It was quiet in his Office, as usual. It was how Jonathan liked his Office, actually, occasional loneliness aside.
He’d rather have it peaceful and quiet, than riddled with employees who knock things over, make noises in the Lounge or get roped into public displays of affection with no sense of decency for the others; so in a way, he did consider himself lucky to be alone here with only one other guest.
Augustin wasn’t unnecessarily noisy; he even made a good conversation partner every now and then.
And when it got too quiet and Jonathan wished to take his mind off his scripts, he’d visit the Athenaeum.
It was ironic, how the former lair of a woman who had caused so much havoc this year could be so peaceful. The connected rooms were bright white, filled with endless shelves of books about languages and artworks.
There were large potted plants in corners and the marble fountain bubbled on happily, uncaring that its owner had abandoned them.
And then there were paintings of every employee, Narrator, and visitor in the collective Offices, some drawn with their lovers, others drawn with blood on their fists and clothes, coming back from a fight.
In the middle of the room, a self portrait of Maelle. Its eyes glowed even in the brightly lit space as it surveyed its surroundings, pleased.
Maybe he was too sentimental about the delusions of her past self he had thought to know. After all, seeing from a human’s point of view, Maelle had always been insane; even as a child talking about things children shouldn’t be interested in, not batting an eye at a mountain of rotting corpses in the woods.
She had always said he was too soft to deal with reality, but Jonathan guessed they had very different ideas of what was considered normal.
Still, mass murderer, psychopathic wanna be goddess aside, she was still his friend and he enjoyed spending quiet mornings in these rooms, sipping his coffee and reading her old books.
The Athenaeum had become sacred in its own way for him.
He was enjoying his coffee with a dose of Maelle’s paintings, lost in his memories of her, when an odd shuffle pulled him out of his thoughts.
Jonathan sighed.
“Employees are not allowed in here,” He said, not bothering to turn. “Augustin, if that’s you, I’d like you to wait outside.”
There was silence at first, and then a heavy thud.
The Narrator frowned and turned towards the source. “Didn’t I say-”
He froze cold.
In the middle of the room was a bloody trail, leading to the grand self portrait of Maelle and underneath it, a disheveled, grief stricken Alice.
She was clad in the white surgeon’s outfit Jonathan recognized from countless books, only it wasn’t white anymore, now smeared with blood and dirt. Her hair and skin was coated with the same filth, but she didn’t seem to care as she clutched the dirty bundle of her nurse’s apron to her chest.
Alice was muttering silently to herself, disregarding the other completely. She appeared on the verge of some sort of breakdown, which scared Jonathan almost as much as the state she was in.
He waved his coffee away and hurried to her, fearing the worst.
“Alice?”
The Acolyte flinched at his voice. She hugged herself tighter and looked up at him, seemingly startled.
Jonathan kneeled next to her, trying to determine whether some of that blood was hers and if she was injured. At that point keeping his hands busy was the only thing he could do to distract himself from the horrible sense of dread threatening to drown him.
“Are you injured?”
Alice drew away from him immediately, clutching her apron tighter.
“Don’t.” Her voice was raw from exhaustion.
Jonathan pulled back. There was a moment of silence between the two, with only the fountain’s continued babble in the background, until he resigned and started to ask the question he didn’t want the answer to.
“What happened to Maelle? Is-…is she-”
“God- fuck-” Alice’s voice nearly cracked in a sob. She buried her face into the apron. “I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked everything up, everything is ruined. I lost her and- and it’s all my fucking fault-”
“….” Jonathan sat next to her and stared blankly at the wall.
He thought the shock of it all would take away his ability to grieve but everything rushed at him at once.
Anger, at the turn of events, at Maelle for leaving him to pursue her selfish dreams, at Dmitri for infecting her; hope that there might some way to get her back, but that was all ruined with realization that they should be celebrating.
A merciless tyrant was dead. For the sake of the good of all the employees in here, they should leave it be.
So, grief was what was left and it settled in comfortably in his bones, ready to strangle him completely- until he was made aware of Alice’s mumble, still droning on beside him.
“Don’t- don’t tell her I was here. Don’t, please don’t. She can’t find out, she can’t know about this, she’ll abandon me. She- she’ll hate me-”
Jonathan blinked, dumbfounded. “Who?”
“….my Goddess.”
“Maelle?” Confusion replaced his grief abruptly. “Maelle- she’s alive after all?”
Alice shot him a tired look. “Yes, of course. She’s…just…resting after-….”
“After what?”
The Acolyte sighed heavily. Reluctantly she sat up and placed her crumpled apron into her lap. Her panic had faded a bit now, she just seemed exhausted.
“Ms Maelle had concluded it was best if we were all kept in the dark- about…her condition.” She began wearily.
“Including me- in case someone found out and would used her weakness against her. She only told me yesterday, before the- the thing, what had been going on with her body this past month."
"From what I understand she had been infected by Von Diamongal and it was slowly killing her." Jon said, sitting so he was facing her. His confusion still swirled around his mind, but he forced himself to listen.
"I suppose half of that is true. Yes, she had been infected and it was hellish to get it out of her system. She would've managed too, if she hadn't been in the middle of dying." Alice added indignantly, like she felt the urge to still justify her Goddess to the Offices.
"I was led to believe she was dying because of the infection, Alice." Jonathan ignored her hostile undertones.
"No. A stupid little mutant isn't going to take my Mistress down. But even then, the infections were interfering with her plans and- she got too annoyed to deal with it. So she tried one last thing and...it…it worked."
Jonathan frowned at the way she said it. He knew there would be a catch, of course, with Maelle, there always was.
"What was the cure?"
“……” Alice slumped. Wordlessly, she opened the bundle on her lap.
Jon’s eyes widened. “…you can’t be serious.”
“She’s brilliant.”
“Alice-”
“Honestly-” Alice’s eyes sparkled with bitterness. “Why fight the infection when you can simply steer it into an unwanted part of yours, one that’ll soon no longer be attached to your body anyway?”
With utter shock, Jonathan stared down at the sleeping infant wrapped in Alice’s bloodied apron. It was too big for its age, too big for a newborn, since it couldn’t have been more than the equivalent of a week or two if it were birthed properly.
Its dark red skin was covered in painful sores and blisters from the inherited disease, and Jonathan would’ve mistaken it for a stillborn because no infant comes to the world looking like that, but its tiny hand curled weakly around nothing from time to time.
The Narrator took a moment to gather himself; drew in a breath and asked, “What does she plan to do with it?”
“Nothing. It’s supposed to be dead.” Alice glanced down at the child with an expression he couldn’t read. “She told me to kill it, but- but I didn’t. Because I couldn’t. I can’t- I can’t kill this kid, Jon. I-”
She shuddered.
After a moment of pause, Jonathan had made up his mind. He got to his feet and hauled Alice up. She didn't struggle against him, her stare fixed on the child in her arms.
"Where is Maelle now?" Jonathan urged. "Is she looking for you?"
"I don’t-
"Actually, save it. We have to get you and the child to safety and this place is not protected against Maelle. …I think I know where to take you."
He placed his hand on her shoulder and teleported them away, to Bradley's Office.
So yes, in summary, Maelle made a child that would grow inside of her and lure / house what parasites/diseases she got from Dmitri's infection and transport them out at birth.
Which is also why she's been weaker than normal, since a lot of energy was split into keeping the child alive, making sure it sped up with its growth (normal pregnancies last longer than a month), driving the sickness into it and at the same time, deal with the rest of her plans, since giving birth to the kid was only the very first step.
And Alice? Alice sees it as an extension of Maelle, a part of her that she can raise to love her like she knows Maelle never will. Which is why she saved it in the first place.
She only came to Jon because he's the same species as Maelle and would know how to keep the kid alive.
