A/N: For the purpose of this oneshot, let's pretend that Moolinda Wu is passable as a human. Some things in my screwed-up headcannon just can't be helped.
This is my first story on , but I don't expect you to be overly nice because of it. No flames, please, but constructive criticism is welcome. :)
"No cure?!" Malistaire yelled in a rage. "What do you mean there's no cure?!"
On the other end of the hall of the muggle hospital, a tray fell to the floor with a bang. The one carrying said tray was Moolinda Wu, who happened to be working undercover at that very hospital.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Drake," a muggle nurse said as gently as she could. "It's a strain of influenza we've never seen before. I really am dreadfully sorry." And she was. The nurse hated to be the bearer of bad news. She had gone into the medical profession to help people, not to tell their relatives to stick by the bedside because their loved one might not make it through the night.
She tried to comfort him, but he was down the hall and in the waiting room before she could say so much as a word.
The Necromancer slumped down in a cheaply made chair and put his head in his hands, racked with sobs.
His brother sat awkwardly next to him; the Myth professor for once at a loss for words. Finally he said, "Are you alright?"
Malistaire shook his head sadly and looked up at his brother with reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
Cyrus's eyes widened. "Is she…"
Malistaire shook his head again. "No, not yet," he croaked.
"What are we going to tell Gloria?" Cyrus asked.
"Just tell her to come down here," the Death professor replied. "And to hurry. She'll know what that means."
The twins sat there for a moment, staring at each other, both asking a silent question: Will you tell her?
"Cyrus, Malistaire?" the level voice of Moolinda Wu asked from behind them. Instinct took over and both men turned, drawing their wands. Upon seeing that it was just Sylvia's former pupil, they lowered their weapons.
"Is there anything I can do?" she asked, the utmost sincerity in her voice. She hadn't been startled in the least by the professors' reactions, having attended Ravenwood for several years. "Do you want me to call anyone for you?" Moolinda continued carefully.
Cyrus, being the less shocked of the Drake twins, answered. "Could you contact Gloria Krendell?"
The undercover nurse nodded solemnly and hurried off to the office, where she could whisper to Gloria without anyone getting suspicious.
"Malistaire?" Cyrus asked, "Do you want to go see her?"
The distraught Necromancer nodded soberly, and the two brothers walked through the corridors of Mercy Hospital, looking more like a pair of ghosts than two living men.
Room 221 held Sylvia Drake. The Life professor was pale and sickly, her presence barely a whisper, not at all like the Sylvia they had seen only weeks ago: smiling and insisting her sickness was nothing but a cold. They'd known she was ailing, but there was nothing either Cyrus or Malistaire could have done to prepare for the sight that awaited them.
Sylvia gave them the ghost of a smile from the hospital bed that only served to make her look even worse, and told the unsettled duo to come in.
"How have you two been?" she asked, as if they were the ones with a life-threatening disease and she were the concerned relative coming to visit.
"There's no cure, Sylvia," Cyrus said, waving aside her greeting, if only to get the terrible words out of the way.
"I figured as much," she said hollowly, "They wouldn't tell me a thing."
Sylvia coughed into her hand, drawing it back with a dab of crimson liquid on her palm.
The brothers by the doorway looked alarmed and rushed to her side.
"It's nothing," she assured them. "It's been going on for days now."
Malistaire knew that, but he couldn't help being worried. As the Death professor, he knew that coughing up blood was never a good sign. He handed his wife a tissue from her bedside table, a concerned expression on his face. "Here."
The Life professor smiled wanly. "I don't have much time," she said matter-of-factly.
Sylvia had always been rather practical about life and death, both the schools and the events, but the calm way the Life professor stated that she was about to die startled both her husband and her brother-in-law.
"Don't say that," Malistaire said rather piteously.
"It's true, though," his wife answered resignedly. She took a gasping breath and coughed into her tissue, leaving still more blood behind.
Suddenly, she pulled the Drake twins into a group hug, shaking uncontrollably.
"I never wanted to go like this," she said. "Not like this, sitting in a hospital bed at age twenty-seven, knowing I won't live to see morning. I always wanted to go down fighting, some villain saying some cheesy one-liner as I draw my last breath."
"I could say a one-liner if it would make you feel any better," Cyrus told her.
The Life professor laughed weakly and broke the hug.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I just…"
"It's alright," both twins said instinctively.
Sylvia's mouth twitched. She had always found it slightly amusing when Cyrus and Malistaire said the same thing at the same time.
The Life professor started to prop her head up on her hand, much as she used to do as a young Journeyman Theurgist, but a lightning sharp pain rocketed through her entire body. She cried out and her head hit the pillow of her hospital bed.
Malistaire immediately grabbed her hand, and she tried to pull herself up, only to fall down again. Sylvia gave her husband a look that he understood immediately. He pulled her closely to him.
"I am slain," she said simply, then went limp. The machines monitoring her heartbeat flat lined. Tears streamed down the Death professor's cheeks while his brother sat there by Sylvia's bedside, not quite sure what to do.
"Shakespeare," he said after along while.
"I'm sorry?" Malistaire asked, only half hearing his brother.
"'I am slain'" Cyrus said, repeating his sister-in-law's last words, "She was quoting Polonius from William Shakespeare's Hamlet."