NOTES: this fiction is inspired by some of the characters from the show "Torchwood". If you have watched
the show you will probably recognize the parallels.
DISCLAIMER: none of the characters in this fiction belong to me, nor do I make any profit from this fiction
He slipped into the house under the cover of a starless night. Inside he came upon an old man, dozing in a chair by the fireplace. The sleeping figure stirred awake at the sound of footsteps on the worn wooden floorboards. Eyes blinked slowly open and then regarded the young man in front of them, recognition coming slower now that his youth was only a memory. After several heartbeats, the elder's lips curled into a small grin and he held out his hand, palm cupped and facing upwards.
Locke dropped the velvet pouch into the waiting hand, the tell tale clinks of coins sounding absurdly loud in the quiet house. The old man had the decency not to count out the contents of the purse (yet) and instead pocketed it inside his tunic before he slowly rose to his feet. He grabbed a lit candle from the mantle and headed towards a side room, Locke following anxiously on his heels. A hidden switch in the wall of the near empty room triggered a hatch in the floor to unlock. As the old man pulled the hatch open, a set of descending stairs were revealed. He walked down halfway with careful steps, then motioned for Locke to follow.
The stairs led down into a nearly pitch room. Locke's eyes strained in the blackness before it was chased away as the old man went around the room, lighting candles by memory, row upon row that sat on shelves and tables. In the candle glow, a prone figure was revealed, motionless upon a stark white bed. The increasing light showed a young woman with skin almost as blanched as the sheets, made to look all the more paler by the dark blue-black curls that framed her face. Transparent tubes, attached to nameless machines (both horrible and blessed sights at the same time), were in turn attached onto, and into, her fair flesh, and wound their way into her nose and mouth, and in other, more personal, places (he could not bear to think on it). The tubes pushed in air and medicines and sustenance; they took away the waste and expelled breaths. Her chest rose and fell in conjunction with the squeeze of a bellow, a soft hiss accompanying each exhalation, the movement and sounds so unnatural it caused something like terror to rise within Locke's chest.
"Rachel…" her name fell in a desperate whisper from his lips as he reached out to touch her too cold skin. He didn't know if she could hear him, if the words he spoke to her could reach the place where her soul was sleeping. Despite this, he still poured promises in her ear, promises filled with honeyed words like 'love' and 'hope' and 'soon'.
"She's not in any pain," the old man assured him, tapping a glass container that held a specially mixed potion. Locke regarded him carefully, trying to gauge if the man was merely trying to humor him. However, he had to have trust in this man, this man who was once a scientist for the Empire, who had seen and participated in the early research on Magic and the legendary Espers. The machines that now kept Rachel anchored in this world had been smuggled from the Empire's very own labs. The price for them, and by extension the price for the old man's expertise (and silence), was quite steep.
Though Locke would always vehemently rail against anyone who referred to him as a thief (he declared he was a 'treasure hunter'), the truth was that, for the most part, he was. The old man's fees were paid for with coins and jewelry, gems and trinkets, whatever valuable things Locke could secret away from the unsuspecting gentry and high end merchant shops. He had also on occasion, with great shame and sorrow, stolen from the treasury of his dear friend Edgar. There was no way to have asked the King of Figaro for assistance without putting him and his subjects in mortal danger. If the Empire ever found out about Rachel, about the stolen technology and tomes of magical research, they would kill each and every person involved (or worse). So while his heart broke a little more each time he deceived his friend, at least Edgar would be free from knowledge that could damn him.
All that kept Locke going was the belief that there was something somewhere that could reunite Rachel's soul and body and wake her from this living death. He had read through the texts the old man had smuggled out from the Empire, finding in them the source of his hope, a thing that was called Phoenix. Life out of death was its boon, and if it was in this world, if Locke could just find it, then all the promises he had made to Rachel, those made to her silent form, and those made in better times before, could finally be fulfilled.
Locke pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek before adding another rose among the ones present about the sides and ends of the bed. If she were to wake (please) when he was not there, he wanted her to know that he had been there and would return again (it was a sort of custom in Kohlingen, to leave a flower before one went traveling, as a symbol of a promise to return). Roses had always been her favorite.
As he turned to leave, Locke pictured her with red roses, nested in her dark hair and filling her arms as a wedding bouquet. She would smile at him, her lips as full and red as the roses, before leaning forward into his arms to kiss him, and she would be warm and soft and alive.
For that, he would do anything.