A/N: This is my first Sanctuary fanfiction. I've had it in my back pocket for a while, ever since I made the mistake of watching Titanic on TBS right after rewatching the episode Next Tuesday on my PC.
SPOILER ALERT: Anything Season 2. Especially "End of Nights" and "Next Tuesday".
Again, this is my first Sanctuary fic, so please read and review. I'd love to get some constructive criticism on this.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
The first thing she was aware of was the cold.
Icy, black cold pressed in around her, filling her lungs with sharp stabs of pain. Fear pulled at her, dragging her down into the inky depths. In the darkness, she saw flashes of white dart across her vision. It was several crushing moments before she realized that the flashes were people, pale human skin that seemed to glow as they fought to surface.
But, like her, they could not fight the fierce current drawing them down, deeper and deeper towards certain death.
Suddenly, through the shadowed depths, she saw a face she recognized.
Terrified blue eyes stared at her through swirling strands of pale blonde hair. Long arms reached for the surface, for her, but despite their strength they could not fight the pull of the water.
She watched as her daughter's lips parted in a silent scream as she sank, following the hundreds of others who had gone down, hands reaching for her mother, her last hope for survival.
Her chest burned for air, even as she struggled to dive after the younger woman. Her awareness began to dim just as her fingertips brushed the reaching hands, but as if on cue the force pulling her deeper relented, and her life jacket swiftly yanked her away.
Her head finally broke the surface, but she only realized when her body instinctively purged the water from her lungs. The air above the water was just as frigid as the ocean, and she could feel her skin losing sensation as the water on her head and face began to freeze in the night air.
The memory of her daughter's watery death almost instantly began to fade as the morbid reality of her situation set in.
All around her, people were flailing in the water, struggling desperately to stay afloat. Even those wearing life jackets were reduced to violent panic, pulling at those around them to fight the now dissipating suction of the sinking vessel. She focused on them, to distract herself from her own discomfort and fear. Screams echoed across the irreverently calm water, calling for help and loved ones.
She was just about to drown out the cacophony when the nearby cry of a single child tore at her heart, sparking the maternal instinct so newly installed in the pit of her stomach. She swirled in the water, scanning the crowd around her for the source of the terrified calls. A moment later, she spied a young boy, no older than six, splashing some twenty feet from her.
But even as she watched, the boy suddenly disappeared from view, as he was forced under by the large paws of a drowning man pulling at his life jacket.
Fighting the fatigue encroaching with the pervasive cold, she swam to the boy with all the urgency she could muster. Before she realized what she was doing she was pulling at the man's hands, trying to pry his fingers away even as she tried to keep the boy afloat.
The man yelled at her in an unintelligible slur of protest, but when one hand disengaged from the boy to strike her, she reacted instinctively. Her hand flew up and collided with his cheek, the impact sending needles of pain through her numbed fingers. The man recoiled in shock and sudden pain at the attack, letting loose a panicked cry of surprise.
It seemed to wake him up, however, for he looked down at the boy, and released him with a jerk. As the boy came up spluttering and sobbing, the man faded into the darkness, and she let him go, not sparing him another glance.
She pulled the child into her arms as best she could, allowing her life jacket to take most of her weight as she quickly checked the boy for wounds. Her medical training gave her a brief reprieve from the horror of the evening, and she felt her heart unclench ever so slightly when she discovered he was unharmed. But then the boy looked into her eyes, and the stark terror staring up at her reminded her that they were far from safe.
The water would kill them if they remained where they were. They needed to get out of the water as soon as possible, the doctor in her chided, but the life rafts could just be seen in the distance, and she knew she could not wait for them to return, if they did so at all.
Somehow, she managed to push a few words of comfort past her numb and shivering lips, and though the boy did seem to trust her—evidenced by his small arms clutching her tightly—it was obvious she failed to chase away his terror. She did not blame him in the least… her own fear was slowly growing with each passing moment.
But she pushed her own panic back, focusing instead on the life she now held in her hands.
In an instant, she knew what she had to do. She had to get them to the lifeboats, and out of the water.
Glancing at the winking lights in the suddenly unfathomable distance, it was evident they hadn't moved any closer since the ship had disappeared.
She would have to swim.
A few more words to the boy had his arms looping tightly around her neck as he settled on her back, leaving her arms free. And then, with stiff, jerking movements she began to pull them both through the freezing water. Her limbs were sluggish and nearly unresponsive, but her familiarity with the motions born by years of practice paid off, and slowly she drew them away from the mass of wailing souls.
But soon enough, their progress slowed as her muscles began to fall unresponsive under the deadening effect of the bone-chilling cold. Her breath caught painfully in her chest, and more than once her mouth and nose dipped below the water line, her throat and nose burning painfully as she choked on the saltwater she could not keep from inhaling.
But the pain served to wake her up each time her eyes unwillingly began to drift shut. She knew her time was running short, because she could no longer hear the cries and sobs of the forsaken souls still stranded behind them.
If not for the boy's weight against her back, no doubt she too would have fallen victim to the cold, drifted off to sleep to never wake again.
When she had the presence of mind to do so, she tried to keep her body as level as possible, in order to limit the boy's exposure to the frigid water. Even so, she knew he would not fare much better in the night air, which was equally dangerous through his drenched and frozen clothes.
She had no idea how close they had come to the huddle of life rafts.
Her vision had not been clear for some time now, her lashes so laden with ice as they were. She had lost all sensation, to the point where she often had to pat the arms around her neck for several long moments before she was certain the boy was still on her back.
Slowly, tortuously, her eyes blinked with longer and longer frequency. The doctor in her knew what was happening, but she was powerless to stop herself from drifting closer and closer to her final sleep. Even as her vision darkened, and her movements stilled, her mind stirred into a panic.
But there was nothing she could do, even as she willed herself to move, to live…
To survive.
The next thing she knew, a hand was clamping onto her shoulder, yanking her out of the darkness. Shock coursed through her at the sudden assault on her senses, and to her surprise, her body responded in an instant, their former lethargy gone.
"Maggie?" her own voice sounded loud in her ears, too loud.
She opened her eyes to look for her would-be savior, but her sight was filled with a blur of images she could make no sense of. The ocean was gone, she knew that much, and that threw her enough to make it difficult to reclaim her equilibrium.
Muffled sounds drifted across her awareness, but then suddenly her ears roared and a voice rang out in near-panic.
"MAGNUS!"
Her vision cleared in an instant, and she sat up in violent reaction as the world came rushing back to her.
She was not in a life raft. She was not in the ocean, and she was not wearing a life jacket. Her skin wasn't blue, and her blonde curls were not crusted with ice.
Rather, she was in a hotel room in New Orleans, after having been found and rescued by a passing Coast Guard helicopter. She was lying on a plush bed, and, though still tangled from having been in the water for hours, her brown locks were dry and warm.
But still, her sense of panic and shock didn't abate, and when a hand brushed hers, she jerked away in violent reflex.
"Whoa, hey," a gentle voice said softly. "Magnus, it's okay…"
She looked up warily, and found a familiar face staring back in concern. "Will?"
He smiled in relief. "Yeah," he huffed lightly. "That's good. I was afraid you'd forgotten my name."
Surely he meant it as a joke, but her only reaction was confusion as she tried to shake off the remnants of her shock. "What?"
"You were asking for a Maggie a minute ago." Will's eyes searched hers, looking for answers to questions he had yet to pose to her. She looked away from him, slowly taking a steadying breath. Her heart was racing, and if she moved her head a certain way, her vision still tilted alarmingly. "You okay?" he asked.
She hesitated, but then quickly shook her head to dismiss his concern. "I'm fine," she uttered softly.
"You sure?" Obviously, he didn't quite believe her.
"It was just a nightmare, Will," she responded curtly. Her panic had faded, but had left her feeling on edge. Her tone reflected it, and she hoped Will would hear it and know to let it go. "Nothing more," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"Seemed like a pretty bad one," he observed, watching her intently as she stood and abandoned the bed.
Apparently, she'd been too exhausted after their arrival at the hotel to bother changing out of the clothes the Coast Guard had given her, for she was still fully garbed in the mint green scrubs that had been provided them both. Her feet were bare though, and she enjoyed the tactile sensation of the carpet under her toes as she strode to the window.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he continued, standing as well. Thankfully, however, he kept his distance.
"No." Impatience colored her tone, as she realized he was not going to let her off so easy.
She could only imagine what was going through the psychologist's mind now, seeing her so uneasy after a nightmare. It was doubtful he would chalk it up to the fatigue they were both bound to have after the day they'd had.
More likely he was jumping to post-traumatic stress, or searching through the little tidbits she'd told him about her past 158 years, looking for anything that could leave her so rattled and off-balance.
"Look, sometimes it helps—"
"I assure you, Doctor Zimmerman, there is absolutely nothing to concern yourself over," she delivered bluntly. "It was a nightmare brought on by exhaustion, and that is all." Her tone was fierce, almost angry, and effectively ended any further dialogue between them.
Or so she had hoped.
But Will cut off her path of escape when he placed himself between her and her intended destination—the bathroom. His eyes glinted in the afternoon light, and she realized quickly that instead of intimidating him, she had merely sparked his indignation.
"I thought we were done with that crap, Magnus," he said sharply. "We agreed—"
"Things are different now, Will!" She hated raising her voice, but her own temper had taken control. "My daughter is dead, and we are not trapped within the Nautilus. There are things I would rather not discuss, and you would do well to leave them well enough alone!"
And with that, she stormed past him, their shoulders colliding as she did so.
He didn't follow her, and a moment later the bathroom door slammed behind her, leaving a stunned and speechless protégée in her wake.