Title: First Truth and Last
Author: Trialia
Fandom: Sanctuary
Rating: T
Character(s)/Pairing(s): one-sided John/Helen; Ashley
Word Count: 251
Beta: Shukaku and Ellymelly - thank you ladies! :D
Spoilers: End of Nights, Part 2
Summary: He's never seen her look so broken.
A/N: First fic for this fandom. Title is courtesy of the Victorian poetess L.E.L. - I thought it fit.
x
He's known Helen Magnus for more than twelve decades, yet he's never seen her look so much like a broken porcelain doll. Tendrils of sweat-damp black hair cling to her tear-stained cheeks, blood dripping down her arm, but she's still so beautiful.
He wishes he didn't care; that he could walk away. But her pain is not only hers. Their daughter - or rather, the creature she has become at the hands of the enemy - just tried to kill them both; and now she is gone.
He doesn't know what he could possibly say that would affect that in the slightest. He can think of nothing that would even begin to reduce the strength of this blow to Helen, who had kept their child close and guarded from such a fate for so long. Nor anything that will reduce it for himself: having barely grown to know his brave, determined daughter, to have her ripped from him.
He stands a few steps away, gazing down at the only woman he's ever really loved, shattered and sobbing on the floor. Tears slide down his face as he watches her, his emotions warring between grief and rage.
To take her in his arms and offer the comfort he longs to give her would be too much, though he, too, needs it.
To hunt down and kill every last member of the damned Cabal would be too little for what they've done.
Even so... perhaps it's time Jack reasserts himself.
Just this once.
~fin