a couple paces as a
woman dressed in an absurd pink outfit
bustled into the room.
  Like Kate she was wearing trousers and for a moment, he was taken aback.

The woman took advantage of his stunned silence to demand,
“What’s going on here?”
She came around the bed and examined the machinery that
was
connected to Brand.  “You need to calm do
wn, sir,” she told him.  “Your
heartbeat is way too high.”

“Calm down,
sir
?” he repeated incredulously
,
shooting Kate a furious stare.
  Being addressed in such a fashion was almost as distressing as Kate’s outrageous claims.

“Mr. Ryder!” the
woman
demanded
in a fierce tone
and unfamiliar accent
, drawing his attention.  “Lie still and calm down now before you undo everything we’ve fixed.”

Harrowby
stared at the woman wildly, taking in her short
stature
,
black hair, dark skin and
hideously pink, sack
-like
attire. 
A red dot graced her forehead and there was a metal ring piercing her nose. 
“Who are you?”

“I’m Ashna.  I’ll be your day nurse while you’re here.”

Nurse? 
She looked
rather like an Indian woman
Harrowby
had
once
seen
years ago
in France
when he’d done some banking
there. 
Th
at
woman,
swathed in layers of fabric,
had stood meekly by as her husband spoke for them both. 
However,
this woman reeked of competence and impatience.  Her black eyes latched on to his with enough intelligence there to capture his interest
.  There were answers there and Brand needed those more than anything.  “Is she right?  Did bringing me to…
this place
save my life?  Would I have died if I had not come here?”

“Quicker than lager turns to piss,” she responded bluntly using a turn of phrase that Brand did not recognize, but its meaning was clear.  Kate had spoken true, but…

“If I had gone
to a hospital
with this condition
over a hundred years ago, could my life have been saved in
a
similar fashion?” he asked
knowing that the question would seem irrational
.

“Well, there’s a question I’ve never
heard
before,” she
said
as she adjusted the knobs on the strange apparatus next to the bed.

“An answer, if you please,” Brand commanded gruffly.

“I doubt it, Mr. Ryder,” she said with a shake of her head.  “You’re lucky to be al
ive as it is.  Your appendix
burst, you understand?  Without that whole team working for you, you would have been done for. 
They didn’t even have time to do the surgery laparoscopically but had to go straight in, old school.  Truthfully,
I wouldn’t give you reasonable odds of survival in a similar situation
even
fifty years ago mu
ch less a hundred.  And, if I understand
this all correctly, yes, your girlfriend saved your life by bringing you here.  You’re a lucky man.”

“Are you English?” he asked, still trying to comprehend her unusual appearance.

She cocked her head curiously.  “After a fashion, I suppose.  I’ve lived here lo
ng enough to consider myself so
.
”

“You’re from India, yes?”

“Until I moved here about twenty years ago, yes.”  The woman gave him a placid smile as she replaced the white clip on his forefinger.

“Thank you, Ashna.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Mr. Ryder.  We’ve got a lot of work to do, you and I.”
 
With a final pat to his hand, the nurse left the room leaving Brand staring at Kate, who was staring back intently. 

What had she done to him?
“
Mr
. Ryder,” he repeated in a low, dark voice.

Silence stretched betw
een them until Kate was nearly at
the breaking point.  “Brand, I…”

“Just leave me, Kate.” 

Kate watched helplessly as Brand turned his face away from her to stare out the window, dismissing her completely.  She wanted to go to him, beg him to forgive her, explain to him why she had done what she did
. 
Make him understand.

He wouldn’t have it, she knew.  Not now.

With a sigh, Kate rose and picked up her purse.  “I’ll be back
later
, Brand.”

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

London, England

January 2012

“
This is ridiculous,” Brand grumbled
to Ashna as she pushed him down the hall in
a
wheelchair
.  “For the past two days yo
u’ve prodded me to walk about my
room, to walk down the hall
when, as a sick man, I should have been abed
and yet
,
upon my dismissal from your institution, you insist upon pushing me out in this contraption
when you know very well that I can walk
.”

“It’s a strange world we live in, Mr. Ryder,” she said with a laugh.  “Some things are simply beyond explanation.”

Brand couldn’t help but agree when the nurse pushed a button on the wall and, shortly after, a pair of doors opened before them.  He gripped the arms of the chair as she pushed him inside, but when she did nothing more than press another button, Brand relaxed.  He had heard of
lift
s, of course, and knew that some newer buildings had ones
available for use
by the public.  A couple of the department stores in London
had them
but
, as
the Earl of Harrowby did not frequent such place
s,
Brand had never
had the opportunity to use
one before.   It was odd to be so quickly transported from one place to another. 

Not unlike Dr. Fergusson’s machine.

T
he doors opened once more
,
revealing an open space b
ustl
ing with people.

“Have you ever heard the expression that the world is full of surprises?”

“Hasn’t every
one?” Ashna returned as she pushed him into the crowd and toward large glass doors that were opening and closing of their own volition to allow people to enter and depart the hospital.

The past two days had brought him revelation after revelation
, most of it beyond his understanding
. 
Everything from the bathroom facilities to the monitors and machinery Ashna had carted into his room periodically to test his ‘vitals’
astounded and confused him
.  Brand – he knew he had to start thinking of himself without his title – had spent hours staring out of the large window in his room studying what had become of London. 
He had walked around the
hospital, absorbing the hidden lighting, its technology (a word he had only just learned).  He had walked through the hospital’s vast atrium with its endless glass and steel.

He had read countless magazines and watched hours of that
incomprehensible
television yet he knew nothing about how any of it was possible.  How had the world achieved such miraculous advancements?  Who had invented them?  How did they work?  There were so many questions in his mind that Brand had come to almost welcome the darkness the painkillers forced upon him, as if they could take
him
away from this place.

Yet
, surely, the worst was still to come.  

H
is mind was
already
bursting with new information and he hadn’t even left th
is one
building yet.
A whole new world waited to confront him.
“What would you think is outside of those doors that would
astonish
a person
the most?”  Brand asked the question as lightly as he could
,
trying to get some sense of what awaited him. 

“In London?” Ashna laughed
,
not understanding the seriousness of his question.  “The noise.”

She was right, of course.  The moment they exited the hospital, it seemed as if sound rushed toward them from every direction.  The shouts of people, the hum of machinery.  Screeches, squeals and blasts that Brand could not derive the source of. 
It was even more startling than the temperature.  It had surprised him to learn it was January, the middle of the winter.  The wind ate through the summer apparel of his time period, though thankfully he had
the jacket Kate had thought to bring along
to keep away the worst of the chill.

Ashna pushed him out under the covered drive of the hospital and Brand saw that
Kate was there waiting for him
.  H
is heart leaped
in gladness
before he managed to quash it
.

He hadn’t seen her since
the previous day when she’d come to visit.  Unlike that first day when her shoulder had been bared, Kate had been
more
modestly dressed in a sweater and long wool jacket
.  She wore trousers
again
–
denims,
Ashna had called them when asked
.
  He hadn’t been sure what to think of that but, w
ith her hair hanging loosely about her shoulders, she had looked so incredibly lovely and familiar that he’d wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms.

But she’d looked different as well.  Alien, emphasizing the changes that had taken place in his life.  The few words he’d allowed himself had been brisk and lordly as he embraced his
anger over what he had considered a rash decision on her part.   He regretted now the
aloofness of his manner
. 

“There’s your girlfriend waiting for you,” Ashna told him unnecessarily as she pushed him along.  “I don’t know what you’re so mad at her about but I think you should give her a break.  Look how worried she looks.”

She did, Brand realized.  Her eyes were wide with trepidation as she awaited him.  Her hands
were
stuffed deeply into the pockets of her coat and she was chewing her lip nervously.  He hadn’t meant to cause her such anxiety
.  Granted, he was still angry
,
however that
antagonism
was mixed with a healthy dose of
apprehension for what was to come
.  Though he hated to admit it, much of that
ire was now directed, not at Kate, but
at himself
.  A
nger at the horror he felt for what awaited him.  Fear of the unknown.  It was destroying his pride and manhood. 

He, the Earl of Harrowby, who had never feared anything in his whole life, brought down by a terror of what was waiting for him beyond the hospital walls.

H
e had turned it all on Kate, much to his regret.

He tried to offer her a smile of
apology and
reassurance but Kate turned away before she’d seen it
as she
open
ed
the door of the vehicle behind her.  Brand stared at
it
with a deep swallow. 
A car, he’d learned it was called. 
It
looked
innocuous
enough.  A squat conveyance painted in a bright,
cheerful
blue
not terribly unlike
those
he had seen in one of the
publication
s the nurses had given him to occupy his time
. 
It raised many questions to see one of the
car
s in person but they were not questions he was prepared to ask with Kate watching him so.
 

Brand could
also
see
that
the interior was finely done and, as Ashna helped him inside, could feel the softness of the upholstery beneath his hands.
  She handed him a woven strap that Brand only stared at blankly before the nurse took it
and reached across him to connect it on the other side of the seat.
 

“You’d think you had been hit in the head with the way you act sometimes,” Ashna said with a chuckle as she
pushed the wheelchair aside.  “Goodbye, Mr. Ryder.  It’s been a joy having you.  You’re a very interesting man.”

“Thank you, Ashna,” he replied politely.  “I’ve enjoyed your company as well.”

The nurse shut the door
giving
him a wave that Brand returned as Kate climbed in the opposite door and settle
d
into
her
seat
.  P
ulling the same strapping acr
oss her own shoulder,
she locked it into place with an audible click
.  “Making friends already, I see,” she muttered.

Whatever Brand might have said in response to her bitter words was lost when the car suddenly roared to life an
d surged forward. 
He
braced
himself
with
one
hand on the front console and
the other against
the
side of the car to maintain his position in his seat
,
suddenly ascertaining the purpose of the strap across his shoulder.  Surely, if one were to move at such speeds, strapping
oneself
to the seat was an excellent idea.

Brand hung on tightly as Kate moved her vehicle through
the
others on the road like a fine jockey making his way to the front of the pack.  The ride was terrifying yet
invigorating.  Far more agreeable than what he saw through the windows of the vehicle as they sped along
. 

The world of 2012 was a chaotic mess compared to what he had once known.  The sheer noise of it all seemed to trouble him more than anything.  As they moved through town, his head had been jerked left then right again as one sound after the next caught his attention, often startling him.  The speed at which her world moved was also something Brand had trouble accepting and it wasn’t simply her
car
that went too fast.  Everything here moved quickly, something Kate apparently didn’t realize.

Kate
glanced
up at Brand’s closed, dark countenance.
  He was still angry.  After days of reflection
, Kate
felt she
could understand
it;
that loss of the life he
had known, th
is
transference into a place where he had no
control, no connection.  That anger might fade in time if not for the f
act it had been
magnified
by
David
’s
continued
refusal to return Brand to his own time.

The two men had faced down one another over the issue the day before.  Their argument had shaken the walls of the hospital as Brand yelled at
David
furiously demanding his help.  Kate had never seen Brand so angry, never hea
rd him raise his voice so.  H
e hadn’t been able to win the fight.  Both men had known that
David
held all the cards in that particular argument
. 
Brand
simply
could not
complete the task on his own and
David
stubbornly withheld his assistance.

Brand had demanded Kate reason with
David
, force
the man
to send
him
back but Kate could not
though
,
in truth, she had tried.  She’d never imagined – well, never had the
time during her quick decision-
making – to think about how it would affect Brand in the end.  He was already miserable here and she didn’t want that.  If he wanted to go back, if it would make him
happy again, then that’s what she wanted as well. 
However,
David had refused, again reciting all the reasons he would not
.
Lectures about destiny and upsetting the balance of the universe.

As a result, Brand hadn’t spoken to her
since then
and would probably prefer not to be in her company at all but he needed Kate to survive in this time.  Kate knew that truth
only
strengthen
ed his anger. 

Brandon Ryder
,
who had been in charge of so many lives, who had ruled and provided
a living to hundreds of people,
could not even arrange his own departure from the hospital without her help.

Kate could only imagine how that help
lessness ate at Brand, once an E
arl and now
mer
ely sir.  She wanted to help him along, show him the way to live in 2012 so that they might move forward together.  However
,
that was never going to happen if he continued to
ignore her
. 
What was going to happen now, she wondered
,
feeling sorrow tear at her heart
.  Had she saved Brand’
s life only to lose him
?