Author: V. F.
Disclaimer: Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill own the LoEG concept; Twentieth Century Fox owns the film; Robert Louis Stevenson created Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde; Bram Stoker created Mina Murray - Harker.
Rating: PG - 13
Summary: He wasn't supposed to miss him when he's gone, and what's a Jekyll without his Hyde?
Note: Title comes from the Chainsuck song. (I guess it's not his fault/I'll try to understand/'Cause hope tastes like forgiveness/in such a twisted hand.)
Shindo"There are two great tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants. The other is getting it."
- Mr. Dumby, 'Lady Windermere's Fan', Oscar Wilde
What is most remarkable is the never-ending noise still in his head. Of course, it's not Edward, anymore. But it's there, nonetheless, whispering observations Edward would never have cared to make, and feeling guilty over things Edward would merely have found to be amusing.
It has been five years, and Henry still flinches every morning, expecting the onslaught of abuse. Of course, it never comes - the only voices he hears are him, purely him, and not another personality at all. He's been harder on himself, some self sacrificing form of overcompensation, schizophrenic self improvement - admonishing for things he does wrong, insulting himself for things he doesn't know - because there's no one else to do it for him. He never realized how set into his psyche Edward had become - or how he'd become used to him.
It's little things he's noticing - still marveling, as though he's been born and feeling them for the first time - like the pleasure of being angry, or the feeling of real honest laughter without being afraid of the sound, or allowing himself to feel tentative love for Mina, even if she doesn't return it. The feeling alone, he thinks, is worth it.
It took two years, and it was the worst two years of his life - and in a life in which murder, violence, and a monstrous alter ego are all everyday things, that is saying quite a lot.
He wanted it, of course he wanted it - he'd dreamt of it, fantasized about it, allowed Edward to mock him for it. He'd imagined nights in which he could get angry at a disappointing day - he, not Edward, but he, Henry Jekyll - and not return to himself to find a prostitute mangled and raped in his room. Days spent quietly reading, being able to concentrate, really concentrate, on the words without a voice telling him what absolute bollocks it all was, were a shining dream that haunted him and hung in that murky grey cruelty, just out of reach.
But to want something and to have something are two very different things, and when the League's superiors restricted him alone to a facility for the physical and mental health of patients in which her majesty's government was interested (in which, it was rumored, Dr. Griffin, who Skinner claimed created the invisibility formula, was kept) Henry had wanted to die and get it all over with.
"You have done great things for England, Dr. Jekyll," Mr. Bond, their new superior, had said. "But Inspector Dupin was a close ally of the League, and what you allowed Mr. Hyde to do to him, during the Parisian Affair - I'm afraid her Majesty cannot condone that."
Henry had understood. He shouldn't be allowed to live, after that - Hyde shouldn't be allowed to live. He'd said it all along, and handing his well being to his employers had given him a grim satisfaction. Keeping him under lock and key was the very least he deserved, and he had gone without argument.
And then he learned of their real intention. "At the behest of your fellow League members," Bond had said. "We are going to attempt to dispose of Mr. Hyde - without disposing of you."
Hyde was still there, at that point, and he'd only laughed.
He'd laughed a little less when they put Henry in the room, alone, and taken the formula away, of course. But that didn't erase him. He was Henry's own judge, jury, and executioner - and equally, his pope, his chorus, his vengeful God. It was not as though they could open his mind, and a silenced Edward Hyde would fall out.
Henry found that after a while he wanted the potion again, wanted it so badly that if he'd thought he could get away with it, he would have escaped and let Hyde run free and stay a weak, timid voice in his head for the rest of their days.
There were days when all he could hear was Edward - he could not eat or sleep, or control his own thoughts, because, as usual, they were never really his own.
The worst happened six months in - there was no longer any furniture in his cell to throw, or anything else to destroy, and it was bare as a prison should be. So Henry attacked himself - scratched and threw himself into the walls, when he was not cringing and pleading with a tormentor no one but he could see. When he finally stopped - too exhausted to do anything but slump in his favorite corner and murmur prayers to a God he was sure wasn't listening any longer, if they ever had at all - and the visitor came, an attendant with a baton opening the door and venturing in slowly, a face familiar enough that both Henry and Edward seethed following.
The attendant must have been new, Henry thinks - and he does think, very often, about that day, because it is still playing behind his eyelids, whether at the front of back of his mind, and it is the sort of thing that is so awful it grabs hold of one and does not let go, not ever - because no experienced attendant would have gone in without full guard, or let the visitor - especially, perhaps, this visitor - come so near.
He often thinks, also, about what variable it was that led to it - was it Hyde's strength that powered him, or Hyde's mind that took over his? Was he mad enough that it was him and not Hyde alone? Was it that the attendant was too slow, or his baton particularly useless? Or was it Tom, who underestimated him, and didn't bring a weapon because he thought he was harmless and weak, that little cringing dog who everyone tread lightly around? (And that thought question often leads to a little niggling voice at the back of his head that says, Maybe it was Tom's own fault for his bravado and stupidity, maybe his fault because he assumed that without the potion...)
Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, because Tom Sawyer is still six feet under, and the attendant will never walk again, no matter how often one chooses to contemplate it.
The Attendant spoke soothingly, and had some sort of medication for him - sedation, Henry suspects, and it is an absurd, random footnote of comfort to him that at least the Attendant knew the proper procedure.
Tom knelt too near to Henry, and that was when Edward explained it to him, making everything clear as a bottle of formula - he's not on your side, Henry, do you understand me? There is no one on your side anymore. Your friends have locked you up in this place, with me, because they don't want you. They know what I did to Dupin - that it was so bad they can't even stand to look at you anymore, knowing I'm in there. They're finally growing their stones, aren't they - "Oh, no, now we can't ignore how bad he really is, and we refuse to use him, though it was perfectly acceptable when all he was killing was whores and rent boys and unfortunates. But now that it's one of our side, we just can't stand that horrible, horrible beast anymore. Now we're forced to acknowledge it, and we just simply can't abide that." I'm the wild card, aren't I?
Henry had wanted to ignore him, almost as much as he wanted to listen, but his mind stayed a willing slate for which his constant companion to write upon, and like an undammed river the cruelties flowed: I'm only the way I am because you made me so, Henry. I may be evil, but how can a man who let me loose be good? He crowed triumphantly. And they know that. That's why you're here. That's why he's here - only him - and nobody else cares to come. Because he wants to reassure himself you're really locked up here and that Mina really doesn't care to look at you, not that she would, and that he's got her all to himself to fuck… only because he's too stupid to be afraid and look at what it's got him! Why isn't Nemo here? You bonded over test tubes and mechanics, and he's gone, now isn't he? And Skinner, friendly chap he was, up until he stepped on Dupin's liver - as if that's really an important bit, anyway! And Mina... no, she doesn't even care enough to stop by, does she? Why should she? She doesn't need you, she's got him.
"Yes," Henry had whispered. Tom was too close, so near, and he can smell him.
What makes you better than me? You can't let me out. You can't let yourself out. I can save us.
"Can't," He'd moaned. "You can't do it."
"Can't do what, Dr. Jekyll?" Tom had frowned.
Of course I can. I'm everything you have, Henry. The League certainly didn't want you. You weren't even a member. It was me they've always been after, me they caught in the net and offered a pardon, me that they locked in this room with you, not the other way 'round. And it's my choice. You're too pompous to realize it, but it's me who controls you. If I want to leave you alone here, I could.
"Not without me," Henry said. "You can't do anything without me."
Do you want to go, Henry?
"It's wrong," Henry mumbled. "You'll go if I stay."
Do you want to go? You stupid bugger! Do you want to get out? Do you want me to let us out? We'll be free. Go find whatever you want. Hyde had paused, and for the first time since Henry could remember, he'd spoken almost gently. His voice was wheedling and convincing, and Henry felt like he was floating along its nuances along the synapses of his own brain. We could go to Rome. You've always wanted to see Rome. It's a good place, isn't it? With bishops and churches and God and penance. And there's plenty for me, too.
"Churches," Henry murmured, marveling.
"Churches, Henry?" Tom seemed confused, and Henry wanted to hit him suddenly - stupid American who swept in and got everything you had to work for but never got, who Mina loves and not you, and he's here to make fun of you… Henry's fist tightened into a ball, cradled near uselessly against his chest as if it were a fragile thing.
All it takes, Henry. Stop fighting me. I'm not the enemy here. Henry couldn't avoid him, and he could feel the sweat beading at his forehead for every moment he tried to avoid Edward. Just let me loose a little. You can even hang about. I'll just help. We'll be free.
"We can't," Henry said, and he noticed how Tom's gun was gone, and couldn't think why that made his blood rush with glee.
We CAN! And we will, you bugger, or I'll bloody do it myself, whether you fucking want it or not! Now are you in or are you out of it? I'm being a mate, Henry, asking you. Remember the times when I wouldn't have? Can't you see I'm all you've got left?
Henry hesitated, and anyone who saw his eyes would know that he was not here but a million miles away, in a small prison he created when he made a decision and took a drink in the name of science and morals, another lifetime ago. Tom laid a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and the attendant didn't stop it. "Doctor?"
And there had been that single moment's hesitation - delicate as a prayer and deadly as a bullet - before he'd uttered the word that sealed the day in his mind, on a continuous loop: "Yes."
And he can't remember much after that - but the image is always the same, presented very dramatically in his mind with the sound of screaming, and the smell of blood and the feeling of his fingers in something soft and warm, and shouts with his name in them, and iron shackles biting in his skin, and somewhere, very distant, there was laughter.
**
It took another six months before Hyde's voice became less real to him. He had not taken the formula in a year, and the voice seemed like a story he'd created to explain things he'd done. (Mr. Bond introduced him to an alienist, once, and the alienist had told him as much, although he did not believe him when Henry explained that Hyde wasn't only a voice, and he was real, only no, he couldn't show him, not without the formula, and he wasn't to have any of that.)
By the end of the second year, Hyde appeared to him so rarely that Henry could almost tell himself he didn't exist. He used the word the alienists suggested - hallucination - and he rationalized it very easily, and the muttering and cursing slowly receded in his mind until it was a mere buzzing locked somewhere in his skull. He'd been madly proud, then.
The remaining members of the League - Nemo, Skinner, and Mina, all unsmiling (at least Nemo and Mina, though with Skinner one never could tell) - and Mr. Bond came to his release. Mr. Bond spoke of the pride her Majesty had in him, and how his place on the League was still waiting for him.
But then, it is much easier to be good inside hospital walls free of temptation. He'd barely set a foot on the street when he saw him - a young boy, happy and carefree, and Henry imagined ripping his spine out and strangling him with it. The idea horrified him so greatly that he fled from the sight, and it was hours later when he noticed that Edward's voice had not accompanied it.
It was another two weeks before he'd gotten used to the sudden flashes of violence, and it was another month when he found a way to stop it - in the East End of London where they'd once fought Robur's flying machine. It was not hard for him to find Opium - it was far from a rarity - and it was even easier for him to slip out to the dens, as his position in the League, without Hyde, was purely superficial. It is a fact that everybody knows, but nobody, he is somewhat grateful, chooses to mention.
This is the way he lives now. Skinner stays away from him, which would hurt if he didn't try and tell himself that he's working class and if it weren't for the League, they wouldn't be on intimate terms, anyways. Mina presumes it was Hyde's last stand that killed Tom - and in a sense of dishonesty that is feeling more and more natural of late, he has not corrected her. Nemo is the only one who treats him the same as always, and has not inquired or cared to where in the city he goes for hours at a time.
New members of the League were introduced almost immediately upon his return, with much presentation by Mr. Bond (and whether this is coincidence or specifically timed, he doesn't know) - a young girl with a fascination with mirrors by the name of Alice, whose qualifications no one seems to know; Dr. John Watson, who everybody knows studied under the great detective for years and may be the most qualified of any of them; and a mysterious American agent with a smile that might have been carefree once, by the name of Huck Finn.
"They don't blame you," Huck said to Henry upon first meeting him. "They think it was some big ol' monster you got that's your big secret shame. But I know better'n that. And I don't forgive killers."
Henry did not return to the Nautilus for another night and day after that, and in dragon - chasing dreams, he almost thought he heard a voice again, telling him, "You didn't used to be a killer. Not when I was there."
When his head was clear again, the voice was gone, and he could not remember it ever being there.
**
"Henry's been gone every night this week," Mina announces, in a delicate, very deliberate way that catches the attention of the brooding captain and the floating trench coat with much pomp and circumstance.
"He is gone far more often lately." Nemo says from his seat at his desk. "Our colleague has more demons than we ever gave him credit for."
"Credit ain't the word," Skinner snorts, pacing. "And I don't see what the problem is."
"He is still a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Just as you are, and I am. And Quartermain and Tom were." She says, her voice the epitome of crystalline coldness. "And he is our responsibility."
"What kind of trouble do y'think he could get into? Hyde's gone. It's just Henry now. Not such a particularly dangerous fellow, all by his lonesome. More apt to get into trouble." Skinner says.
"I disagree," Nemo says ominously.
"Then what are you proposing, Mina?" Skinner asks, sighing in a very sacrificial way.
"I propose one of us follows him and sees where it is he goes," Mina suggests carefully, eyes involved with a blank spot on the wall.
"Fine, fine," Skinner mutters. "I'll slip out after he's off tonight."
"No," Mina says. Nemo looks at her passively. "I'm going." She elaborates.
"Oh, come on," Skinner snorts. "You've got to admit, I'm the most qualified."
"I believe my own qualifications will be sufficient," Mina says coldly.
"He has not been the same since..." Nemo begins.
"Since Dupin," Mina finishes. The trench coat gives a heavy shudder.
"You didn't even see the place. It was Tom and me, and it's a sight I'd do well to never see again." Skinner says. "I still got nightmares 'bout it."
"I'm more familiar with it than you'd think," Mina says. "Nemo and I saw photography of the area as presented by Mr. Bond."
"Then how can you want to go after him?" Skinner protests.
"It was Edward that did that, not Henry," Mina says impatiently.
"And what about Tom, Mina? Do you think it was Edward who did that, too?" Skinner snaps angrily. Her face goes utterly blank and Skinner's unseen face softens. "Bloody hell..."
"Yes," Mina says stubbornly, letters clipped and no emotion present in her. "I do."
"What do you intend to do if you should find where he goes?" Nemo asks.
"I've got an inkling," She says, and she relaxes the tiniest bit, her face no longer granite but limestone instead. "And if I should find him there, I intend to bring him back to us."
"Back to us?" Skinner says indignantly. "And what are we to do with him? He already went to the nutter house, and all they managed to do is make him even more flighty and add a bit of mystery to him! Hyde's gone, all right, but so's Henry Jekyll, by all appearances."
"He is our responsibility," Mina repeats. "And don't you dare say you don't care what happens to him. I'll rip your throat out myself, whether I can see it or not." Something in her face or her stance makes Skinner think she is absolutely serious, and he swallows hard.
"Easy, easy, Mina, I'm only saying..." Skinner sighs and the Trench Coat rustles. "It's just he's a little creepy, isn't he? You can't tell me you don't think he's a right odd bugger."
"His behavior has grown in eccentricities," Nemo agrees. "But I agree with Mina. He is a member of our team."
"And he's been with us longer than any of the peanut gallery out there, and he's still useful with his doctoring an' all, an' he's our friend, an' he's not really a threat because Mr. Hyde isn't hangin' about anymore, and we owe him this and that." Skinner grunts. "I get it. And I like him well enough, Nemo, you know that. But look at what he can do even without Hyde."
"He's done nothing but sneak off," Mina corrects him quickly. "You cannot condemn him for escaping the confines of the boat. The others avoid him like the plague, and you manage to leave the room whenever he enters it."
Skinner shuffles uneasily. "Ah, you notice that, then?"
"Yes," Mina says levelly. "And so does he."
"Ah," Skinner at least has the decency to be ashamed. "You've got to admit, then, Mina, he is sort of... off. Gets that look in his eye, and smiles at weird times, and sometimes he'll just start shaking and excuse himself real quick-like..."
"Just because the outward embodiment of Hyde is not present does not mean that the inner is gone as well," Nemo says cryptically. "It is possible that Hyde's mark of influence remains on him."
Skinner frowns a grease painted frown. "He says he doesn't hear Edward anymore."
"I didn't say he did," Nemo shrugs.
"You're 'bout to take the runner up award in eccentricity, Nemo." Skinner mutters. "Go on, then, Mina. He's probably off to leave soon. But..." Grease painted features twist into something resembling worry, and he grabs her elbow. "Do keep a watch on yourself, won't you? And him."
Mina smiles quietly. "I will, Rodney."
**
She takes to the rooftops, climbing them with ease, and jumping from one to the next with little taxation. Henry walks swiftly, and has a habit of taking the long, twisting alleys, which occasionally force her into a detour.
It is after one of these detours that she finds Henry faced with a rough looking figure that could be any worker from the docks or opium addict from a den. A knife flashes meanly in his hand, and he speaks, quickly and harshly, to Henry, who shakes like a leaf.
Mina crouches towards the edge of the rooftop, preparing to step in - her espionage is not worth his life.
But Henry surprises her - he shakes worse than ever, and then, suddenly, he's ripped the knife from the man's hand (and it is accompanied by a crack and a shout that Mina can hear from her perch.) and he's the one very much in control, swinging an angry fist into his face and then, to her shock and almost horror, thrusting the knife into the man's ribs.
If she didn't know any better, she would almost say he relishes it.
But then, Henry drops the knife, and backs away from the man, horrified, and he continues towards his destination, running now, and Mina must work a little harder to keep up.
**
She watches him enter the derelict building, and waits twenty excruciating minutes before climbing down from the rooftops, a veil attached to her hat and a scarf covering her neck and obscuring most of her face, and knocks at the door.
A woman with scraggly grey hair and teeth spaced far apart, eyes buried deep into a wizened dried apple skull, answers without a greeting.
"What you want?" She sneers.
"I've heard... that this is the place of come when one is in search of..." Mina begins, trying to remind herself to stammer nervously.
"And a pretty thing like you? Ain't going to be looking for it." The woman spits. Mina's jaw twitches and she straightens up, sneering right back.
"I am looking for a man. Thin, dressed in black, in clothes of an expensive nature, frail looking, with brown hair." She says coldly.
"Nobody like that 'ere," The woman tries to swing shut the door. When Mina stops it, a crack runs through a plank of wood.
"I believe you've given me the wrong answer," She says softly. "I think if you'll allow me inside, I'll be sure to find him."
The woman's eyes widen, and she retreats from the doorway. "Take your man and get out of 'ere. I don't want no sort like you 'ere."
Mina steps her way delicately inside, and her senses are immediately attacked with the smells of the weaknesses of humanity - of bodily functions, of alcohol, of drugs, of sex. She tries with difficulty to control the revolt of her senses against herself.
She does not see him, and against her better judgment, wanders further inside - up a staircase, having no desire to see what lies behind closed doors, but reminding herself of a duty she took without question or necessity, and taking tentative steps further.
It's in the room three doors down on the right side of the hall that she finds him, eyelids shut tightly, moaning, lying alone on a mattress that surely cannot be sanitary, with a hookah pipe clenched awkwardly in his twitching hand, his jacket lying abandoned on the floor. Mina can imagine him, pressing the extra money furtively into the hand of the repulsive matron below - "A room to myself, or I cannot guarantee the safety of your other customers," Imaginary Henry says, and a flash of guilt crosses her. She can't stand to even imagine him taking advantage of his precarious condition like that.
He moans and the hand holding the hookah twitches involuntarily. His mouth is a little moue of terror, and his brow is twisted into wrinkles that accuse an age far older than his. Even Mina's heart - which she likes to tell herself is cold and dignified - is not immune to the sight, and her face flickers. "Henry," She says softly, even though she's very sure he can't hear her, not now.
**
Henry's floating, but at the same time, he feels heavy as lead, and is sure he's dropped straight through the floor, straight to Hell. There's somebody speaking to him, but the words are garbled, and he can barely understand them.
"Please," he says frantically. "Please, I don't know what it is you're -"
And then the words are very audible, though he wishes they weren't. "Miss me?" It says, and Henry knows it - knows every nuance, knows every syllable. He's heard it all a million times, and could almost recite the standard response "You shouldn't. You're seeing me every single day now. Like that man, in the alley. That was me. Or was it you? Hard to tell, these days. At least before you had someone else to blame it on, didn't you?"
"It was self defense!" Henry protests. "And you aren't real, not anymore. You're just a dream. Smoke and mirrors."
"Pipes and opium?" Edward says slyly. "Yes, you did manage to convince yourself that, didn't you?" He crosses massive arms. "Convinced yourself so well that you don't even hear me anymore. But I'm here, Henry. I've always been here. I always will be, lurking here, right underneath the section of your brain that memorized Smith's Chemical Anatomy or the part that can visualize the exact angle of Mina's jaw line when she smiles..."
"I only needed to tell myself. It's a realization of self. You aren't real, anymore. You are just a dream." Henry insists.
"Just a dream! Not a nightmare?" Edward says. "Because this is why you come here, isn't it? You've deluded yourself so far that you need the opium just to have a chat with an old friend."
"An old warden, you mean," Henry shudders.
"If you hate me so, Henry, why do you come back?" Edward asks. "Oh, that's right. You need me."
"Need you? Like a boxer needs a fish!" Henry scoffs. Edward tsks.
"Then you're going to take the blame? That man in the alley, was all your fault. And Dupin. All those whores. And Tom..." Edward shrugs. "Without me, isn't it you and you alone?"
"No," Henry whispers. "Things were different, then. You were there, once, no matter what Mr. Bond managed to convince the alienists... But now I am good. I'm a good man." He pauses and frowns, and looks down at his own feet and Edward's. "I even used you for good. But now it's me alone, and I'm the good one."
"A good man who kills people," Edward snorts. "A good man who dreams of death and destruction with a smile on his face."
"I'm rid of you, Edward." Henry is almost afraid to say his name, as if it might bind him there again. "I'll wake up and be rid of you soon.
"Rid of me?" Edward laughs, a cruel and unpleasant sound that slithers through his eardrums like a snake. "You're not rid of me at all. Look, I'm here right now. Or are you just talking to yourself again? You'll never entirely know, will you? The best your asylum vacation did, Henry, was blur the lines. There aren't any lines, anymore. There's still a you and a me - only sometimes, I'm you, and sometimes, you're me. After all, what's Jekyll without his Hyde? There isn't a Henry if there's no Edward; we define one another."
"You do not exist!" Henry says fiercely. "You're all in my head. To be defined by you... maybe I was once..."
"Used to be black and white. Now it's shades of grey. You're a very good man, Henry, when there's nothing bad in you. With me, there wasn't. But without me? Oh, without me you've got it all inside you. It's all you, and you haven't got a monster to blame it on.
"Which may even be worse. Then you can't prove it, can you, Henry? And it really is all on your shoulders. Like the alienist said. Maybe I'm your excuse - the demon you made up for an explanation while you made the Ripper look like an upstanding old chap." Edward laughs again, and Henry wishes with all his being he'd stop. He'd even take him back, maybe, if that laugh would never again assault his senses. "But really, Henry, you're a sensible man. Why would you think that I could ever really be removed? You've not got rid of me at all - you've just swept me under the carpet like so much rubbish you're far too lazy to throw away. Do you think I'll ever really be gone?"
"You are right now," insists Henry, panic rising in him. "You aren't anyone. You aren't Edward, you're just a figment of my brain... it's the opium that brings you back. You aren't real. You haven't got any pull, anymore. You're quite evicted."
"Then why do you take it?" Edward shouts. "If I'm nothing and you don't want me why do you bring me back? Just a visit? For nostalgia's sake? Or is it you like living in the past, when you had a use and a purpose and you weren't just another doctor on a boat full of extraordinary scientists?"
"Leave me, Edward," Henry pleads, hands twisting and untwisting around themselves. "I've let you stay so long... please."
Edward chortles and slaps his knee. "Oh, you want me out, do you? Do you think it can be done? Don't you think I'd like to be out, my own man? Of course I would! But instead I'm trapped in the corridors of the mind of a mad doctor."
"I'm not mad," Henry says.
"You're talking to yourself, you're a worthless sot, and you kill people." Edward says evenly. "Everything I've listed is true, so which one of us is sane?"
"I've still got a purpose, at least." Henry is nearly desperate now. "You... you aren't even real. You haven't even got a reason for creeping about my mind. You're a hanger - on, and you're nothing tangible!"
"What, patching up the rest of the League when they come back with aches and pains? Mina's closest girlfriend? You're an absurd little bugger, Henry, and you know it! They let you hang around because they feel sorry for you and because I got them out of a tight spot or two, nothing more." Edward says calmly. "Like a retired officer whose position remains in name, only. You're a formality!"
"I haven't a need for you. The opium... clears my head and my conversations bring me back to..." Henry starts.
"Is that what you're telling yourself? You've made yourself so many mirrors to reflect the smoke that's clogging your ears that it's nearly impossible to find the truth buried in all this waste, Henry. Can't you admit that you need me? Without me, you're a little lost man who's got no family, no friends, no livelihood, no mission. You're a broken man - incomplete man. You don't even have the normal alarms in your head for danger. You go seeking it and then leave your messes for me to clean up."
"Confound you! You're nonsense," Henry says frantically. "You're not real! They'll come for me, even. To prove you wrong."
"Come for you? They can't wait to be rid of you." Edward snorts. "You're just a responsibility - a liability - to England. What if someday you get caught in the battle? What use will you be? Even little Alice will be more useful, with her friends and her escaping reflections. They'll come for you only when they realize that you could get loose lips about their top secrets. And then they'll keep you locked up again. Do you want that, Henry? Do you?"
"No," He says softly. "They won't. They'll help me. I'm one of them."
"You're no more one of them than Bond is. At least that stupid bugger can give them orders." Edward says. "You're lost in your very own head. A labyrinth up here. Turn a corner and there's left over stories of a man that used to be. Do you remember when Henry and Utterson drank far too much scotch and - no, of course you don't. You're not him, after all."
"I am Henry," He whispers. "That's all I am."
"How ridiculous," Edward snorts. "You fucking idiot. I've explained it for you, even. Without me there's no you. You've said there's no me - where does that leave you?"
"Nowhere," Henry agrees quietly.
"Look!" Edward points, and there's a big foggy puddle in front of him, with Mina's face in it. "Has she come to rescue you or kill you, do you think, Henry?" His voice is whispery, sandpaper rough and famine thin. "She can see you. She knows all about it." Edward chuckles. "But she likes a bit of badness, eh? I always said she'd look at me. Why do you think she ignored you so after I left? Best friends, aren't you, Henry? Tittering about the real men over tea and crackers. She likes to taste the darkness in you. Maybe she'll cut you open just to see if she could find me..."
"Don't say that," Henry asks plaintively, voice breaking as he tries to look at Edward's eyes. "I beg of you, Edward, leave her alone at least."
"Don't be stupid," Edward sneers. "Do you think we could hurt her if I wanted to? She's more likely to hurt you. Physically and other ways. Break your heart in two."
"No," Henry protests sadly. "I think she's already done that once."
Edward laughs again. "You're such shit, Henry. Such a worthless little pizzle. That's why you can't ever know the truth about anything - you can't even know the truth about yourself."
What exactly it is that he doesn't know the truth about, Henry never finds out, because it is then that a godly hand drags him back to the surface of consciousness.
**
Mina is, for once, entirely at a loss. The pity she originally felt has given way to disgust, and she finds herself both repulsed and moved by the prone man. "Henry," she says again, a little hesitant to touch him, but she lays a hand on his shoulder nonetheless.
He stirs, and mumbles: "Edward..."
And so many things suddenly make sense to her. She thinks of herself as practical and orderly, and so she thinks of her mind as a series of dossiers on various subjects - and the dossier marked 'Henry Jekyll' is added to, if only a little. "Henry," she says more firmly, shaking his shoulder. "Get up."
He moans, and she feels colder than she has in a long time - almost cruel. It doesn't scare her that she wants to hurt him, wants to bruise his face with slaps and draw blood from his pulse, and scratch his body with her nails. "Get up," she says again, standing over him. He is silent. She slaps him across the face and drags him from the bed to the floor, depositing him with a nasty thunk. "Get up! God damn you, get up, Henry!"
His eyes open slowly, and he blinks in a daze. "Mina?" He croaks. He takes in his surroundings very, very slowly, and mutters, almost to himself. "Shouldn't be here."
"Somebody had to be," Mina says.
"Him," Henry says, voice broken, crawling slowly to his knees. "He's still here."
"I'm sorry," Mina says, because there isn't anything else to say - the addendum her mind adds, for agreeing to throw you to your madness, does not seem entirely appropriate. "Come, let's go back to the Nautilus."
"I don't belong there," Henry says miserably. "Don't you understand? I don't belong there."
"Don't be stupid," She sighs, frustrated. "Of course you belong with us."
"I'm very useless," He says as if it's something very obvious that he's just now learned.
"As an opium sot, yes, you are." Mina snaps. "And I think it is you who doesn't understand. You are a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I, for one, remember when that used to mean something - especially to you."
Henry flinches as if she'd struck him. "It was him. All along, I needed him, Mina. I needed him to... to live. I can't... without him whispering in my head to watch out, or to goad me into doing what he wants when I think it's what he doesn't..." He can't look her in the face, and his own is blanched and afraid and very far away. "I don't know who - or what - I am anymore."
"By all accounts a very troubled man," She says primly. "You're Doctor Henry Jekyll. You're a brilliant man who made a very stupid decision and unleashed something that a man far stronger than you could not control. You're a member of her Majesty's secret service and under the employ of Mr. Bond. You dislike reading poetry, but enjoy observing the aesthetically pleasing. You prefer reason over emotion, and you prefer chemistry over biology. You find this new field of psychology to be absurd. You're horrible with weapons, and you cringe at the sight of blood in the field, but are perfectly happy with it on the operating table. You always lose to Skinner at card games, and you're very fond of understanding Nemo's inventions." Mina hesitates. "You're my friend." She holds out a hand. "Come on, Henry. It's time to go home."
"I don't know what to do." Henry says, and finally meets her eyes. Mina has trouble looking at them - they're disappointed and painful, but there is a little glint in them that is more off putting than anything she ever saw in the face of Edward Hyde. "If it were... over, sometimes, I think..."
"Poison didn't work once for you," She says sharply. "For god's sakes, Henry, be a man. Can't you fight this?"
Henry looks at the hookah, now lying broken on the ground. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I can fight this."
He walks past her out, of the room, and down the hall, and Mina follows only part of the way before realizing that she might as well be Skinner for all he can see her.
"Henry?" She asks, and for the first time in a very long while, feels almost timid. He walks quickly, and though she can keep up easily enough, she's not sure she wants to.
He strides down the stairs and out the front door, and she follows, and they twist through alleys and back roads until they come to one Mina finds very familiar. The corpse of Henry's attacker lies there, undisturbed, the knife still stuck between two ribs, dead, shocked eyes staring up at them. "Can I fight this?" He demands. She doesn't answer. Henry grabs her shoulder and arm and shakes her roughly - far from enough to hurt, but enough to annoy her.
"Look at this, Mina! Do you think I can fight this easily? Do you think it's just opium I want to fight? You're a fool. It's empty blanks, great big patches of time I can't remember that always end with blood on my hands!" His grip tightens, and she throws him off easily. He stumbles back into the wall, smashing his elbow back against it unnoticed, horrified and distant once more.
"Do not put your hands upon my person again, Dr. Jekyll," She says coldly. "And listen to me - Hyde's never going to go away. You've always known that, and you've always told us that. You were right. He's ingrained far too deeply in your psyche for us to free him... but you can either live with him, or merely exist with him. Be useful, Henry. Come back and try to contain your evil." Her voice lowers to a plea. "I've lost many friends, Henry, in my time with the League alone. I don't fancy losing another one."
Henry straightens himself, and stands before her shakily. He looks very familiar then, so familiar she can almost feel safe - almost, but not quite, because there's that knife - edged glint that she would be a fool to trust. "Why did you choose Tom?" He asks brokenly, and her eyes widen. "What?"
"Tom," He says. "You... wanted him. After Dorian. Quatermain was too old for you, Nemo too dispassionate, Skinner too crude... but you could have had any of us, couldn't you? And you chose Tom."
"I did not realize that I had a choice," She says, startled. He's silent again for a moment, and then he kisses her, very tentatively, and she can barely feel his lips on hers, and finds herself wishing that it were something more tangible, something she could taste and that she'd feel for days after. One hand rests on her shoulder, gently this time, and he pulls back abruptly, almost prematurely.
"It is not important that you did," Henry says. "I was merely wondering."
Then she realizes what this is, and she thinks of everything she would say if she never saw him again. The question seems almost too cruel to ask – even if she never sees him again in her immortal life. She's held off this long, but Mina suddenly feels that she might not again have the opportunity. "Is that why Edward -"
"Oh, no." Henry says, too calmly. "He was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was what killed him." Then he shudders, a hard and wracking motion that looks like it might dislodge his shoulders from his body. "But I was jealous of him. That was what made it enjoyable." He backs away from her, until he stands at the mouth of the alley. "If I could govern myself..." He lets the implications hang, although she finds it hard to pick only one - then we might be more than friends, then I would be useful, then the League would be my only alliance, then I could stay loyal to but one empire, then I would be all right.
"I am sorry, Mina. Goodbye." Henry says, and then he disappears into the fog and shadows, around the corner of the alley, and Mina doesn't need to think with any logic to realize that the next time she sees him, it's very unlikely that it will be Henry Jekyll she's talking to.
**
The next time she sees him, he is a painfully thin corpse in a suit similar to the one he wore at that their last meeting. He is dead, thinner and paler than ever, opened and exposed and degraded on a table in the morgue. Mina feels surprisingly indifferent, and she can only think of how cold it must be to die.
"You can't be serious," Skinner argues for the sixth time. "This is Henry Jekyll." He hesitates. "Or maybe it was Edward Hyde. Whoever he is, he's not the madman you're off about."
"I understand your difficulty in comprehension, Mr. Skinner," Mr. Bond explains tiredly. "But this is the man whom a policeman saw in broad daylight murder a man and then, apparently very remorseful, throw himself into the Thames."
"Is there any possibility that while it is Dr. Jekyll, he is not the killer?" Mina can understand why Nemo uses the formality - it isn't Henry, it's not your comrade, it's merely a man you once worked with who died - not uncommon in this line of work.
"This is, without any doubt or margin of error, the man who murdered nine different people brutally, all in view of another person but one. He was described as possessing a strength beyond that of a normal human man, of carrying no weapon, and of mumbling unintelligible oaths against names that held little or no importance to the witnesses." Mr. Bond says. "Very important names, however, to us."
"Then it isn't him," Mina says tonelessly.
"Hm?" All three men look at her.
"He was cured of Hyde, remember. It is not possible that he would have had superhuman strength. And there is absolutely no motive for him to have killed those people." Mina elaborates. She's stretching, and she knows it.
"Are you quite certain, Mrs. Harker?" Mr. Bond stands a little too close for comfort, and Mina resists striking out at him and imagining his blood running down her throat. "I understand that Dr. Jekyll was a companion of yours, and to remember him in this manner must be upsetting for a woman..."
Mina's hand shoots out before she can think, and every inch of air it prevents Mr. Bond's throat from getting is a blessing. "No. You do not understand. I do not care whether or not Henry killed those people. You will tell them that he was falsely accused, that there is evidence, that he is cleared and was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can blame somebody else, some random thug that was also captured the same day. If it pleases you, you can say that Edward returned, and Henry was only unable to lock him in anymore. I don't care if it's been years since Hyde disappeared - but it was Edward who killed them, and you will not let this rest on Henry's shoulder's, whether it is entirely truthful or not." She hisses, and there's a small voice urging her to bite him, because blood is better than the wine she drinks...and she throws him to the ground. Bond coughs and holds his throat.
"Are we clear, Mr. Bond? Henry Jekyll, having grown tired of his listless existence, threw himself into the Thames. That is all. There were no police, or murders, or any further disgrace involved." Mina says. Her voice has no emotion to it - no trace of anything that would signify that it is a human voice, in fact, can be heard.
"Very, Mrs. Harker," Mr. Bond coughs again.
"And you?" Mina glances to her companions. "Nemo? Skinner? Are we clear?"
"Crystal, Mina," Skinner says, voice stumbling a little.
"To merely say something does not make it true," Nemo says pointedly, stepping closer to her.
"Then you and I have very different speech patterns, Captain," Mina says, chillingly polite. Nemo nods. Mina stands over Jekyll for one last moment, and it's a heartless kiss she plants on his forehead. The skin is waxy and cold as she had thought underneath her lips. "Goodbye, Henry." She lowers her face and whispers in her ear. "Goodbye, Edward."
And she walks from the room.
**
The last time she sees him, it's in a dream, and he and Edward are walking together in empty streets, squabbling over something or other.
"If you hadn't stopped me!" snarls Edward as they approach her.
"Ah, but I did." Henry says, raising a bony finger. He turns towards Mina and bows, removing his hat. "Mina," He sweeps his arm outward. "It's so good to see you again."
It occurs to her that he looks much younger than she remembers, and that while he is still very thin, he doesn't look unhealthy. Edward is as tall and cruel as ever - only he looks almost like a petulant child who is denied sweets by their parent.
"The feeling is mutual, I assure you," Mina says as he presses living lips to her hand. "Where have you been? I was quite sure you'd gone."
"I am gone. Edward and I both. We travel, mostly, now." As he looks back up, she could swear that his eyes are twinkling. "We're going to Rome next. I'm visiting the Vatican, and Edward is going to find a comfy brothel." He frowns. "I did try to cure him of it, but since we're both dead, I didn't think it much matters."
"No," Mina agrees. "I don't suppose it does. Not to you, anyway."
"I was very tired of it all. He's damnably hard to train." Henry looks up at Edward, who scowls down at him.
"You fucking shit!" He says indignantly. "I'm not an ape who'll play the accordion for you."
Henry does a shocking thing, then - he smiles. "No. You were once. I'm your dog now, Edward. I understand that."
Edward looks slightly uncomfortable. "Continue to do so."
"I have... missed you. Regretted some things." Henry flushes slightly, ignoring Edward.
"The dead always do," Mina says wistfully.
"Especially him," Edward sneers. "He thinks he's very important now, because he's dead, and because we're two separate people. We've got a deal. I do the body things. He does the mind things and we share the heart things. He might as well only be a brain in a jar, for all the good he is."
"He hasn't changed a bit," Henry says jovially. "He insults everything I do."
"I wouldn't think that would please you, Henry," Mina frowns.
"No, of course not. In fact, he has a tendency to rip my head off my shoulders and float it in a jar when I frustrate him - it's just today, today I can't really be bothered." Henry explains, shrugging, his face looking a little more worn suddenly. "Will we be seeing you again? I did mean it." His voice is hopeful, suddenly. It hurts her to listen.
"No," She says slowly, as though letting down a small child. "I'm afraid... I'm afraid I won't be going the same way as you."
"Not to Rome? You should stop by sometime. It's a lovely sort of place." Henry says softly. "I'm so sorry, Mina. It does get lonely, with only him to talk to."
"Hurr," Edward snorts. "It's because you're an idiot. You won't find anyone else to talk to - only me. And why? Because you can't communicate properly." He faces Mina and suddenly speaks very lucidly. "Goodbye, Mina. We won't ever see you again. I'll make sure."
"Goodbye," Henry frowns.
Then Henry and Edward go one way, and Mina goes the other, and she feels very certain that they're walking somewhere she won't be able to follow, and her last thought before awakening is, At least he's whole again.
END