Title: Rose in the Window
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters. Unfortunately.
Author's note: Just filling in a couple of gaps and whatnots, especially since the series left me with more questions than answers...
"This will be your room, Father Nightroad," said the matronly sister as she fished a large bunch of keys from a belt at her waist. Rummaging through the mess and finally coming up with a small key ("Aha!"), she let them both into a dark and dusty room.
Abel stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot as the sister hastily pulled several white sheets off the furniture and bed with a sheepish smile.
"Like I said earlier, it's been a long time since we've had anyone live in this part of the Vatican apartments," she admitted, speaking as she went around collecting and folding the sheets. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a room closer to the other priests' quarters? Perhaps Father Havel? Or Father Iqus?" She trailed off at the silent shake of his head. A wistful smile touched her face before she shook it off. "It does get so quiet around here…"
Walking to the window, she drew open the curtains in a quick sweep. The room suddenly was bathed in heady sunlight as she pushed open the windows to let fresh air in. Inhaling deeply, she said, "Well, if there's one thing you'll like here, it's the clean air. It just seems crisper here than elsewhere, you know?" She turned and smiled at Abel.
He returned the smile and looked around him. The room was sparsely furnished; a desk, a chair, a cupboard, a bookshelf and a bed. As it was, he would hardly have the means or the time to decorate it; he half-expected to be traveling most of the time in this new… employment. But Caterina – Cardinal Sforza – he corrected himself mentally, had insisted he maintain a room in the Vatican. "You'll need a home to come back to," she had said, simply. And he had left it at that.
"Father Nightroad? Is everything to your liking?" The sister moved forward, worry creasing her forehead at his extended silence.
Abel deposited his beat-up brown luggage by the bed, and strode towards the open window. Below, a well-tended garden stretched out in the courtyard, surrounding a small entrance to one of the Vatican's many underground crypts. The window faced this entrance directly, and he smiled and marveled at Caterina's resourcefulness.
"Yes, Sister Ryan. It is wonderful. Thank you for showing me here."
The nun's cheeks turned a rosy pink as he smiled gratefully. "Y-you're quite welcome, Father Nightroad. It was my p-pleasure," she said, stumbling as she moved to retreat from the room, her eyes studiously trained on the wooden floor. She was almost at the door when he called out.
"Sister Ryan, would there, by any chance, be a florist near by?"
She turned around, puzzled by the non sequitur. He was still gazing out the window, his gloved fingers brushing the dust off the ledge gently. Against the sunlight, he was just a shadowed profile, but she imagined she saw a glimmer of longing in his eyes. What, or who, was he thinking of? She shook away the thought. One never knew with these priest-types, especially those recently brought there by Cardinal Sforza.
"There hasn't been a florist in the Vatican for many years, Father Nightroad. Since the Armageddon, people grow them freely around here. A gift, if you will, to life and survival." She gestured at the window. "The roses in the garden below you are quite fine, and you are welcome to them, provided you leave enough for others to enjoy."
"Thank you, Sister Ryan."
And at that, she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
"Abel!" Caterina shouted frantically, her feet automatically carrying her shakily across the marble floor before she crumpled to her knees by his side. Grabbing onto his black robes, she shook him once, twice before gently turning him over to face her.
"Hang in there! Abel!" She was almost frantic, checking him over for wounds.
He was pale, paler than she'd ever remembered, and blood trickled steadily from cuts on his forehead and cheek. But he still breathed, in shallow, struggled gasps. The man who had tried to assassinate her was gone, and she could only surmise that Abel had managed to fight him off. My protector, as always, Caterina thought absentmindedly while gently brushing a soft lock of hair away from his face. She pulled a handkerchief from her robes and dabbed at his cuts.
"Milady?" A deep voice echoed across the cavernous hall. "Are you hurt?"
She looked up and saw the figure of Father Tres Iqus running towards her. Thank you, Lord, she offered a silent prayer of gratitude. She had never been so grateful for the lumbering appearance of her personal guard. Folding the handkerchief and pressing it firmly to the worse wound on Abel's forehead, she took a deep breath and tried to recompose herself.
"Father Tres, I need you to take Father Nightroad back to his quarters, then find Doctor Matthias and bring him to us." There. That was calm, collected. No sign of the quivering wreck she had almost become.
"Yes, milady." The mechanized response came as he knelt to pick Abel up in his arms. As he moved to stand, something soft fell across Caterina's face. She looked up in surprise. The ribbon on Abel's hair had come loose with the movement, releasing a curtain of soft locks. Wide-eyed, Caterina brought a trembling hand to her cheek, staring at the limp form in Tres's arms. He couldn't be dead. Couldn't be –
"Milady." Tres again, this time, with almost a hint of urgency behind it.
It was all she could do not to let the tears slip out as she grabbed the ribbon from the floor and hurried after Tres.
Abel's room was cluttered with papers and unfinished reports, Caterina saw, a wonder considering the priest hardly occupied it for more than three months out of a year. For a 900-year old being, he certainly had the organizational skills of a nine-year-old.
Meanwhile, Tres had deftly deposited his colleague on the bed and marched out abruptly to find the physician. Caterina pulled a chair up to the bed and sank into it, her worried gaze fixed on the rise and fall of Abel's chest. Now in the light of the room, she could see the blood stains on his cheeks, wine red against the whiteness of his complexion. She reached out and slowly removed his glasses, folding and placing them on the nightstand.
She twisted around in her seat, searching for a clean cloth and water, anything to wash the blood away. Out of the corner of her eye, a small, white porcelain vase on the window ledge caught her attention. A single red rose rested in it. It puzzled her momentarily, and then she remembered. It had been a long time ago, this conversation with Abel.
She had been trying to persuade him to join AX, to help protect the innocents from the carnage and slaughter in the bloody conflict between humans and vampires. It hadn't taken that long to convince him of the worthy fight, but he'd refused the offer of room and office at the Vatican. Nonsense, she had replied, you'll need a home to come back to. Abel had given her a patient and bemused smile, as if to say, "Like I'll be around often enough to use it".
Instead, he made a quiet request for the room overlooking the small crypt entrance that was surrounded by a garden of roses. Met by a moue of disapproval from Caterina (it was out of the way and the building was in shambles, she protested), he had merely said, it was his only condition, and please would she not grant him the simple gift.
And it was how Caterina found she couldn't say no to him. Not to this Abel Nightroad, the solemn, serious version of her restless friend who was normally bouncing off the walls with manic energy like a child's.
She stood and walked over to the window, fingertips gently brushing the petals of the red rose. The single bloom could be seen in its vase from the garden below, she knew. It was the only thing of colour in the dank, draped windows of the old building. She also knew that whenever Abel came home, there was a single, fresh rose by the window every day.
We always remember our love, she thought. Human or vampire, we all fall prostrate before love and give ourselves whole.
So it was with Abel. "I made a promise once," he said, when a much younger Caterina had asked him why he saved her, "I'm on your side."
Caterina was pacing in her chambers when the news arrived, only the sound of her robes swishing across the carpets for company. With His Holiness not yet accounted for in Londinium, it appeared there would be little rest for Cardinal Sforza that night. The buzzing of electricity and static from behind her revealed Sister Kate's presence, in her usual holographic form. She turned to address the AX agent, and halted.
The usually calm and composed Sister Kate was struggling to hold back tears, her chin trembling with unsaid emotion.
"Sister Kate. What happened? Is the Pope safe? What's wrong?" Anxiety getting the better of her, Caterina fired a barrage of endless questions at the hapless captain. In response, Sister Kate ran her hand across her damp, tear-swollen eyes.
"F-f-father Nightroad… Lady Caterina… he's gone."
For Caterina, the world stopped in that shattering moment of knowledge. He was dead. She brought her hand to her breast and heard the sound of her racing heart drown everything else out.
Sister Kate continued shakily. "Father William and Father Leon found him and Sister Esther in an unmapped chamber in the Ghetto. There was no sign of the killer, but they also found the body of Dietrich von Lohengrin. He appears to have been killed by the same man who killed Father Nightroad. Sister Esther says she heard Father Nightroad identify him as Cain just before – Lady Caterina! Are you alright?"
Caterina was on her knees now, head bowed and shoulders heaving with silent sobs. No, I'm not alright, she whispered mentally. She was torn between her childish refusal to believe that anyone or anything could kill Abel Nightroad and her raging desire to overcome the world with lamentation. Look! she would cry. Look what your hate and your wars have cost us…
Look what it has cost me.
An arm reached across her back and stayed there, a solid presence. "Milady." Somewhere in between Sister Kate's announcement and her tears, Father Tres had abandoned his usual post outside Caterina's door and hurried into her chambers. She let him pull her to her feet and slowly guide her to a chair, bring her a glass of water and offer a clean handkerchief.
After several minutes, finally trusting herself to speak again, Caterina asked, "What of His Holiness? Is he safe?"
Sister Kate nodded, recognizing the need to keep their priorities straight until there was a more private time to grieve. "Yes, Lady Caterina. Brother Petros and Sister Paula have rescued His Holiness and brought him to a safehouse."
"Very well. Please inform Colonel Mary Spencer that I wish to speak with the Pope as soon as possible. That is all." Caterina paused. "Thank you, Sister Kate. Ab- Father Nightroad is with the Lord now. There is comfort to be found in that."
For a while more, Caterina sat stiffly in silence, with Father Tres standing guard beside her. There was something she'd missed, something niggling at the back of her mind. Abel, standing before her, reaching out to a frightened child in that alien white uniform of his. Blood liberally streaked across his face and clothes. Abel, in the first time she'd seen him unleash his Crusnik form, the blood scythe glowing steadily in the dark. What was it he'd said about the Crusnik?
Nanomachines. Little microscopic machines that made him stronger and changed how he looked. They made him scary, but only for a little while, until everything was safe again. A simple tale to reassure a shivering child. Caterina had badgered him for explanations over the years, but this was the only thing that came to mind now, when things were far from safe.
Could she? she wondered. There was only one place left where those nanomachines existed. Would he be able to forgive her for her own trespass? She stood up.
"Father Tres, arrange for a helicopter to fly you to Londinium immediately and meet me in the large field in the outskirts of the city. I have an important mission for you."
Caterina ran like she hadn't since her childhood days. Through gilded hallways and vaulted arches, past frescoed walls and hanging tapestries, until she reached the same garden with the red rose in the window. Hands shaking, she fumbled with the key to the crypt's gate until it clicked and swung open into the darkness. She cast one more glance at the flower in the window, which was already beginning to wilt since his departure for the Londinium mission. For Abel, she thought, and turned to stride forward into the deep recesses of the crypt.
The hermetically-sealed pod was as she had left it many years ago; it was her promise to Abel to bring Lilith here, where he could guard and watch over her as he had for the nine hundred years before, with a red rose and grieving heart. To give his love a final resting place, a place he could bury the loss and start anew. But, Caterina realized, this kind of loss never died in you. You couldn't pack it up and put it away; it defied memory and seared its brand into every living cell you owned. She knew this loss, now.
Caterina stood over the pod, wishing she had some words to justify or even just to render meaning onto this intrusion. She knew the code, it was easy enough to remember: the day she met Abel, or as he told her later, "the day I realized what the truth was: life is precious".
Her fingers flew over the keypad and the pod opened with a soft hiss of air. Another command, and a glass tube began to fill up with a dark grey liquid drawn from Lilith's body. Crusnik, she thought. Will this save you, Abel? Will this be enough to bring you back?
"I'm sorry," she said out loud, her own voice reverberating in the dark crypt. She knelt down and looked at Lilith, the red-haired beauty who captured Abel's heart the way Caterina never would.
"This is for the one you love."
For the one we love.
Pulling the glass tube from the pod, Caterina sealed it and ran.
For another life he would protect.
For another rose in the window, another day.