Title: All Deaths I Could Endure
Author: NoCleverSig
Summary: James, Nigel, and Nikola confront Helen with John's crimes, but her denial of his guilt leads to something none of them had foreseen.
Characters: Helen/John, Nikola, James, Nigel
Genre: Angst/Romance
Rating: MA
Season: None. Prequel fic
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sanctuary or the characters, I just play with them. My words and plot, however, are my own.
Author's Note: I'm a Helen/John shipper, but sometimes I think I (we) forget just how horrid the crimes of Jack the Ripper were and what it would have been like for these characters to truly go through that revelation. This fic is based on that thought. The title based on a quote from Milton: "So dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life."
All Deaths I Could Endure
(Copyright 2010 NoCleversig)
Fall had descended over London like a funeral shroud, driving away the warmth of summer and bringing with it the cool, dark nights of autumn.
Four of The Five, James Watson, Nigel Griffin, Nikola Tesla, and Helen Magnus sat in the drawing room of her father's home in uncomfortable silence. The crackling of the fire and the ticking of the mantle clock, a token from Gregory's travels to India, the only sounds to be heard now that James had ceased speaking.
It was Nigel who finally broke the tomblike hush that had fallen over the room. "It's true, Helen," he said. Griffin glanced at James then toward Nikola who stood in the corner of the parlor, arms folded, his slim frame cast in shadow. "I saw it with my own eyes. You must listen to him," he said. "You must believe us."
"No," Helen replied, her voice unsteady. "It's not possible. It's not possible," she repeated again, shaking her head, attempting to convince herself of the falsity of their charges.
"Helen," James started, laying a hand on her shoulder for comfort.
"Don't!" she snapped, jerking away from his touch, refusing to meet his gaze. James closed his eyes and sighed. He sat next to her on the couch, Nigel across from them in an arm chair. The evening had closed around them, only the dimmest of lights visible outside. Nigel, Nikola, and James had agreed this was the best place, the best way to tell Helen what they had learned, to break the news to her that her fiancé, John Druitt, was not the man he seemed but something else…
Something abnormal. Something monstrous.
James had shown her the evidence, logically explained the results of their investigation. Helen had listened without comment, her hands folded, lips quivering. Nigel had watched as she shut her mind to what James was telling her and had stepped in to validate his friend's claims.
It was October 1, 1888. The Ripper had killed two women last night, and Nigel Griffin had witnessed them both.
The first, Elizabeth Stride, was murdered in Whitechapel. Nigel, invisible, had tracked John Druitt through the streets, losing him only for a moment when the woman's screams pierced the night. Nigel spun, ran down the cobblestone alley, and saw his friend, blade dripping with blood, face smiling in the lamplight, the limp body of Elizabeth Stride falling at his feet. Nigel shouted, startling Druitt, and he teleported away, unable to complete his ritual.
Less than an hour later Griffin found Druitt again, this time in Mitre Square, but by the time he arrived Catherine Eddowes was dead, and John had moved from killing to mutilation, leaning over her still warm body extracting her kidney, her uterus, and holding them in his blood-soaked hands. Nigel, still invisible, turned and dropped to his knees, vomiting in the bushes. By the time he'd recovered, Druitt was gone, and Catherine Eddowes' disemboweled body and mutilated face lay in a pool of blood on a small patch of green grass in London.
"I saw it with my own eyes, Helen," Nigel said, his mind unable to shake the image. "It was John," he finished, his voice breaking. She may be John's fiancée, but he was John's friend. The revelation was a blow to all of them.
"No," she said rising from the couch, anxiously twisting her engagement ring, her blonde hair falling in long curls on her back. "You're wrong, Nigel. You're all wrong!" she shouted at them. "I know him. You know him," she pleaded. "He's not capable of this...he's not…." She stopped, closed her eyes, trying to stop the trembling that had started. "He's not," she said again, her voice fading.
"Helen," James said, standing up, reaching out for her, afraid she might faint.
"Don't, James!" she said sharply, her voice cracking, tears threatening. She circled the room, frantic, unable to sit, unable to stand, feeling at any moment that she would be sick. Her mind was in fragments. She was to be John's wife. He was to be her husband. They were going to have children. A home. A family. It wasn't possible. It simply wasn't….
Helen swallowed, breathed deep, and stammered, "Gentlemen, I need some air." And before they could stop her, she ran out into the night.
"James!" Nigel shouted. He started after her but Nikola stepped out of the shadows laying a hand to his chest. "I'll go. I'm faster" he said. James nodded.
Helen ran through the city streets, eyes clouded with tears, the gas lamps dimly lighting her way. Her mind was a mass of imagery. John's smile, his laugh, his voice, their engagement, a picnic in St. James, riding along the Serpentine, a kiss in Regent's Park, the Ripper murders, the grisly deaths of Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, throats slashed, bodies disemboweled, faces mutilated.
John the Ripper. God no! God in heaven no!
She began to sob, unable to control her emotions now, gasping for air. Not seeing where she was going she tripped over a tree root and started to fall when two arms reached out and caught her. She looked up.
"Nikola?"
He pulled her into a small garden square and sat her down on a bench beside him out of the way of prying eyes.
"Tell me it isn't true, Nikola. Please, God, tell me it isn't John!" She clung to his jacket, tears streaming down her cheeks. Nikola looked at her, never having seen her this distraught, this frail, and put a hand to her head in comfort. As much as he hated John, he would never wish this upon her. But she had asked him for the truth, and she above all people deserved his honesty.
"John is the Ripper, Helen. The Ripper is John," Nikola said.
Helen threw her arms around him and Nikola caught her, holding her tighter than he had ever done before. If he were truthful with himself, he would admit that he had dreamt of such a moment and that part of his hatred of John was pure envy of him. How could he, John Druitt, who was so beneath her, have earned her love so completely?
They sat that way for a long time, Helen sobbing, Nikola holding her. Finally, she quieted. Nikola pulled back to look at her. He could make out the redness in her eyes in the dim light of the street, but there were no more tears. Her expression no longer one of sorrow but of resolve.
"I need to see him. I need to see John," she told him, her voice steady now.
"Helen, are you mad?" Nikola asked. "You can't, he may know that we know. He may know that you know. He may…" He couldn't bring himself to say it, think it.
"He won't hurt me, Nikola."
"Helen!" Nikola told her. He held her by her arms wanting to shake her into reason.
"I need to see for myself! I need to know for myself!" she cried. "Nikola, please…."
It was the "please" that undid him. Yes, he could force her back to her home. The three of them could take turns keeping watch over her, a prisoner in her own house. But she would only slip away again. She was set on seeing this with her own eyes. Needed to. And Helen Magnus was not a woman easily swayed.
"I'll come with you," he said.
"Nikola…"
"I'll wait outside, around the corner. If there is trouble, if he threatens you in any way…"
"I'll scream," she said, acquiescing, knowing he would follow her regardless.
He nodded. Despite Nikola's new found vampiric abilities, he feared that a scream would be too little, too late. And should something happen to Helen, he would not allow himself to be forgiven.
Helen looked out over the square and at the homes in the street beyond. They wouldn't have far to go. She had run, blindly already, to John's house.
He had rented a room near Charing Cross. He was saving his money from his new position to purchase a home for the two of them once they were married. She had told him they could live in her father's house until they could afford a dwelling of their own, that she could support herself without his efforts, but John wouldn't stand for it. They couldn't be married until he could provide her a proper residence and living, he said. He was set on it. So they waited.
Helen walked up to the home, Nikola remaining in the shadows behind. It was late. Too late for callers. But Helen knocked on the door regardless.
After a time, a servant, Maggie, Helen remembered, answered in her night gown, candle in hand.
"Dr. Magnus?" she said, squinting at her, her red hair popping out of her nightcap.
"I need to see Mr. Druitt. It's urgent. Is he at home?" Helen asked.
"Ma'am it's late. Mr. Druitt's already retired to his chamber."
"It's important Maggie, please."
The woman hesitated, and then opened the door fully to let her in. "I'll go get him…"
"No, that's all right. I'll go myself."
Maggie laid a hand on Helen's arm. A woman, a single woman, going to a man's bed chamber simply wasn't done. "Dr. Magnus, no, I'll go fetch him for you and bring him down to the drawing room. Just wait here."
"It's all right," Helen said again, and moved past her up the stairs toward John's room. She was far past the point of caring about convention or her reputation.
She reached John's door and closed her eyes, steeling herself against what she might find within. With a deep breath she knocked. She heard noises, movement from the bed, the rustling of clothes. After a moment, the door cracked open.
"Helen?" he said surprised. "My dear, what is it? Are you all right?" John asked his face lit with concern.
No murderer stood before her now. No man with bloodied hands, bloodied clothes, his eyes wild. There was only John.
"I…" she hesitated, she hadn't planned on what she would say, so she told the simple truth. "I needed to see you."
"Has something happened? Are you ill? Is your father ill?" he asked anxiously.
She shook her head, her lips trembling. "No…I just…John…."
He glanced out the doorway and down the hall and whispered to her, gently taking her hands. "Helen, let me dress. We'll go downstairs to talk. You shouldn't be here. The servants will gossip."
"I don't care," she said. "I need to see you, John. Please, let me come in."
He looked at her, puzzled, but opened the door so she could enter.
His room was plain and neat. The same as it had been the few times she had been there before. The same as it was in Oxford. She had teased him about it then, he being a step closer to Godliness than her because of his obsessive cleanliness. Books and papers were stacked methodically on his writing desk. His journal lay open, his pen put up, his place clearly marked. His wardrobe closed, his clothes carefully tucked away. A waist coat, one she had given him for his birthday, the only piece of clothing not put away, lying neatly folded across the top of his arm chair.
"Come, sit down," he said, his voice deep and quiet. He took the waist coast and crumpled it, tossing it underneath his bed. Then he sat her down in the arm chair, kneeling in front of her, holding her hands tightly so that he could speak with her eye to eye.
"My love, what's happened?" His voice was full of worry.
Helen looked at him, searching his eyes, his face, his voice for a sign. Any sign that what James and Nigel had said could be true. If it had been, would she not see it? Could she be so blindly in love that she could miss the monster that lie beneath? No, it couldn't be possible. All that knelt in front of her now was John, her John, his brown hair falling carelessly over his eyes, eyes that looked at her only with love and concern.
She threw her arms around him and held him tightly. "I need you, John. I need you so much. Promise me you will never leave me. Promise me!"
He returned her embrace and whispered in her ear. "I shall never leave you, Helen. I will love you for all eternity." And he turned and kissed her on her cheek.
She pulled away from him, the dim light of the oil lamp at his bed side casting him in shadow. She moved her hands out of his and laid them on each side of his face. His cheeks were rough with stubble but warm and full of life. She leaned in and kissed him, he tasted only of John, sandalwood, cigar, and just a hint of Scotch whiskey. She deepened the kiss, wanting to meld her whole body with his, he responded in kind opening his mouth, his tongue tangling with hers. When they finally pulled away from each other they were breathless.
"Helen?" he said, his eyes full of passion, his voice a question.
"Love me, John. Now. Here. Love me."
"But Helen…."
"Please," she said.
He hesitated only a moment searching her face to make sure she was certain, then stood up, taking her hands in his and drawing her with him to his bed. He undid her clothes slowly, deliberately, giving her time to change her mind, until she lay naked in front of him. "You are so beautiful, Helen," he said, his voice catching as he gazed over her body, trailing sweet kisses down her face, her neck, her breast. "You are my golden angel. My savior." He began to remove his nightshirt but she stayed his hand. "Let me," she said. And she slipped it off and over his head, his smooth muscled chest bare before her. She ran her lips across him, and he sucked in a breath, his hands running through her long, golden hair. He urged her down on the bed underneath him, covering them with his quilt out of an inherent sense of modesty and leaned in to kiss her again. She could feel his hardness growing against her stomach, knew biologically what was happening between them, but frightened, foolishly so she thought, at the actual act of it.
"Are you sure, my love?" he asked again, sweetly.
She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck, her eyes not leaving his. He took his fingers and probed her center gently. At first she was startled by his touch, embarrassed, but soon, his fingers moved faster around her, inside her, she wasn't sure where he ended and she began. She felt her breath quicken, a swelling rise up within her, a sensation she had never felt before prepared to burst forth from her. It was like an avalanche falling over her, she was spinning, her eyes shut tight in darkness. She cried out, and he stifled her cry with his mouth, sucking in her moans, wiping the sweat from her brow. "My God, John," she gasped. "I didn't know. I didn't know how much I could love you..."
He eased her back down on the bed. "Let me show you how much I love you, Helen." She could feel his hardness upon her and instinctively spread her legs wide for him, anxiously awaiting what it would feel like, how much it might hurt. He entered her slowly, carefully. There was momentary pain, but then a sense of utter fulfillment. He moved gently inside her, whispering constantly in her ears words of encouragement, love, ensuring she was all right. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him set the rhythm. It felt…indescribable. She fleetingly thought of Shakespeare and smiled to herself realizing the poets had not lied.
His rhythm moved faster now, and she pulled her legs up higher allowing him to drive deeper into her, wrapping them around his waist, moving faster in time with him. His body pounded into hers. She was moaning, crying in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder, his neck, when he suddenly arched up, his body so tight, his head dropping down again to kiss her to keep from voicing a scream.
They held each other that way for a while, neither one of them moving, wrapped in one another's embrace.
Finally John leaned back and looked at her, stroking her face with his hand, smiling. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known or will ever know. I love you Helen Magnus. And I vow to make you happy for all the days of your life." He smiled.
She smiled back at him and kissed him gently on the lips. Their heads touching forehead to forehead. Her engagement ring, opal with diamonds glittering in the fading light. Nigel, Nikola, James, they were wrong. So wrong. She would find out what had mislead them. A twin who looked like him? Another abnormal, someone with similar abilities? But what Jack it was that haunted the city was not her John. Had never been. That she knew.
"I should go," she said quietly, smiling at him, stroking the stubble on his cheek.
"I wish you could stay, sleep with me tonight," he said softly. "But you're right. Already the servants will talk. I'll see what I can do to stay them in the morning."
She shook her head. "Let them talk, John. Let the whole world know that I love you and I have loved you, I don't care."
He laughed. "Helen Magnus, never a woman of convention, are you?"
'No," she laughed back, "And it's a reason you love me so."
"It is," he kissed her sweetly, but then his eyes turned worrisome. "Helen, it's still nightfall. You shouldn't go home alone. You must let me escort you."
"No," she said quickly "I have a coach. It's waiting for me, " she lied.
He nodded. "Very well."
"But first, I must find my clothes," she giggled.
John laughed with her.
Helen sat up, naked in his bed, searching for her skirt, her blouse, her corset, her stockings. She leaned over the bed reaching underneath for her undergarments when she pulled out the waistcoat John had tossed there earlier. It was the waistcoat she'd given him for his last birthday, the one that had been lying on the arm chair when she arrived, the one he had crumpled and tossed away.
It was stained in blood.
Her hands shook and she dropped it to the floor, her heart beating wildly. Quickly, she tossed it back under the bed, praying to God he hadn't noticed, hadn't seen.
He laughed behind her, leaning over her now. "Find everything?" She reached again, blindly under the bed and this time pulled out her undergarments.
"Yes," she turned to him feigning a smile. "Finally."
She dressed as he watched her. His eyes on her skin no longer caressing her but making her shiver in fear.
"Are you cold, Helen?" he asked, concern again in his voice.
"A little," she lied.
He rose to touch her, to stroke her face. She did everything within her power to keep from flinching. "I hope you won't regret this night my love. I don't," he said gently to her. She looked at him, tears in her eyes. He must have attributed it to happiness or joy. "I have only one regret, John," she said, "Only that we could have loved a little longer." He cocked his head at her and stroked her hair, at first confused, but seeming to think she meant the evening had gone too soon. "Don't worry, love. Soon we'll be married and have all the time in the world." She nodded. Not able to trust herself to say anything more.
She turned to leave when John kissed her on the cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow? Perhaps a picnic and a stroll through Hyde Park?"
She smiled a forced smile. "Yes, a picnic would be nice," she said as calmly as she could. "Goodbye, John." He looked at her strangely. "Goodnight, my love," he replied.
Helen slipped down the stairwell and out the door as quickly and as quietly as possible. She turned the corner of the street. Nikola was there waiting for her. "Where were you? What happened?" He'd been waiting for nearly an hour. He looked at her, and then his eyes softened. Her hair was mussed, her dress crumpled, her face…devastated. "Helen," he said angrily, "Did he…."
"No," she answered sharply. "He didn't take advantage of me. He didn't do anything I didn't want. Anything I didn't initiate."
Nikola looked at her again, slightly taken aback. "But is he…did you find out if…."
She nodded, not able to look him in the eyes. "He is who you say he is, Nikola. John Druitt is Jack the Ripper," she choked on the words. "And I am deeply sorry," she paused, trying to maintain her composure, keep the tears at bay just a little while longer. "I am deeply sorry I doubted you."
Nikola wasn't sure what had transpired between the two of them, but from the look of her, he could hazard a guess. She had gone to John convinced that he was innocent and had left convinced of his guilt. All he could do now was comfort her. He offered her his arm and she took it. He walked her home in silence, no more words exchanged between them.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, Helen Magnus entered James Watson's home, her gloves stained with blood.
"My God, what happened?" James asked. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," she said, removing her gloves and her hat. "I tracked him again to Whitechapel, but I was too late. I couldn't save the girl."
"Helen…" Watson said, shaking his head. "You must quit going at this alone. You should take one of us. Me, Nigel, even Nikola."
"It doesn't matter now, James. I have ended it," she said quietly.
He looked at her, his eyes wide. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.
She started to remove her coat; Watson stepped in to assist her. He hung it on the hall tree while she moved to his couch, her eyes glassy and far away. "I shot him, just as he was teleporting. I'm fairly sure I hit the mark."
James stilled and then dropped down beside her, silent. He couldn't find any words to say. Helen's fiancé, his closest friend, was dead. He looked over at her and took her hands in his.
"My dear, are you all right?" he asked gently.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes blurry with tears. "No, James. I think not. I don't think I shall be right for a very long time."
He nodded. Of course not. None of them would be.
"Let me get you something to drink, some port, perhaps," he got up to pour her some wine.
"No, thank you, James, I can't," she said.
He smiled sadly at her. "My dear, now is not the time to take up the banner of abstinence."
She shook her head. "It's not abstinence that I'm guilty of, James. Quite the contrary. I don't have the data to prove it, yet, but I believe alcohol may be harmful to an unborn child."
"An unborn…." He stopped. "Helen?"
She looked up at him. "I'm pregnant, James."
James dropped the glass he had just picked up. It bounced on the Persian rug below. "How?" he asked, soon realizing the ridiculousness of his question. "When?" he asked instead.
"It doesn't matter," she shook her head. "All that matters is that it was John. When our child was conceived, it was John," she said adamantly. "And now, it's all I have left of him." Her tears started to fall in earnest.
James picked up the glass, set the port down, and moved to her, taking her in his arms.
"What can I do?" he asked gently, stroking her hair, holding her close.
"I have an idea," she said through her tears, "But I need your help."
"Anything, my dear, you know that," James answered her.
Helen pulled back from him, smiling sadly, beginning to tell him of her plan. But as he listened, all he could see was the way Helen's arms wrapped tightly about her stomach, protectively cradling the child within and, more tragically, bidding the father farewell.
END