Author's Note: Hey guys! Long time no see! I just had to write this after I saw Sanctuary For None; it was so awesome :) And of course, the writing bug hits me just as I have three exams. Ah well. Anyway, please review and tell me what you think. I just had to write how Magnus got out of the Sanctuary.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
And Now To Business
Magnus winced at the ringing in her ears. Henry's device might have protected her from the explosion but it certainly hadn't prevented the blast from destroying her eardrums. She shook her head but it made no difference. She winced again as the pain spiked but after that, it seemed to fade slightly. Looking around, she noted that the Henry's armour had protected not only her, but the area surrounding her, a circle of approximately eight metres in diameter. He'd have to improve that. Eight metres wasn't worth much. But she wasn't complaining. Everything else in the lab was on fire, burning quickly to a crisp and the ceiling was semi collapsed, allowing in a faint wind from the outside night. The ruin of the floors above was in imminent danger of collapsing and Magnus was well aware that if she didn't move soon, she would be underneath it when that happened. She had to move, and fast.
That, however, was going to be easier said than done. She was surrounded by rubble and everything was burning. It was not going to be an easy journey. Magnus jogged to the edge of her circle of semi safety and as carefully, as she could, scrambled over the edge of the automated assist, now just a ring was warped, burning metal. She managed it quickly, sustaining only a burn across her palm and was off. It took ten minutes to navigate and escape the lab and by the end of it, Magnus was sweating both from the intense heat of the fire surrounding her and the injuries she had received during the crossing, nothing serious, just burns and lacerations from burning rubble. Nothing that couldn't be fixed.
Now she had to get out of the lab. She scanned the room. She had two potential points of escape: one was to try and climb out of the rubble upwards and then somehow make her way down to ground level again or... about twenty feet from her, one of the blast doors had buckled under the weight of falling stone, leaving a gap just about big enough to crawl through. It was her best shot. She squeezed past what was left of her of lab table and sprinted towards the door. Fire was slowly melting the surrounding metal but Magnus didn't stop. If she didn't get out, she was going to be crushed. Crawling on her stomach, she managed to get through the hole and was up and running again a second later. Over the crackling of the fire, she could hear sirens in the distance. She was running out of time.
It was only twenty minutes before Magnus ducked out of the side gate of the Sanctuary. A couple of blocks down she saw Will, or a figure that looked distinctly like Will, standing, staring at the Sanctuary as it burned. Had she been closer she would've seen his tears. But she didn't have time to stop. She was burned and bleeding and she had to leave before the police got there. So she turned and ran down the street, along alleyways and side streets until she came out onto a little street maybe a mile from the Sanctuary. She fumbled with her keys, her hands stinging and managed to jam the right one into the lock of the door, off to the left of a little shop. As soon as she was inside, she slammed the door behind her and stumbled up the narrow staircase to the little apartment above.
She stepped into the kitchen and headed straight for the sink. The kitchen itself was sparsely decorated, barely used and only owned by Magnus for emergencies. She'd bought it to wait out her last days before she could return to the Sanctuary, to watch the events play out as she put the finished touches to her master plan, her end game. She hissed as the water irritated the burns on her hands. Next to the sink was a first aid kit, just where she'd left it. Carefully unzipping it, she pulled out the things she need and sat down at the table, methodically treating the wounds she'd received in her escape. None of the burns were very serious, second degree at the worst. She'd been lucky.
As she wrapped the last burn, her thoughts turned to Henry, and to Nikola. She hoped they'd escaped, she more than hoped. She needed them to have escaped. She'd known there would be losses when she started all of this and then she'd been naive enough to hope it would never be one of the people she cared so much about. And her old friend, her loyal servant may have very well paid the price. When she'd felt for his pulse, it had been there, a light thrumming underneath her fingertips but it wouldn't have lasted for long. She could only hope that Will had to got him in time.
With a sigh, everything seemed to weigh down on her. She coughed, the smoke still heavy in her lungs and suddenly she was so tired. Just so tired. She clumsily pulled off Henry's device and laid it on the table before making her way to the front rom. The bed wasn't made up yet, usually she left it stripped to avoid the dust and she was too tired to do it now. She slumped down onto the couch, feeling almost boneless as the adrenaline seeped away. A tear ran down her cheek and over her lips but she didn't wipe it away. Her heavy lids closed and she sunk into unconsciousness, too tired to fight it.
Magnus woke up screaming. The scream quickly turned into coughing as her ragged lungs struggled to cope. She stumbled into the kitchen and drank straight from the tap. She turned off the tap a moment later but remained bent over, trying to regulate her breathing. The panic from the dream slowly faded and she stood up straight again, running a hand through her hair. For the first time since the destruction of the Sanctuary, her Sanctuary, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her face was streaked with soot, only broken by tear tracks and there was an angry bur across the left side of her neck. The ends of her hair were singed and all in all, she looked a sight. A shower was definitely in order.
As she stepped into the shower, Magnus acknowledged for the first time that she was lying to herself. The loss of her Sanctuary, although planned, hadn't hit yet and the losses and potential losses were lingering on the sidelines, waiting to catch her unaware. But she couldn't deal with those yet. She had other business to attend to first. That had to be her priority. Only when she was sure rest of her plan was in motion would she allow herself the time to grieve. But she couldn't go there yet.
The injuries stung under the hot water but to be clean again... Magnus sighed. It felt so good. It felt so nice to feel all her muscles relax under her skin. But now to business.
She changed her clothes and threw the old ones away. She checked her injuries and cut the singed sections out of her hair. She sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a letter. She'd drop it off on her way and she did. She left it at the front desk and asked for it to be delivered to Dr William Zimmerman.