Echoes, a sanctuary fanfic

Disclaimer: All belongs to Damien Kindler and Stage 3 Media and Ms. Tapping and all the usual suspects who aren't me. Just borrowing these beautiful people. Thanks for the favor.:)
Timeline: "Sleepers" tag

Mucho beta thanks to Teddy E and annienau08!

"Echoes"

She only drank two glasses of wine. Two glasses is her limit. One glass makes her warmer. Two relaxes the cramps in the backs of her calves. Three she grows talkative. Four, and the walls fall away. Helen Magnus can't afford more than two glasses of wine.

Nikola all but finishes the bottle, and she wants to remind him he's human, that he might have a hangover in the morning. But she thinks he doesn't want anymore reminders tonight. (And maybe she doesn't either). The wine probably makes him feel a bit of invincibility.

He's taken his leave for the night and is slipping away toward the hallway when she says, "Nikola?" She's still seated on the sofa, legs crossed and arm resting along the back cushions.

Nikola turns, lazy in movement, but sharp as ever in perception. "Yes?"

Helen sets her crystal glass on the coffee table, straightens her skirt as she rises, and strolls up to her old friend. She folds her arms across her chest as though she's cold, but the air is warm from the fire. She moves in close, scuffling the toes of her shoes just barely against his, and she feels a bit sick in the moment she sees him notice the tears in her eyes.

Tesla looks the question to her, but has the decency not to speak. For once.

She clears her throat to ensure vocal steadiness. If she's going to say this, she wants to say it right. Hell, she's not even sure she wants to say a word, but somehow two glasses seem to have done the trick and she doesn't want to wander back to her room in silence. She speaks softly, deliberately. "Nikola....I didn't want you to be a vampire. I don't want you to achieve global domination. But...you are the only friend I truly have left who knew me...in my original lifetime. And...," Dammit...her voice shakes, and she should have just gotten the hell out after the first glass..., "I kind of liked you immortal."

She's ready to run, hide, never speak to him again, when Nikola's expression grows surprisingly soft. He raises his hand and lets the backs of his fingers graze lightly down her cheek. She briefly closes her eyes at the contact, drawing in his scent and remembering his musical laughter in a snowy courtyard outside Oxford, touching a hand to her shoulder when she told him one of the professors refused to let her audit his lectures and called her a "silly girl" ("You'll outshine them all, Helen my girl, just you wait and see. Your brilliance will leave that miserable old man in your dust.").

Nikola clicked his tongue, "I offered to make you a vampire. Should have taken it."

Her exhale is as much incredulity as pain. "Not a chance. At least this way I have faith I'll die eventually. Immortality is my worst nightmare."

"So...you wish your worst nightmare on me."

She looks at him a moment, then lets go a tearful laugh. "You deserve it."

"Hmmmm, perhaps. Well, on that note, I think I shall say goodnight."

He has turned once more to retire when she says, "Nikky?"

"Helen?"

She hates the raw note in her own voice, the chill in her guts. "Please be honest with me. Just this once." And she sees it, the moment when he starts to give her a reproachful look, then defers to the sincerity of the moment. She pushes forward. "In Rome...last spring...would you have let them kill me? Your...minions."

A devilish smile twists its way across Nikola's mouth, but there is a seriousness in his gaze that hurts to see. She's feeling too raw too fast and she definitely should have gotten out earlier, gotten some sleep. To her utmost surprise Nikola Tesla moves away from the door, steps close again, tilts his head, and says simply, "Can't you tell when you're being manipulated? Here I thought you knew my mind so well, dear Helen."

Helen nods and holds eye contact for a while. Then she says, "Goodnight."

She's halfway around the sofa, fingers on the spine of the book she left on the coffee table, when she realizes this time it's Nikola who's unwilling to go.

"Helen?"

"Hmm?"

He stands near the doorway, a fair distance between them. But his words sail across the gap and steal her breath. "I'm sorry I couldn't save Ashley, Helen. I did try. I may be a genius, but...," he fades into a shrug, "I couldn't figure it out. Not without time. But I did try. I didn't want this for you."

She has to work to speak without crying. She was a little raw already, and the mention of Ashley cuts hard and deep. "I knew that," is all she says. They hold eye contact for a little while, then without another word, he heads back toward his rooms.

****

Will is buried behind a week's backlog of reports on his desk when Helen Magnus appears in his office doorway. He looks up, surprised, welcoming, and glances at his watch to solidify himself in time. Their days have been a little haphazard, lately. "Hey, Magnus. You still up, too?"

She draws a breath, lifts an eyebrow and nods, but doesn't speak. She steps inside the room, and pushes his door closed behind her. The gesture is out of the ordinary, there are few secrets within these walls, and he thinks this may be a purely professional visit, something sinister afoot. But she moves with none of the businesslike urgency that usually accompanies such late night crises. Magnus takes a seat on his couch, back straight, hands lightly clasped around her knees. She nods once more, perhaps responding to some internal dialogue, locks her focus on the vase on his coffee table, and doesn't speak.

Will's about to fill the strange silence with a question when he sees the tears; the thin sheen of liquid brightening her gaze. He drops his paperwork. The inventory file slides across his leg and falls to the floor. "Magnus?"

Her exhale is self-conscious, eyes blurred and gaze restless. "Is it too late to change my answer?" she breathes.

Will scrambles for meaning. This is important, he's sure of it, and he runs through every moment, every exchange like a computer searching for keywords, when... "Your answer...to...," it clicks, and his tone softens with a tenderness he knows is far less than professional, "...to whether or not you're okay?"

Magnus doesn't reply, but the catch in her breath is all the confirmation he needs, and he pushes to his feet, moves across the room, and takes a seat beside her.

She remains in place, carefully and properly postured. There are tears on her cheeks, and he can almost feel the heat wafting off her flushed skin.

Will reaches a tentative hand to rest between her shoulder blades, warms the smooth cotton of her dress. When she doesn't withdraw, he begins to draw gentle circles over her back, toys a little with her hair.

Magnus's breath is shallow and unsteady, and he watches the muscles of her jaw and throat clench and shift as she swallows. The Sanctuary seems preternaturally quiet, and he wonders where everyone has gone. Several breaths pass before Will asks, "Did you ever eat anything?"

Magnus runs a tongue over her lips and shakes her head.

He lets that ride. Then says, "This isn't just about...Tesla, is it."

Magnus closes her eyes.

Will doesn't need the words. He doesn't need to know if her tears are over her father, or Ashley, or Watson, or Druitt, or whatever the hell happened in Honduras that makes her blanche when he catches her shirt sleeve helping her out of her coat. All he needs to know is that she's sitting in his office with tears on her cheeks instead of snapping and yelling that he can't go to Iceland because of his libido and a vampire squid.

He isn't going to falter when she holds out her hand.

"Come here," he says simply. Summoning all the nerve he has, Will pulls Helen Magnus into his arms before either of them can think through the consequences.

The first and only time he's hugged her (held her) came when she threw herself in his arms with an ozone beetle in her head. But part of him wants to believe she didn't act against her nature, only gave in to the needs that lay beneath her iron defenses. Tonight he chooses to believe that beneath this practiced and composed exterior lay the woman who sank into his embrace that cold morning, a woman who would welcome warm arms around her now.

To his tremendous relief (and burgeoning concern), Magnus doesn't resist, but turns into his embrace and slides her hands up his back to hold on tight.

She doesn't fall into helpless sobs like some girl in a film, but she doesn't stop crying, either. She tucks her face into his neck, and he can feel the warmth of her breath and the dampness through the cloth on his shoulder. He continues the steady circles over the tense muscles in her back, raises one hand to nestle into the hair at the base of her neck.

After a moment, Magnus says softly, "I'm glad you're here, Will."

He's not sure if she means tonight, here, in this office, in the Sanctuary altogether, or just in her life. But he doesn't ask. He pulls her a little closer and breathes into her hair, "So am I."

In the end, she slips away without another word. A soft smile of gratitude and a gentle nod. He wants to say, "I'll make you something to eat" or "Can you sleep" or "Are you sure you're okay" but he can't seem to get any of the words across his lips before she's gone.

Her scent remains on his clothes, her energy shimmering in the wake of her steps. He sits amid the echoes for a long time before he returns to his forgotten files.

*****