When his fingers began to shake and his vision began to fade, he turned away from his work, for the first time in possibly a month. He pushed the machine away with the reverent care a parent showed their newborn child, and wiped his hands with the careless thoroughness of an old mechanic. He pushed his hair out of his face and glanced at the clock. It was far too late for him to go anywhere. Even the bar would probably turn him away if he stumbled to them this late at night.

He let out his breath in one long exhale from pursed lips. With this, he supposed he had nothing better to do than sleep. He rose slowly and in jerks; with every motion, three joints popped enough to fool anyone less wise into thinking he may be seriously unhealthy. When he reached for the ceiling to relieve his aching back, one might have thought him broken.

Yes, he had worked far too late again. The building was black as pitch when he stepped out of his room, and silent as a graveyard. He sighed loudly, just to give himself a chill, and then confidently strode into the darkness. He gave no attention at all to the creaking wood planks or groaning oak steps beneath his feet. There were a great many things to fear in this building, he knew, but not one of them would dare tangle with him. He took his coat off the rack, the last one to be removed, and slipped it on as he forced the constantly sticking door to open. Even the building feared him, he liked to think, for even the door never gave him as much trouble as anyone else.

The night was dark and uneventful. A few carriages and late trains slipped less than silently across the slick streets, which shone despite having very little light with which to do so. It was the Dark Month, so not a single street lamp or child’s nightlight was left on. A few beggars fumbled in the darkness, their voices low as they exchanged secrets in the safety of night. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the air was thick and sticky with the smell of the oncoming storm. He frowned. This storm would not be pretty. The air practically buzzed with energy.

He had not stopped walking as he took in his surroundings, but now he slowed almost to a halt, thoughts rolling around in his overworked mind. Were they due for another disturbance so soon? His frown deepened with thought and he reached into his pocket. Instead of his watch, however, his fingers curled around a worn piece of paper, and the familiar rustle, his constant companion in these past months, made him stop completely.

His hand shook slightly as he withdrew the paper and unfolded it with the same reverence he had shown to his machines. Even in this darkness, he didn’t need to see. He had memorized it. These three months, after all, had given him plenty of time.

Three months. Three bloody months. Three boring, nail-biting, nerve-wracking months, when he dared to think about all the implications.

It had been three months since his train had been late. It had been three months since he’d found himself drawn to comfort a homeless woman who cried while shedding no tears at all. It had been three months since he had found himself in possession of what she had admitted was her dearest possession: a note that was written, despite his having no memory of it, in his hand.

In those three months, he had not once been tempted to return the note to her, despite knowing that she was likely worried about its whereabouts. Instead, he had taken to reading it whenever he had nothing else to, wondering what had transpired so that a man with a hand identical to his own could have penned such words to a woman that, until a dismal night exactly three months prior, he had never seen before.

He could recite the note from memory, and sometimes when he slept he dreamed that his hands were carving the words into paper, following paths and curves and dips as familiar as the words they penned so easily.

Dearest. He addressed the note ‘Dearest’. Never mind the words in the rest of the note; they could have been to anyone. What was important was he addressed it Dearest and signed it Yours.

Without even thinking about it, he turned on his heel and started in another direction.

The streets grew less familiar as he went further into poorer districts, but his pace never slowed, nor did he ever doubt his direction. He didn’t even slow when his destination came into view, only stopped abruptly when he found himself in front of its less-than-inviting doors. Oh, it was a homely house, with drooping windows that let anyone in the streets see into the front room. It looked small and poor even for this district, but he didn’t really care too much about the financial level she lived in.

He was careful not to pound on the door, for it looked far more fragile than the heavy wood and metal he was used to manhandling. Still, his presence was loud and startling, and several shrieks rang out from inside the building. A babe inside began to cry, his voice quickly stifled by his mother.

It was another four minutes before the door opened for him. The woman was friendly-looking and pretty, even ravaged as she was by slumber. She looked at him with passing recognition, rubbing sand from her eyes.

“To what do we owe your call, sir?” She slurred her words slightly and leaned heavily on the door she barely held open. “And may I remind you that it is three past the darkest hour and not only should all respectable men be out of the streets, but there are some in this house who have to rouse ourselves again in a mere three more hours?”

“My apologies for the lateness of the hour, though I cannot control such things,” he began. His fingers twitched, as if to caress the note that he had wisely left in his pocket. “I have business with one of your tenants.”

He saw the wariness immediately enter her eyes, and she grew guarded, looking him up and down. Her grip on the door tightened.

“Which one?”

“Pardon?”

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “I have many tenants. Which one do you ‘have business’ with?”

He thought. Her name was not mentioned in the note and she had never given it to him. Not yet, she had said, in her strange, crying voice. Perhaps not ever.

Even remembering this, he said with no amount of confidence, “Jaimes.”

Her mouth twitched into a frown. Her drowsiness was all but gone now, and so he was sure it was with a clear mind that she considered his request.

The air grew heavier and wetter and the thunder grew louder, and he became more certain of the woman’s name.

“Come in,” she finally said. She barely stepped back at all, letting him awkwardly squeeze his large frame into a door designed for women stooped low with the weight of children and lives best left unremembered.

The room he was in was just as dark as the streets he’d left, but somehow it didn’t feel it. The table was clean but the counters were cluttered with the foodstuffs craved by an assortment of individuals. The chandelier floating from the ceiling rotated slowly in the presence of people, though it dared not light itself. The sleeping murmurs of an animal, probably a dog, rumbled from a far corner. The air was warm and smelled vaguely of bread and very vaguely of mold and even fainter than that was the salty smell of tears shed in darkness. It felt more like a home than his own home, he thought treacherously.

The woman had left him, perhaps to fetch the one he sought. He fidgeted awkwardly alone in the dark. The chairs looked small and not suited to his frame, and how foolish would he look, he thought, sitting at such a cozy-looking table. He poked instead at the buttons of his coat and again resisted the urge to reach into his pocket.

There was a single creak and then he was not alone.

“Oh…”

She still sounded as if she was crying, with a voice on the verge of breaking. The darkness embraced her like an old friend, but even the black could not hide her swollen belly, bright eyes, and hesitant, disbelieving smile. She walked forward slowly, but without fear. How strange was it, he wondered, that she approached him without fear.

“You…how did you find me?”

He shrugged, a rumbling movement in the darkness.

“Sit down?”

He had been right…he did look foolish sitting at the table, and he knew despite her valiant efforts to keep the laughter from her face. She sat with her hands folded on the table, palms down, chin up, like a scientist. She breathed slowly and with the slightest bit of wheezing. For the first time that night, he thought to push his goggles off of his face, making her somewhat hazier. The room grew the tiniest bit warmer, and he thought she smiled.

“I have come to return this,” he stated clearly, interrupting whatever she had been about to say. He slid the note across the table to her, and pretended not to notice how quickly her hand darted out to grab it, or how desperately she held it to her person. “A cherished possession, if I recall correctly.”

“You do,” she whispered. “Did you…read it?” She sounded…hopeful. Heart-breakingly so.

He frowned. “No.”

The silence suddenly became cold. It was broken by a sudden clap of thunder, far closer than one would think. She jumped in her seat, her gaze darting between him and the window.

“The storm is coming,” she murmured, far more apprehensive than logic dictated. She murmured a Latin prayer under her breath, her fingers forming a familiar sign before falling to stroke her belly. “Jaimes is not my name, you know.”

“Is it not? You came to that name.” To be quite honest, he had no idea where the name had come from. It was the first to come to mind, perhaps remembered from a paper or something.

“Well, it is my middle name, but…it was more the description of a long-haired man with goggles that drew me. There are not many men like you in this city, nor in this world.” She sounded amused, but the break in her voice grew more obvious. “If you care to know it—”

“I do not.”

Her smile twisted and shrank and, for some reason, he felt guilty.

“…after the storm, I will tell you my name.” She paused. “Is this note the only reason you came to me tonight?”

“Yes.” He saw no reason to lie. Her note was a conundrum, but it was nothing that consumed him. Her face was pretty, but not enough to enchant him. She was interesting, he supposed, if one cared too deeply about the obvious troubles of others, which he did not. He came to return a possession, perhaps gain some answers, but only one of those goals was even remotely gripping to him.

“I see.” This time she frowned. His answer was not the one she hoped for. “Well…good night, then, sir. I will see you again after the storm, I hope. Stay safe. Dress well.”

Dress for me.

He frowned. She pulled herself out of the chair with the tired weight of a woman broken and began to leave without another word. She did not thank him or apologize to him. Once she had turned her back to him, he did not exist.

He stayed in the kitchen long after she left, long after another woman came and went looking for food, giving him frightened glares, and long after the rain began. He stared out the window, watching rain pelt the window mercilessly, occasionally illuminated by great streaks of multi-colored lightning.

Finally, he drew himself to his feet, wincing as the chair cracked beneath him. He would return, he tried to convince himself, after the storm. Just to be sure she was alright.

He was very careful in coaxing the unfamiliar door open and very sure stepping into the rain that, for once in his life, did not avoid him in its path downward.