milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Carlotta has got bored with the infirmary and escaped out to a nearby sofa.

The advantage of having as much hair as she does is that she can conceal the bandage around her head. She alternates ginger beer and biscuits with worrying about how she's going to explain her miraculous recovery when she gets home.

[tinytag: Carlotta Brown]

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"Carlotta. Please, look at me." He waited patiently, settling on his heels. "Tell me what's upsetting you, please...I don't want to have made you criticize yourself when you don't need to."

"I already told you, I've been a terrible head girl and I've let everyone down." Carlotta says. "And I can't blame Fern for all of it. If I'd found a way of dealing with her properly none of this would have happened."

"No, you're not a terrible head girl. You haven't let anyone down." Charlie tilts his head, not wanting to touch her again, since he doesn't know her too well.

"Fern put herself and you in a precarious situation, and ended up getting you hurt. You dealt with her as best you knew how, and you can't hold yourself responsible for what she did."

"I'm talking about the whole term, not just this one incident." Carlotta says, trying not to cry any more and not wholly succeeding.

"Don't cry, please." Charlie brushes her cheek dry with the handkerchief, looking up at her.

"I'm sorry, I'm not normally so emotional."

He smiled lightly at that, brushing her hair off the side of her cheek. "It's alright. Emotion is a perfectly natural thing, and there's nothing to be apologizing for."

Charlie looked up at her, considering. "Did I upset you, talking about your classmate? I don't mean to."

"I don't even know for certain that she's alive." Carlotta says quietly. "The last thing I remember is helping her up, she must have been right next to me and the horse."

Charlie listens to her, still comfortably settled on his heels on the floor. "If you were close enough to be helping her up, then I doubt the horse kicked her; it got you."

He still studies her to make sure she's alright, though she's harder to read than he'd have expected. "Tell me what's worrying you, really."

"I have done sir, twice." Carlotta says, with limited patience.

"Charlie," he repeats. People calling him sir makes him twitchy. "I get the impression there's something relatively important you're not saying."

"There probably is, but I can't think of it, and I just had brain surgery."

He chuckles. "That I'll concede. But please let me know if there's something you'd like to talk about."

"I'd say horses." Carlotta says. "But even I could do with a few days without them."

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