Disclaimer: 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' movie is copyright of 20th Century Fox. No infringement is intended.

PICKING UP THE PIECES

By Etcetera Kit

Chapter Ten: the Parting of the League

Sawyer stood next to Jekyll, throwing the things Jekyll was handing him into a suitcase. One who knew Henry Jekyll well would probably never have guessed that he had occupied this room for over a month since everything was everywhere. Sawyer had seen to that when he offered to help Henry pack since the carriage for him and Mina would arrive in two hours. The sun was not yet up over the horizon and a dim gray light intermingled with the yellow lamp light.

Jekyll peered at the mess inside the suitcase. He shook his head. "Tom," was all he said but Sawyer could hear the amusement and exasperation in his voice. The doctor quickly began to repack the clothes in the suitcase so that everything was neatly folded.

A knock came on the door and Hasaan entered, carrying an armload of the rest of Jekyll's laundry. Henry looked up at the butler and smiled.

"Thank you, Hasaan," he said, taking the clothes from the diminutive butler.

Hasaan looked into the partially straightened out suitcase and shook his head. "Perhaps you and Mr. Sawyer should go have breakfast while I fix the suitcase," he said in his highly accented voice.

Sawyer bristled. "Are you saying I don't know how to pack a suitcase?"

"Yes," Hasaan replied, completely nonplussed. "All these things will be wrinkled if they remain packed like this."

Henry laid the clothes on the bed and motioned to Tom. Sawyer inwardly grimaced at the perfectionist butler who was forever trying to decapitate himself and Skinner. He had no doubts that Hasaan could easily eliminate both of them one night and make it look like a household accident that could have happened to anyone. Tom followed Henry out of the room and down the hallway towards the dining room. Hasaan was muttering to himself in a language that Sawyer did not recognize.

He could see the headlines now: American Agent and Invisible Man Beheaded with a Frying Pan. And there would be an accompanying picture of himself and Skinner with an underlying headline saying the police were still looking for clues as to their murderer. Sawyer shook his head as he and Henry entered the dining room.

"I've still got to give you the gun and bullets," Tom said as they moved to the side board and began to fill their plates.

"Isn't the new Winchester not coming until later today?" Henry asked.

Tom nodded. "Yeah. I'm giving you mine since you practiced with it. I'll take the new one. Besides, all the bullets I have are silver coated."

The doctor sighed. "I don't see how bullets are going to help us."

Sawyer shrugged. "I don't know. I've never tried to kill a vampire." Henry rolled his eyes. "Well, the only vampire I've met is Mina and I wouldn't want to kill her," he defended himself.

"I know."

They walked over to the table and took their seats. Sawyer drew in a deep breath recalling what Jekyll had told him a while ago, it seemed like so long. He would be happy knowing that Mina ended up with someone he knew and trusted… referring to Sawyer. Now was the time to completely relinquish his hold on that contest.

"Take care of her."

Jekyll looked up quickly. "Mina?"

Sawyer nodded. "Yeah. You told me that you would have been happy if she ended up with me. I know now she would never have been serious about me." He paused and drew in a deep breath. "Just take care of her."

Jekyll nodded slowly. "You know I will."

Tom studied the doctor and the man's intense blue-eyes gaze and he suddenly smiled. "Now Skinner needs a girl and I can have some time to myself."

"And no more booby traps in the room?"

"Exactly."

Henry grinned. "And who are you going to set Skinner up with? I don't exactly know any woman who would particularly want an invisible man."

"Oh, there has got to be someone." He paused. "My friend, Huck, used to tell me that I needed to get married and have nine children."

"Why?"

"He used to say that if I only spent five minutes a day with each kid, he would have forty-five minutes to himself. I guess you could say I had a pretty big imagination as a kid."

Henry shrugged. "We all grow up sometime."

"Yeah…" Tom trailed off. He remembered getting off the train in London. He and Huck had been assigned together to find out about the threat of world war in Europe. They had been in a dark alley, waiting to see where Sanderson Reid would go, trying to find the base of operations for the alliance England was supposedly forming. He turned and saw the Fantom standing in the alley. The dark creature raised a gun and fired two shots. Tom felt one shot brush past his ear and when he looked at Huck, he was on the ground, blood pouring from a wound in his chest. The Fantom had shot him dead. His childhood friend… his best friend… dead… Unshed tears formed in his eyes.

"Tom?"

He was jerked back to the present unpleasantly by the sound of Henry's concerned voice. He looked up at the doctor, remembering how he had pledged to the League that he would avenge Huck's death.

"Was the other agent you told us about… your childhood friend… was he Huck?"

Tom nodded slowly. Then he abruptly stood up from the table and left the dining room as fast as he possibly could.


Mina walked down the hallway to breakfast. She had finished packing last night after dinner. Not that she had overmuch to pack. She would not be needing any of the chemistry equipment she had originally brought or hardly any of the books. She knew what needed to be done. Her suitcase contained her clothing and toiletries, her purse held what little money she did have. She did have a small valise and she shuddered to think about what was in that piece of luggage.

The long wooden stakes… eight inches long and tapered to a sharp point… The small mallet that one of the crew members had found for her… Hasaan had provided as much garlic as he could from the kitchen and the two small crucifixes donated to the cause by two of the crew members who were Christian. Henry would have to deal with the crucifixes later and place them somewhere else. She had been Christian… once… and now… she could not even go into a church without the strong feeling to bare her fangs and lay the place to waste.

One of the crew members was currently down in the bowels of the ship looking for an ax or a hack saw that they could have. They would need it to cut off the Count's head. Another crew member, who was Christian, headed to the local Catholic church before sunrise that morning to bring back the Host and holy water. Henry would be presented with that later when the crewman came back, if he had been successful. Although Mina had no doubts that he would be because the people of this area were extremely superstitious about vampires and did everything in their power to protect visitors from them.

She entered the dining room and Skinner was the only occupant. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smack Skinner. The invisible man was shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth and stopped mid-bite when she entered. He grinned.

"Good morning, you're looking radiant today!" was his salutation.

Mina glowered at him. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"On the contrary, I find that when people flatter me it gets them everything," Skinner retorted cheerfully. Mina was strongly reminded of his flippancy and cheerfulness when he had met the League in that cave in Mongolia after his spying episode. It was like he knew the full horrors of what M had concocted but refused to let its direness bring down his spirits.

Mina moved along the side table, filling her plate and getting a strong cup of coffee. Skinner continued eating in his normal fashion- like all the food would disappear if he let it sit on his plate for more than two seconds. She sat down at the table across from him. He suddenly stopped eating and looked at her quite seriously.

"Listen. You two can't die out there."

She rolled her eyes. "Why?"

"Because you are our princess. If we lose you, we might as well end it all now. No point in going on, if we don't have a lady to defend against the barbarians."

"Skinner, are you drunk?"

"No! I'm serious."

Mina looked at him, seeing the sudden vulnerability written all over his face. This was a man who faced everything with the same flippancy, in the hopes that if he pretended things were not really all that bad then they really weren't. She did not know what would await her and Henry in Transylvania and she certainly did not know if they would survive. The images of them together, years from now, in a townhouse in London with lots of children seemed like some far off fantasy that they could not have. And here Skinner was, truly worried for them. She would have never thought it possible for him.

"I've never heard you open up that much."

"Yeah, well." He put down his fork that he had previously been holding for no apparent reason. "I stole the invisibility process."

"I know that."

"And I was reading the journals. The scientist had to die to become visible again." He paused. "There is no antidote. There never was. I don't want to die, but I had certainly never planned on staying invisible the rest of my life."

She nodded, not saying anything. Skinner's predicament was understandable. He did not want to stay invisible, but, at the same time, he did not want to die. Like most of the men she knew, Mina could imagine that he eventually wanted to get married and have a family. What kind of woman would marry an invisible man not knowing if the trait could be passed on to children? Being invisible was a novelty that one could have for a short time, but not the remainder of their life.

Skinner stood up from the table and made to leave the dining room. At the doorway, he turned to her. "Just don't die in Transylvania, all right?" Then he was gone.

Mina stared after him, wondering if all the bravado, all the flippancy, was just a cover-up for hurts that went much deeper. Was it all a cover-up for a truly deep depression?


Henry stood on the pier with the luggage. Pirates and all other kinds of savage cutthroats swarmed around him on the deck, ignoring the lone man dressed neatly in a suit. It might have had something to do with the fact that the Nautilus was behind him and no one wanted to try anything on someone Nemo might consider a friend. The carriage was due to arrive any moment. Mina was still on the ship, trying to fend off all the food that Hasaan and the cook decided that they needed to take along.

"Doctor."

He turned to see Nemo coming down the pier from the one open side door onto the Nautilus. He smiled.

"Captain."

Nemo walked up to him and pressed a billfold into his hand. Henry looked at it, bulging with bills of several different currencies. He shook his head.

"Nemo, I can't accept this-"

"Yes you can," Nemo interrupted. "I have seen the financial situation that you and Mrs. Harker are in. You would never make it to the Count's castle."

"But-"

"It is a gift and I want you to have it."

Henry sighed and slid the billfold into the inside pocket of his jacket. "I can't think of any way to ever repay your kindness."

"It is a gift," Nemo repeated firmly.

"Jekyll! You're running off without the Winchester!"

Sawyer came running down the pier holding the Winchester rifle and a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. He shoved both items into Jekyll's arms.

"What is this?" he asked, indicating the parcel which was rather heavy.

"Silver bullets. The guys just got back from town with them."

"Tom-"

"I know!" Tom cut him off. "Silver bullets only work on werewolves, but I still think that they can at least slow that vampire down."

Henry smiled and shook his head, opening his suitcase quickly and putting the extra ammunition in. When that was accomplished, he looked up to see Mina and Skinner coming out of the ship followed closely by Hasaan.

The short butler handed Jekyll another parcel. "It is the Christian things you asked for. Some bread and a glass bottle of water."

He nodded and quickly put it away amongst the luggage.

"I could not find Mr. Quartermain," Hasaan was explaining to Nemo. "I thought he would have wanted to see Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Harker off. I looked everywhere I could think of for him and he just was not there."

Nemo held up a hand to silence the butler. "It is all right. Mr. Sawyer and Dr. Jekyll were told that he would not be among our number much longer." He then turned to Henry and Mina, a look of serious concern in his dark brown eyes. "You know the rendezvous time? Back here in this exact place two weeks from now at noon?"

Henry nodded. "Yes. And that is whether or not we have accomplished anything. We come back here and regroup before anything else goes on."

The captain nodded. "I only hope that it does not come to that."

"Me too." He turned and looked out at the small port town and the rolling hills and mountains beyond it. This place was so different from London and Paris which were so noisy and full of life. Even the busy pier seemed quiet and tranquil. He could not imagine this would be a popular place for a vampire, since everyone would notice missing, sick or dead people.

Skinner held out a gloved hand. "Good luck, old chap." Henry nodded and returned the handshake. The invisible man then said the same thing to Mina and shook her hand.

Nemo bowed to both of them. "I pray to the gods that this may not be our last meeting." He then warmly embraced both of them.

Sawyer stood by with his hands in his pockets, trying to look aloof. "Don't do anything stupid," Tom said. Henry just smiled and embraced the young man. Sawyer went with it and returned the embrace.

"Take care of yourself, Tom," Henry told him.

"I won't have anyone to keep me in line."

"I'm sure Nemo and Hasaan can do that."

Sawyer just laughed and gave Mina a quick hug. A carriage rolled up to the pier and a tall, painfully thin man came up, said a few words to Nemo and began to load their bags on the rack on the roof of the carriage.

Henry felt Mina slip her hand into his and they quickly got into the carriage. When he looked back out the window, Nemo, Skinner and Sawyer were still standing on the pier watching the carriage. He had never seen a more desolate looking group. And yet, he felt the sorrow of their parting. They had all gotten used to each other- they were a team. And now it was time for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to be parted.

To Be Continued...