Summary: John comes to Helen and together they have a rare, stolen, moment together.
Rating: K
Pairing: Helen and John.
STOLEN MOMENT:
"You look like Hell."
Helen half laughed and half sighed at John's whispered words. For him this was concern and it touched her more so than if he had asked if she was well. She looked at his reflection as he came up behind her in her office while she stood at the window watching the night. Then she looked at her own reflection. He was right, she did look like hell. Who knew not sleeping for two weeks straight would take its toll on her? "That is so sweet of you John." Helen replied, sarcasm dripping from each word. Why did he have to come to her now when she was like this?
"It's still the truth. You haven't been sleeping." John stated rather than asked. He could see it in the way she stood, in the way she wouldn't face him, more than that he could see it in her eyes. Her reflection hid nothing. All the answers he would need would be in her eyes. She could never hide when he stared right into her soul.
Helen's shoulders slumped slightly under the weight of John's pensive stare. Back before the blood he had been kind, gentle, and easy with a smile. But now that face hid a terrible evil lurking in his body, an evil he could barely control for long periods of time. It made her reassess her long held hate for him. That evil that was polluting his soul had once taken over her Sanctuary and nearly killed them all. It would have had John not been there to stop it, to take the creature back into his being. All the old questions flooded her mind bombarding her with doubt. How could he be responsible for all those deaths? Was it really him? When did he encounter this creature? How could she cure him? The weight of those questions alone made her head throb. "There's too much to do and not enough time to rest." Helen lied through her teeth. It was all she could think to do with John standing there, standing within arms reach. She didn't know how to tell him the truth anymore.
"That's not it." John stepped closer careful to keep her where she was without provoking a lethal response that could harm him or her. Deep down he ached to reach out to her, to touch her, to hold her. To just reassure her with his arms around her, but his mind screamed violence. John had to concentrate on not hurting her. He had to steel himself from the natural urge to inflict pain. But the urge wasn't natural. It was the creature inside of him; the creature that was polluting his soul and keeping him from the woman he loved so dear.
"Since when have you earned the truth from me?" Helen asked with no inflection in her voice. She wanted to badly to tell him what was on her mind, what was in her heart. But she knew better than that. This John did not value weakness. He was a fighter, a warrior.
"Since that first moment I claimed you as my woman." He boxed her in with his body, his hands palm down on the cold glass. John needed to feel the heat of her body, smell the subtle perfume that was uniquely his woman, uniquely Helen.
Helen shivered at his darkly sensual tone, but she didn't let it drag her back down into the pit of memories beginning to stir inside of her. "Those days are long gone." She boarded up her emotions in reference to John Druitt, and yet they kept creeping through, kept spilling through the cracks. She kept feeling for him. Helen closed her eyes taking away the image of him behind her.
"Please don't close your eyes," John pleaded gently. He rested his cheek against her hair wanting as much of her scent on him as he could get.
Helen didn't know why she responded, didn't know why she opened her eyes, but she did. She looked at him and for a moment she caught a glimpse of her John; the John she had loved more than her life. "Don't do this to me. " She begged, her voice a strangled whisper. In the dark she could beg. In the dark she was only Helen.
John saw her pain. Saw everything she kept carefully hidden or buried deep down. She was shaking, she was emotionally exhausted, and she was nearly at a breaking point. And yet, Helen still somehow managed to fight it all, fight him. "I'm trying, Helen." His voice shook with the truth. "But how do I say goodbye to you? Tell me how and I will do it." John tried to leave a hundred times and still a hundred times he was dragged back into her world with the hope of seeing a smile from her or gaining some manner of forgiveness.
"I don't know." Helen answered knowing that she couldn't survive the way she did if he wasn't around. She had been trying to find those answers as well. Would her life be simple with out John around? Helen didn't know and she didn't want to find out. He was too ingrained in her life for her to ever cut him off. At her side she fisted her hands; her nails cutting into her palm, the pain bringing back some control. Helen was too close to John, too close to the scent of him. She was too ready to fall back against him and take any measure of comfort he would offer.
Taking his hands from the glass John ran them down her arms and to her closed fists. He pried her hands open lacing his fingers with hers. This was all he could do, all he could trust himself to do. Instantly she had a death grip on his hands. "One day all your troubles will fade." He assured her, though such assurances were hollow in the world they lived in. One had to fight to survive.
Momentarily out of weakness Helen leaned back into John. It was his strength she needed when she could get it. He renewed her will power, her determination to see her life's work survive. When she was alone she could admit that he was what kept her going. That was a truth she only spoke to the darkest night, to the deepest silence. John kept her centered and unbalanced.
John was beginning to lose. He had to leave or else he would end up forcing a confrontation. There was no way in the world that he wanted to ever hurt her again. His need for escape was paramount. Unlacing his fingers from hers John laid a ghost of a kiss to her temple before teleporting away. It was the only way he knew how to spare her, the only way to save her from his terrible curse. He had already inflicted too much upon her.
Helen leaned foreword resting her temple against the cold glass trying to calm the storm of emotions raging inside of her. John always did this to her. He would sweep into her life and churn up everything she kept buried and then he would leave. She knew he did it to protect her on some level, but it didn't mean that that knowledge eased the pain any. How could she ever truly say goodbye to him as he asked her? Would it be that easy? No, nothing was ever simple. She and John Druitt were the epitome of complicated. Helen pushed away from the window leaving behind the fading warmth that John left behind. Tonight sleep wouldn't claim her easily.