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Clara had heard through word of mouth that the Bachelor had fallen ill. She was unpopular in this town, true, but rumours still spread like wildfire. Especially of the venerable Capital doctor being bedridden with the plague. But this was not how Clara had first learned he was sick- no, no, she had seen it in him earlier. She had a gut feeling days ago that the plague- a piece of her own sister- were living inside him. She had looked closer, willed herself to analyze him and noticed the way his eyes looked a bit more red than usual, how his movements became more sluggish and uncoordinated with time. She had known, and she had known he knew, and so she said nothing.
Now the whole town knew. Doctor Dankovsky had pushed himself to the very last step, fighting until he could no longer, and now found himself chained to a bed by his illness. Clara would visit him. She must visit him. He was a fellow healer, and they were connected, their fates intertwined like threads tangled in a forgotten crafts box. If he were to die of this pest, of Clara's doing, of Clara's shortcomings- a piece of Clara were to die as well. She would at least see him in his final moments, for they surely drew near.
The Stillwater was frighteningly quiet. Eva was gone, now. An unfortunate and unnecessary sacrifice neither Changeling, nor Bachelor, nor other could prevent. The only thing left living here now was spirits, and another soon to join them. It felt as if every step she took upstairs echoed in all the hollow building, announcing her approach to any still listening. She hoped the Bachelor was still listening. She hoped she wasn't too late.
Just as the rumours had told her- surely unconfirmed, for the Bachelor wasn't one for visitors- he lay in his bed upstairs. His skin was the colour of ash, now, and it made the blood smeared across his face feel all the more like a death sentence. It was his own. His end was drawing nearer than even he knew. Yet his eyes were open, still, and focused on Clara as she approached. Death was asking him to join in her macabre dance of finality, but he was never one to follow the flow, was he? No, his sense of rhythm was entirely his own, and she was sure it always would be. Until the day he died.
"Changeling?" He allowed him to raise his hand to her face. She knew he wouldn't reach her- and sure enough, his hand collapsed by his side before he could make it. She couldn't help but watch him with sympathy written across her face. Perhaps it was foolish, perhaps she was clinging to what wasn't there, but she had grown to view him as a friend in the time they had known one another. She did not want to watch him die. "Clara…" It was a correction. He saw her not as a miracle worker, nor a monster of Steppe myth, nor anything else. Only as Clara, now. His stubborn way of only seeing one possible truth was annoying, often, but now it only hurt. Why did he wait until his last breath to see her as human? As a friend, even?
"I failed them." He was delirious, it was clear to see. She didn't know if he was talking to her, or past her, or perhaps to someone else. Hallucinations weren't an uncommon symptom of the plague in later stages. It wouldn't be a surprise in a mind as guilt ridden as his seemed to be. "I failed them all." His eyes were still locked with hers, but something about his gaze seemed distant. As if he couldn't truly see her. Whether it be for blindness or due to seeing something she couldn't, Clara would never know. "I failed them all. I let them die."
"You haven't failed anyone." She brushed his hair out of his face, a comforting gesture she had learned from her mother. His skin was hot to the touch, nearly impossibly so. She wasn't sure she had ever felt something so hot, in the week and a half she had been here. He was burning alive from the inside out, and the sweat clinging to his forehead made it clear he felt it. "You did all that you could." She reassured. He had fought an impossible foe in an impossible battle which he was doomed to fail from day one. Yet he had still given his all. His reward was death.
"I'm a doctor. I should have saved them. It was my duty. It is my duty." On his deathbed, still, he was trying to save people. Clara couldn't help the way her heart ached at how willing he was to throw himself into a hopeless fight over and over, until it killed him. Now it was killing him. And still, he was trying to fight back. Not for himself, not for his own life. Never for his own life. For others. "I let them down." Clara took her hand from his forehead, but remained close. She wanted him to know he wouldn't leave without a person by his side.
"You've given all you can," She replied. "It's not your fault that some slipped through the cracks. Nobody can save everyone. It's not your fault." He seemed to relax at this. Like a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders, her words couldn't possibly absolve him of all guilt or self doubt, but she could at least lighten his burden. It was all she could do for him now. "You've helped so many. Rest, now." She watched as his eyes closed, and his body relaxed, tension leaving him. She watched as his breathing slowed until it stopped, and she watched as he shifted from Daniil to another tally in the plague's death count.