Paralysis

Margo sat in Dean Fogg's office, her back against a chair and her feet up on his desk. She could do this because Fogg, himself, was not present. Instead, on the edge of his desk, sat the Watcherwoman, Jane Chatwin.

"So what you're telling me," Margo said, "is that we've tried to kill the Beast dozens of times, we've never once come out alive, and this time you think the way to win is for me to allow him to cripple my best friend?"

"Yes," said Jane.

"Fantastic."

"In relative terms, this isn't all that bad," Jane said. "No one has to die. No one has to lose their hands—"

"Does Penny really lose his hands all the time?" Margo asked. "That is seriously weird."

"Hands are inextricably linked to a traveler's ability to—oh, never mind. Look, what I'm telling you," Jane said, leaning toward her, "is that this is the best of all possible outcomes. You all get to live! By doing this one thing, you let Alice and Quentin remain happy."

Margo rolled her eyes.

"Penny gets to keep his hands—"

"Does he really need them?"

"You, yourself, wouldn't have to die!"

Margo pressed her lips together. It wasn't about her—It was about Eliot. Thinking of a paraplegic Eliot made her mouth feel caked with ash.

"Isn't there another way?" she asked.

"There are dozens of ways," Jane said, "but this is the best one."

Margo nodded and stood, feeling weak kneed. "Thank you," she said. "I'll think on it."

Margo chewed the edge of her thumbnail, watching Eliot across the couch in the physical kids' cabin as he raised his flask to his lips. He was drinking himself to death, and it was ruining her manicure.

His flask was enchanted, she'd discovered. She tried dumping it once while Eliot was in the shower. When the other physical kids realized what she was doing, she put a finger to her lips with a wink, as if to say, "Look at this funny joke I'm pulling! Isn't it funny? Haha. Hahaha. Ha." She wasn't laughing. It made her sick that she couldn't take herself seriously even when she was trying to keep her best friend from drinking himself to death. But dumping the flask never worked. It refilled itself every time.

Margo wanted to tell Eliot what Jane Chatwin had told her. She wanted to, but her jaw felt stuck. All week, she'd been watching him imbibe with newfound horror. If he couldn't handle life now, he would full-blown kill himself when he was paralyzed. It made her want to hit him over the head with his flask.

"Eliot," she said.

"Yeah?" He didn't look up from the magazine he was paging through. Magical Weddings. Not magical in the spell casting sense, but in the metaphorical (which Margo found even more gross). God knew where Eliot had found it—the issue date was 1972. The styles within were gauche and horrifyingly flamboyant, but that was the 70s for you. Eliot loved it.

She looked at him, with his tweed vest and his ironed—but not too ironed—purple shirt. What could she say to him? 'I love you'? She had already told him that. Multiple times, even. She loudly admitted it once during Spring Break, yelling it over the noise of the club when she was quite inebriated. Eliot had tsk'd her and bought them another round of drinks. And then there was the time when she'd had that threesome with him and Q, but that time, she was even drunker.

"God, have I never told you I love you while sober?" she said aloud.

Eliot laughed into his flask and cocked his head toward her. His eyebrows arched. "Oh, you're serious," he said. He let out a sigh and stood up from the couch, which took a bit of effort. He had to do it very slowly to steady himself before gaining any semblance of uprightness.