Five Funerals

Nikola Tesla, 1943

His service was conducted by a Serbian Orthodox minister in his native language, something he would have hated. Helen stood underneath the umbrella she was sharing with James and frowned the entire time.

"I know it's supposed to a funeral darling, but you can shake the storm cloud from your face," He whispered to her, shaking some of the rain from his shoes. She glared at the news photographers that were snapping pictures of the grave and muttered, "vultures".

"Where is the old boy now?" Nigel asked, shielded by the afternoon drizzle with his favourite bowler hat and heavy coat. He had snuck a bottle of wine into his pocket to sprinkle on the headstone later.

"I don't know," Helen muttered quietly under her breath. "Eisenhower's office hasn't said anything about him working with one of their think tanks…I can only assume he's hiding for a good reason."

James snorted. "Or at least he thinks so, given his inflated sense of his own importance."

Nigel chuckled quietly. "The FBI's gone and raided his entire workhouse for his patents, James, he's got the right to be a little spooked."

James stiffened slightly. "There's a war. He could be helping."

"I'm sure he is in his own way…" Helen trailed off, feeling two pairs of eyes on her. They both knew that if she called for him, if she asked him, Nikola would come out of hiding and join the war effort. She just didn't know yet if it was her place.

"Cheer up, love," Nigel joked, gently elbowing her. "This one's just a practice run."

Helen looked upon the stark headstone with his name emblazoned on it and finally smiled a little. It was true, he was off running somewhere with his mad schemes, and the Five were still standing.

Nigel Griffin, 1966

The sad twang of a guitar floated around the field, carried by the light summer breeze. It was a funeral full of music. The black workers of the farm had all gathered to say goodbye to their employer, beloved for his easygoing nature, good pay, and insistence of treating them all like family. They sang to the heavens, they sang songs only they were taught, and they played Nigel's favourite blues songs to send him off.

In a way, Helen thought wistfully, Nigel had also had a small sanctuary. He had bought a vast amount of property in New Orleans, and had gone against all convention for over twenty years on how he treated his hired hands.

His wife Isabel was sitting with their daughter Anna, her eyes red and raw. Helen and James had felt as if they had been intruding on a private affair, but Isabel had insisted they come. Nigel didn't have many friends outside of his family. The woman took a swig from a bottle of sour-mash whisky, which James had raised his eyebrows at, but Helen made no comment on. Things were different down here. They expressed their grief in different ways.

"It's just us, darling." She said sadly, the bending corn stalks and bird song in the air only making her feel more melancholy. It was a beautiful summer day.

"It's only been us for a while," He said quietly, the arm around her shoulders squeezing her tighter. She could feel the hard metal underneath his shirt pressing into her side.

"At least you won't escape me so soon," She laughed, thinking of the machine that kept him with her all these years.

He placed a light kiss into her hair. "I wouldn't dream of it."

James Watson, 2009

John felt nervous, wondering if anyone could see him. Everyone was here, but he wasn't sure if he was welcome. He stood far away, cloaked by the branches of a low-hanging willow tree.

Human and abnormal alike had gathered around the grave, a teeming procession of those who wished to say goodbye. There was Helen, standing right beside the grave, tears falling freely from her face, a small Latin prayer book in her hands. John felt a twinge of jealousy pass through him, quickly quelling the rage that threatened to build. He knew why he had to hide, why he couldn't be standing there over his friend with her, but he couldn't help feeling resentful.

All of the Sanctuary Heads had gathered, Zimmerman, the werewolf, and the hairy butler as well. Zimmerman looked particularly pained out of all of them, he had just buried his lover as well.

Poor schoolboy, he had many years still to learn what loss truly was.

Here stood the legacy of James Watson, loved, respected and adored by all the lives he had touched. John suddenly had a flash of when they were all in Bhalasaam…James suddenly withering away in front of him, a century catching up with him in a manner of seconds. His fist clenched tight, trembling, as he tried to chase the nightmare away again.

When Helen looked up she swore she saw a brief flash of orange light a few hundred yards away.

Montague John Druitt, 2054

"I'm surprised you're here."

Nikola shrugged. "So am I." His usual glib humour was gone, and he looked shell-shocked. He had hated John, competed with him, fought alongside him, despised him, and grudgingly admired him. He had also expected him to stick around.

Helen similarly didn't know what to feel as they sat by the headstone. It was a chilly, Autumn day and they were the only ones in the small, humble little cemetery.

Montague John Druitt, 1857-2054. A gentleman.

Nikola smirked a little at the engraving. "Fitting."

"Indeed." Helen felt the rush of bittersweet memories flood through her when she thought of the almost two hundred years she had known the man. All the world's a stage…and he had taken on many roles. Her lover, her daughter's father, her enemy, her burden, her guilty secret, her nightmare, her fixer, her knife in the dark and her mistake. When they had finally excised John of the energy elemental he had done everything he could to help her and mend their friendship.

But she had shut him out. She still found it too easy to never forgive him, to never let him try. He finally left, hiding away in the English countryside to write and paint, done with a murderer's life. She had never spoken to him once those thirty years.

"A hundred and seventy years is a long time to hate someone." Helen looked up, startled, but Nikola's face held no sense of irony or mockery towards the statement he made. She suddenly felt her chest constrict and her throat burn.

"But I do hate him," She wept, "I only know how to hate him, and now he's gone." She sobbed, she didn't know she still could after all this time, but John Druitt had broken her heart again and it felt like a fresh wound, as sharp as if it had been the first time she had ever been hurt.

"I'm sorry," She whispered miserably to the only man who had ever had full command of her heart.

Helen Magnus, 2372

Five hundred and twenty-two years. No, it had been longer…six hundred and thirty-five years, because you, Helen Magnus, had never done anything the ordinary way, including time. That was what had made her so special.

Nikola knelt by the grave, silent and still. The others had already left, one even the long descendant of one of her protégés, Katie Zimmerman…a footnote in a history of sanctuary.

She was supposed to live forever. What bitter semantics it was to pose longevity over immortality.

Dr. Helen Magnus. Thank you for giving us Sanctuary.

After her six-hundredth year, her body finally began to catch up to the life she had lived. He had worked tirelessly that entire time trying to create a new serum that mimicked the original source blood and would further her slow aging. He knew, he knew he had succeeded too, because she refused to take it.

He had even tried convincing her to let him find a way to turn her into a vampire, but that had enraged her so much she didn't speak to him for a year.

"Who wants to live forever?"

She wanted this. She wanted the peace, the chance to finally let go and look about her work and know it had been good. He begged her not to leave him alone, and there sat Helen with silver now in her hair, still beautiful, and she told him not to be silly. That he would never be alone.

Nikola finally came to his senses, the night air having frozen his skin. He stood up on creaking legs, gathering his arms about him. He didn't know he could still feel chilled.

Helen, anything but ordinary, the very opposite of everything he reviled in normalcy and the mundane…and was always the one who made him wish he were still human.

END