Before the Future Comes the Past
Rating: K
Note: This takes place right after the events of Eulogy.
The sight of the city lights glowing against the stained glass windows of her office was usually a sight Helen Magnus enjoyed as she avoided the sleep that seemed to come so easily to others, but there was nothing enjoyable about the day or night or months that had led up to her standing in this spot. Looking out at the landscape of the city her daughter had grown up in, Helen couldn't help but think of all the places they'd been and the places they would never go. Would she ever be able to go back to Larsen Park and not think of the little girl who'd loved the swings, begging "Mommy, higher, higher."? The city would never be the same and now that Ashley was gone, neither would she.
Still standing there, she felt his presence before she heard him. And as he approached, Helen's resolve began to fade. She turned on her heals and buried her head in his shirt sobbing with a force of all the life within her, clinging to the lapels of his jacket for fear that she might end up a crumpled ruin at his feet. She felt his arms tighten around her body, enveloping her in the shared grief of losing their only child. His breathing steadied her cries until the tears were gone and her breaths matched his own. She stood within his cocoon allowing herself to gain just a modicum of solace when she'd lost so much.
"I'm sorry I didn't stay for the memorial," John Druitt sighed. "I couldn't."
Helen held fast to the silence for fear that the spell might break and her grief might be momentarily overshadowed by her history with this man.
"Ashley wouldn't have wanted you to be alone," John said, his hand moving up her back in a soothing gesture, amazed by what the feel of her body did to him after so long without it.
Still wrapped in his arms, Helen whispered, "I wasn't alone."
The silence once again enveloped them as the dichotomy of Helen's life in the Sanctuary surrounded by people who cared about her and Ashley contrasted with John's life alone. Yet each of them knew they could only find comfort in the arms of the other.
Finally shifting in his embrace, Helen looked up at the man who'd somehow managed to keep her heart through two lifetimes and numerous unspeakable acts. "She wouldn't have wanted you to be alone either, John."
He looked in her eyes, searching for recriminations or contempt or the hatred he'd come to know, but there was none of that, just the softness that was his Helen. The look she'd reserved for him until that fateful time when the quest to save him had torn them apart.
"The EM shields are down," John said, feeling her tense.
"I'd hoped…" she began, moving away from his body and back to her place by the window.
"That somehow she would come home?" he finished, moving to her side.
"Or that you would," she answered honestly, meeting his gaze. "She didn't want us to be enemies."
He looked down at her, his brow furrowed, wanting so much to tell her that it would all be as she wished, but knowing the violence within him was returning faster and faster each time he used his gift. He could not do that to her again. Tentatively, he raised a finger to her hair, gently pushing it to the side the way he'd done in their former lives.
"I have to go," he said, his deep voice full of emotion and timber. "I find that I cannot control this nature of mine for very long a time."
"Maybe Tesla…"
"I do not believe I would survive another round of Nikola's treatment," he said, putting his hand to his chest where the scars of the last treatment were still burned into his skin.
Helen put her hand over his.
"Then why did you come back?" she asked, unconsciously stepping into his space.
"To make sure you were fine," he answered, looking down at the mother of his child. "A luxury I did not have last time."
"Let me help you," she begged, her heart panicking at the thought of losing him and Ashley all at once. Was this the man she once shot to stop him from killing? Her heart and head were warring, and after what she'd been through today, her heart was winning.
"I won't drag you through this again, Helen," he said with resolve.
Helen slid her hand up his chest to the back of his neck applying gently pressure to bring his face to hers. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, capturing his lips for the first time in over 100 years. They were the same. Her kiss was gentle and he made no move to deepen it. He leaned his forehead to hers, their breaths mingling.
He straightened up to look at her and asked, "You know how to call if you need me?"
Helen nodded sadly. He was smiling, but Helen could see the pain in his eyes. The pain from fighting to keep control long enough to leave her. Suddenly in a flash of energy, he was gone, but unlike times before, Helen began to look forward to the next time he would return. He was one more link she had to Ashley, just as Ashley had been one of the few reminders of her happier times with John.
Helen turned back to the window she'd been through just a few moments before, before John had come and a glimpse into the past brought her hope for the future.