Written for the Forever Ficathon; Tropes Gone Wild challenge, however I had started on this idea before I stumbled upon the announcement and went "hey…". :D Rated for mature subjects, but the rest is squeaky clean. ;)
This takes place post canon and is woven into my own writings, basically becoming sort of a personal headcanon. There are certain references to my recent story, 'Unexpected' and though this piece should certainly stand on it's own, you can also read them together as companion pieces.
For a pronunciation guide and historical notes I've added an additional chapter. The historicals are toward the end and do contain spoilers, so if you'd rather not be spoiled, stick to the pronunciations of any foreign names or words until the end of the story.
As always, the characters within are not mine but are the property of Matt Miller and WB. I just like playing with them occasionally.
And last but definitely not least, an extra special thanks goes to my beta, Idelthoughts. Not only did she kick me in the pants when needed, but also kept me from rambling. Again, thank you. Your help is, as always, greatly appreciated.
Oh and yes, I cheated on the character tags, but it would have ruined the surprise otherwise. ;)
Chapter One
He learned to tell the days of the week and hours of the day by the play of shadows across the ceiling and the schedule of the hospital personnel. Of course, not at first, in the beginning he was angry. No, angry wasn't a strong enough word, he was furious; so furious that adrenalin raced throughout his bloodstream like a two hundred year old brandy. He had to admit though, Henry had played his hand very, very well and he was almost… proud of him. That didn't stop Adam from wanting to slice him a thousand times, slowly, before finally letting him die and hunting him down to repeat the process all over again. Sadly, all he could do was lay in this hospital bed. He had his choice of staring at the back of his eyelids, the ceiling or the upper portion of the wall directly opposite the bed, and eventually his anger cooled. That was when he started studying the patterns of the hospital staff and pairing those with the quality of light and dark.
Henry came weekly, rarely talking after the first day. He would simply check the chart he had brought with him from the nurse's station, and sometimes making covert changes to its pages. His mere presence however provided an odd sense of comfort, as well as one of frustration that they were back to square one.
On Henry's third visit Adam had decided that it must be a Sunday, since the hospital was quieter than on other days. It was also the second of two days that there were no doctors' rounds. After a handful of Sundays, Henry even brought his detective. Again neither of them spoke, but Adam could hear them murmuring quietly to each other outside the door once Henry had completed his weekly records check. And strangely enough, the younger immortal began talking to him after that. At first it was just a simple greeting as he came in. After several more weeks, it became snippets of lives being led outside the hospital's confines; Abraham's genealogy efforts and their appreciation of the info Adam had provided, how the antique business was faring, or a particularly tricky piece of evidence that Henry had enjoyed uncovering. He never spoke of the detective though, which Adam found telling. Still, to his own amazement Adam started looking forward to hearing about everything Henry did offer up.
After what Adam felt to be at least six more weeks, and probably four months total since he'd found himself tucked away in the hospital, he started receiving another visitor. Although he was at a complete loss as to their identity, he knew it was a woman by the hint of perfume that made it's way to him occasionally. There was also just a feminine feel about the presence. Lay in a hospital bed unable to move for long enough, and your senses go into overdrive.
At first he thought that his late night companion might be one of the hospital staff. He was by now very familiar with their presence and movements, but unlike his regular nurses, she never greeted him or approached the bed. He also never heard the typical sounds that came from the cleaning staff, who for the most part only came in during the day. She, on the other hand, always appeared late at night when the only light was a single, dim bulb, and the silence was as deep as it gets inside a hospital. As the nights wore on, he would occasionally get the briefest glimpse of her as she wandered about the room; a pale lock of hair here, a flash of white skin there. Despite moving his eyes to the limits of his upper and lower vision, the only articulation he could manage, she was always just out of sight.
After six nights by his best count, his mysterious visitor was about to drive him to complete distraction. Even recounting everything that he had thought about doing to Henry when he could move again, and he would move again, didn't take his mind off of her. He wanted to scream at the younger immortal when he appeared on the following Sunday, to beg that Henry adjust the head of the bed upward just a little bit more, so that he could finally see the mysterious woman. He even tried to signal Henry with his eyes, but to his great frustration the muscles wouldn't obey him well enough to produce even the most basic of Morse code.
Finally, exactly ten nights from the one when she had first appeared, a Tuesday if he had calculated correctly, she entered the room and walked straight to the bed. She was accompanied by the sound of one of the small metal carts that the hospital staff transported supplies on. After it grew quiet he waited, and waited, until he began to wonder if maybe he had imagined the whole thing. Then he heard her clear her throat and felt her breath faintly on his cheek.
"I'm going to place my left hand on the right side of your face and move it slightly to the side so we can see each other better, alright?" she said in a light, calm tone. She then reached across Adam's face with an arm that smelled lightly of the Lily of the Valley scent that he had detected on her previous visits. Gently laying a soft hand along his face from temple to jaw, she turned his head so that their gazes met.
The first thing he saw were large eyes of an indeterminate color framed by long lashes and dark winged eyebrows. A cascade of loose curls, which appeared to be ash blond in the low lighting, fell just past her shoulders and teased along her jawline. She had delicate features, her skin glowed with a fragile paleness, and she was smiling gently at him with full, well formed lips. Concentrating on his peripheral vision allowed Adam to see that she had a long, graceful neck, and was wearing the rose pink scrub top that typified the uniform of the female hospital staff, but no name tag. The woman's smile grew slightly and she cocked her a head bit to one side before speaking again.
"Well Adam, it's nice to finally meet you, even though you have been a very, naughty boy. Don't worry though, I won't hold it against you too much. Now, I do believe the nurses were preoccupied and missed your bath today, so why don't we remedy that while we talk, hmm?" Turning, she pulled the cart she'd brought closer to the bed. Adam could see a green plastic basin as well as several towels arranged neatly on the metal surface. Turning back to Adam with the same peaceful smile, she slipped both hands behind his neck to untie the top of his hospital gown.
To say that Adam was intrigued would be an understatement. Short of Henry's second wife, no mortal had caught his attention in almost a millennium. The only women he had touched in that same amount of time had been of the oldest profession; simply used as a convenience, then paid and dismissed. He certainly didn't consider himself the monster that Henry tried to make him out to be. However, when everyone around you lived such a brief amount of time, you tended to think of them more like a pet at best, and at worst a means to an end. This lovely creature though, and Adam could still admire beauty in the human form as easily as that of a well turned sculpture, piqued his interest. He also felt like he'd seen her before, however he couldn't seem to remember where.
Dragging himself out of his thoughts like a swimmer breaking the surface of the water, Adam realized that this new caretaker had stripped his hospital gown off quickly and efficiently, while barely disturbing the sheet that covered his lower half. As he watched, she gathered the edges of the bottom sheet in her hands before looking him in the eye.
"Shall we start with the back? That way we can get to know each other a bit before reaching the front," she said before gently flipping him over with as much skill and ease as she had removed his gown. She then positioned his head and ventilator hose so that he could at least see some of her movements.
Just out of his field of vision, Adam heard the sound of water cascading back into the plastic bin on the cart. Seconds later, the feeling of a warm sponge touched his left shoulder, glided it's way upward, across the back of his neck, and then back down toward the right shoulder. It was followed quickly by the roughness of a towel. The bearer of the items hummed fleetingly under her breath before speaking.
"I would say I have you at somewhat of a disadvantage, but since I'm guessing that Adam isn't really your name… there's really no hope for it presently though, so I'll be forthright anyway," she said. "My name is Molly Dawes... at the moment. I was blessed under a night sky and given the name Maille Nic Delbáeth Ierne. I am a child of De' from what you would have originally known as Hibernia, and was born twelve hundred some odd years before Rome completed its conquest of Britannia. So you see, Adam was actually a rather poor choice of monikers when it came to teasing Henry. Oh and no suspicions, not only does Henry not know my secret, he also has no idea I'm here. I actually haven't seen or talked to him for several months, though like you, I've been keeping an eye on him."