Title : A bitter reminder
Author : DiBee
Summary : Helen recovers an old friend's diary, and is reminded of how great a man James Watson was, how much exactly she has lost.
Rating : K
Set some time after the end of the first season.
Disclaimer : Nothing is mine, ...
Author Note : I was bored. I wrote that. I should get bored more often!
December 1888
"I may have misjudged Helen. I have seen her at her best, and could not see past the façade she had put up, but now that she has let every wall down, I finally come to see how beautiful, determined and talented she is. It hurts to realize that as I see her disintegrating. It is like someone has sucked the life out of her, and was Nikola not that worried about her, I would wonder if he did not have something to do with it.
I remember thinking there was more between Helen and James than just friendship. I am convinced I was right, but not in the way I originally thought. This time more than ever, he proves to be a real support, almost a brother to her, and has gotten past his own anger and deep disappointment to help her cope with her pain and loss. If I was not already convinced of how great a man he is, I have probably just gotten the proof. Helen's virtual absence, her lost and yet strangely still stare seem to make any member of the Five lose their footing, but not James. Somehow, when I watch them, I feel like the only reason they keep going is each other. I can only hope it will remain this way for the rest of their not so quiet eternity."
Helen closed her eyes on the old diary in her trembling hands as she heard someone step in the room.
"Are you okay?" Will's voice was soft, caring, as usual when he was concerned about her. She cringed internally, realizing sometimes he truly was some kind of a pale copy of James, in a whole other way, but the resemblance was sometimes striking. She did not want to open her eyes, see the twenty-first century again, instead of that time she was from. She did not want to forget about all her friends back there, about all those hardships that had lead her to become who she was today.
When she had retrieved Arthur's diary from James' possessions, she would never have thought to find in it such a view on them, the Five, then the Four, up until it was only the Two. Her and James had gone to hell and back together, and she realized that, beyond her memories, there was hardly anything left of him but for the words of that man, either fictional or not.
John very certainly remembered him quite fondly, but they had not spoken of their oldest friend since he had passed away before their eyes.
"Magnus?" Will's voice again, calling her to the reality she had to face, from that day on, alone. He was not here to support her anymore, would never be but in her mind, a shadow in every of her decisions.
She looked up to face her new protégé, and wondered if the young man could ever guess what she really was thinking. How much she thought Arthur had been wrong. There had been so much more between her and James, wonders, pain, support. And love. A lot of love, indeed.