Disclaimer: Sanctuary and all recognizable characters are the property of their creators and owners. I'd like to say I own my words but they're not really mine, I just pick them up from dictionaries and put them in a certain order on the paper. I do own the idea of this little story, though. No copyright infringement is intended and I make no money with this little writing hobby (aka addiction) of mine.
Spoilers: Eulogy (And therefore both parts of 'End of Nights')
Also a brief mention of events of Requiem and if you look closely, maybe something about Veritas, too.
Season: End of season 2, I think. Not related to any specific episode, though.
Warning: Character death.
Summary: One Friday morning the unexpected happens and nothing is ever the same again.
A/N: (edited 02/04/11)
No pairing, just friendship.
English is not my first language so I apologize for all the mistakes.
I had a bad day (a bad week, actually) and I wanted to write something very sad so I, uh, kinda killed Helen.
But that's only because I love her the most and her death is the most devastating event I could imagine.
Please forgive me.
I think the story is beautiful and hopeful despite the sadness so I hope you give it a chance.
Please, let me know what you think.
(The whole story is from Will's POV)
It's funny, really, how the moments that change everything can seem so insignificant when they happen. Just a few seconds passing by but later you realize that those seconds were when the whole world made a one-eighty and nothing is ever the same again.
It was a Friday morning at the Sanctuary and I was fifteen minutes early for a meeting at Magnus' office. To my surprise she wasn't there which was very unlike her but not all that worrying by the normal standards of the world. Kate and Henry walked in one by one and I watched them frown when they realized the boss wasn't there but neither said anything about it. We chatted about our weekend plans, about the latest addition to our 'collection' of deadly abnormals and -believe it or not- the weather which was very much linked to our weekend plans since sun was shining and it was almost warm enough to go to the beach. Henry was trying to guess how many bikinis Kate owns and I smiled at their flirty banter.
The Big Guy walked in two minutes before the meeting was supposed to begin and there was still no sign of Magnus.
"She's not here?" he grunted.
"No," I told him. "Haven't seen her all morning."
"She wasn't in the sitting room when I brought her morning tea. I assumed she was getting dressed."
At this point I was starting to get worried. From anyone else, sleeping in after a long, exhausting week would be completely understandable but from Magnus it was concerning. We walked to her quarters, knocked on the door and called her name several times, always waiting for an answer in between but heard nothing. Finally Big Guy pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door. He put his hand on my shoulder and with one glance at Henry and Kate told them to stay there.
"Magnus?" I called again as we made our way through the sitting room and I noticed a cup full of cold tea on the coffee table. I glanced at Big Guy and he grunted back to me, signaling he noticed it, too.
"Magnus?" I said softly as we pushed the door to her bedroom open. I was relieved to notice she was laying on the bed, asleep. "Magnus," I said a little firmer this time but still got no reaction.
"Helen," Big Guy tried but still she remained still, a little smile frozen on her lips. We were next to her bed the next second and I shook her shoulder.
"Magnus!" I practically yelled, expecting those beautiful blue eyes to snap open any second now with a slightly lost look she would shake the next moment. I slapped her on the cheek gently and then my hand stilled against her skin.
"She's cold," I whispered as the fear washed over me like a tidal wave. I took a deep breath and searched for her pulse. I remember yelling "no pulse" before I hopped on the bed and started CPR.
Soon Henry rolled a hospital bed out of nowhere and the Big Guy scooped her lifeless body up and gently moved her on it. I jumped in and kept the CPR going all the way to the infirmary. I remember my arms were burning but I didn't care.
We charged the defibrillator and shocked her. Over and over again. We gave her every drug that might help, even some of the Big Guy's herbs. We tried everything and more. We brought in every single machine we could think of, hoping to find a tiny bit of life hidden somewhere inside of her, that this was just some experiment gone wrong and she would bounce back if we just found a way.
At 9:27 am Big Guy declared her dead. After 82 minutes of trying to bring her back to life we had to give up. It was only justified that her oldest friend made that decision. I couldn't have done it; I would still be breathing air into her lungs right now if he had let me.
We all sat there around her, staring at that small smile on her lips which was still there now that her mouth was closed again. The heart monitor was screaming flatline on the background until the Big Guy turned it off. He seemed to be the only one of us who could even function. I remember wondering what she had been dreaming about. Then suddenly I realized I could never ask her about it and it felt like someone had just pushed my head into a basin full of ice water.
I remember getting up hesitantly and whispering I'd go call Declan. None of them said anything, but I knew they would stay there until I got back. Declan was in the country for a conference and promised to take the next flight and do the autopsy, help us figure out what happened. I hope I thanked him but I'm not sure if I remembered, I felt like I was walking in a fog. I still do, to be honest.
I walked back to the infirmary on autopilot. Without words the others understood that I wanted to be alone with her and left silently. Big Guy squeezed my shoulder before he walked out and I drew a chair next to her and for a long time just sat there and stared at her face, wondering what happened. She was healthy. Yes, she was almost hundred and sixty years old but she was in better shape than most of the people that were quarter of her age.
I took her hand and it felt so cold and lifeless that I almost crushed under the thought that I'd never feel her squeeze my hand back again. And it's funny how we let the time flow past us and never stop to think that whatever we're doing, it might be the last time we get to do it. And when it's gone, it's the little things you miss the most, the things you didn't even notice when you had them.
I miss her eyes more than anything. The sparkle that was always there, the determination, passion, love, humor... She could have whole conversations with just her eyes. I miss her voice, too, of course. Her laughter, the unique way she used the Queen's English, the accent which laced her every word, how she could always choose the right words... But even more than that I miss her eyes, because her eyes always spoke even when her lips were silent.
I remember fighting the urge to open her eyelids just to see those blue eyes one last time but even then I knew I couldn't. Magnus was gone and I needed to remember those eyes full of life, not empty and cold, staring at the ceiling. I had already seen that once, except that time she came back to me.
Our last conversation kept rolling in my head. Not because we said anything worth remembering but simply because it was the last time I'll ever talk with her. We had a cup of tea in her office that last night. She was still working, going through some reports. I didn't bother asking what they were about but now I find myself hoping I had, just to have something solid to cling to, something specific to help me tell that last night apart from all the others. But truth is, it was just like all the other nights in her office, all the other nonchalant conversations, smiles which might have bordered flirty every now and then but never crossed the line. It was like any other night. Except for the fact that it was the last one.
I said goodnight to her and left her office around midnight. I know it's absurd but I keep thinking I should have known, I should have woken up in the middle of the night and realized something was wrong, something was missing. But I didn't. One second she was alive and breathing, dreaming about whatever happy things she had been dreaming about, the next she was dead and nobody noticed.
I whispered my apologies as I held her hand, still expecting her to wake up any moment even though I knew she wouldn't. Sorrow never follows logic, I know that.
I sat there next to her for a long time, trying to find something to say. In the end I realized that apart from the apologies there was nothing to say, nothing she didn't know already. There were no big confessions to make, nothing I wished I could take back or explain to her, no regrets. That set my soul to peace somewhat. That, and the smile on her lips.
"I hope you found your peace," I whispered and got up, squeezing her hand one more time before I placed it next to her on the bed. I reached to stroke her hair and briefly played with the idea of kissing her forehead but if felt wrong to do that when I wouldn't have done it if she was alive.
I walked out of the room without looking back. I nodded at the others and they took turns in saying their goodbyes as the rest of us waited in the corridor, silently. I know saying goodbyes at the infirmary probably isn't the standard procedure but we all needed the reality of it, the cold truth that we had tried to save her in that room but we couldn't. Funerals never felt real to me, they're more like a well practiced play where everyone tries their best not to think about what happened.
It's been a month now. Four weeks since we found her lifeless body in her bed. Declan brought an assistant with him because he knew we wouldn't be able to help him with the autopsy, not even the Big Guy. It was hard for Declan, too, but I'll be forever grateful that he did it because there's no one else I would have trusted with it.
He did every possible test, searched for every toxin – known and unknown – , took X-rays, CT-scans, MRIs... We found nothing, no explanation, no answer. Cause of death was a cardiac arrest. Her heart just stopped beating one moment at four o'clock in the morning. Just like that.
We never spoke about it but I think we were all comforted by that smile on her lips. Maybe we didn't get our answer, but at least we knew she wasn't in pain, that her last thoughts had been happy ones. I want to believe she didn't have any regrets, either.
She's buried next to Ashley now and I know that's where she wanted to be. I'm not sure whether I believe in afterlife or not, but I truly hope the two met somewhere on the other side.
The funeral was small and private and to my surprise John was there. He stood in the shadows and when everyone else had left, he placed a single red rose on her coffin and whispered what I assumed to be a promise to love her for all eternity and I have no doubt he'll do just that. I lingered in the doorway, watching him, a cold-blooded murderer, fall apart, his shoulders slumped, a single tear rolling down his cheek before he was gone in a flash. We all miss her so much but his loss must have been the greatest, over a hundred years wiped away with one last breath. I wondered if they saw each other as a long history or a possible future and for the first time I thought that maybe she did have regrets after all. But it's none of my business, just like it wasn't when she was still here.
We didn't hear from Tesla apart from a wine bottle which was left at our door one morning. It was Helen's favorite, Tesla had drank the last one from Helen's stock about a year earlier and she didn't speak to him for a week after that. We sat in her office, the bottle in the middle of her desk and laughed at the memory and many others before we put the bottle away, to the wine cellar, trusting we would know when the time was right to open it.
Life goes on at the Sanctuary, no matter how much it hurts. We've gotten hundreds of cards and lots of flowers from all around the world as the word spread about her death. We're all a little lost about what to do now that she's not here anymore, but the world won't wait until we've figured it out.
I run the Old City Sanctuary now. Declan helps as much as he can and he's also the head of the Sanctuary Network for now, until I learn the ropes. I always knew this would be my job one day, but I wish that day would have come a little later. I wish she was here to guide me but I know she believed in me, believed I could do this, and that helps me go on.
I miss her so much it physically hurts some days but I know I'm not the only one. We gather in her office every now and then when we want to remember all the good moments. We talk and share our memories. We smile and sometimes laugh so hard it turns into tears. But it doesn't matter because it's alright to miss the good things.
Nobody works in her office now, it's still hers and I think that's the way it will always be. There are lots of rooms in the Sanctuary. We can save one for the happy memories, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not a museum and we do read her books, borrow her pens and use her notepaper but we do our best to keep the crises and worries out of that room.
Every day there are fresh flowers at her grave. I often go there just to tell her I miss her. I never say it out loud because she always understood me without the words and I want to believe she still does. When I close my eyes, I see that little smile on her already blue lips. It's not what I wanted to remember of her but it's better than nothing because it eases the pain to know she's alright now.
And no matter how much I miss her voice, her advice, a comforting hand on my shoulder or just her calm presence which always reassured me no matter how hopeless the situation was, it's still her eyes I miss the most. Everything else I can live without.
A/N: Please, let me know what you think. It means a lot to me. If you can't figure out anything else to say, tell me what color this story reminds you of. For me it's pale lavender.