Disclaimer: See previous chapters.


Chapter 7: Recovery

Mina Harker shook herself awake as the first rays of sunlight streamed through the crack in the curtains. It came to rest on her side, the light causing her black gown to fade to a pale gray in an instant, the shadows on either side as dark as ink. Her corset was pasted to her skin from sweat and she found it impossible to breathe as she sat up and struggled to do so, her heart pounding for air. She reached a hand back to the buttons on the back of the dress, standing up quickly as she yanked them undone and frantically moved her fingers down the strings of her bindings. She fumbled with the bow for a moment before she finally yanked it hard enough to undo it. Shaking, she pulled at either side of it and drank in the sweet air hungrily, eyes closed as she let her mouth hang open and bring oxygen into her body again and again.

I cannot believe I fell asleep with this bloody thing on, she thought, still breathing rapidly. Her mind was reeling, playing back the events of the evening. She turned quickly to the second couch and found Gabriel Van Helsing there, still asleep, his face twisting every now and then from whatever nightmare he was trapped in at the present. Mina's heart slowed, recalling something about a trip to her cellar. Her questions were answered when she eyed the bowl of melted ice on the table. Yes, that's it. I went down to the cellar to get some ice. She looked at the mess of bandages and blood on her table, finding her hands covered in his bodily fluids. The red streaks were traced over her face from her sleeping on them. She wiped them off on her skirt quickly and licked her fingers, rubbing them on her face to remove the blood quickly.

Her patient was still sleeping soundly enough. Earlier in the night his temperature had risen slightly and his dreams became much more violent. She found the morphine still on the table, the same amount she remembered filling the syringe with the night before. Scattered about in her sleeping area were papers sticking wildly out of the book she had been reading, a pen lying on the table from the notes she had scrawled in her research. Mina grabbed the copy of King Arthur and slammed it on her papers, tossing it aside on the table with her chemistry set. Her attention turned back to Gabriel.

But the couch was empty. Where he had once been there remained only the couch indentations of his legs and head on the arm rest, and they too were slowly disappearing. She listened carefully, turning around the room slightly as she found him, a hand grabbing her mouth while another gripped an arm and pulled it up and behind her back. Mina's body went rigid as she felt his breathing by her ear, feeling the pain of his injuries from his ragged breath. But his heart was steady, constantly at one pace.

"Who are you?" He asked her, his voice deep and dark. She felt his hand loosen on her mouth. She answered honestly.

"Mina Harker."

"Where am I?"

"My home. I brought you here last night. You were injured by Morgan le Faye."

The grip on her arm loosened. Mina turned slowly to face him, his face inches from hers. He was taller than her, something she hadn't noticed the night before or the time when they previously met. She had once worn heels though, and she assumed that was the reason she had not noticed a large difference in height.

Gabriel breathed through his nostrils, wincing slightly at the feeling in his chest.

"How long have I been asleep?" He asked her, backing away a little from the sun in his eyes. His legs were trembling slightly from his weight, oxygen unable to move in his lungs much from the injury to his ribs. Mina offered her hand to him but he ignored her.

"Only a few hours. You lost consciousness not long after I had finished stitching the slash she gave you on your upper chest." Gabriel found some comfort in that thought, still not trusting the woman he was now indebted to for his life. Mina watched him start to falter on his legs, shifting his weight uncomfortably. She no longer offered her arm. She reached for his instead, demanding that she assist him.

Gabriel refused, walking to the couch she had been sleeping on instead and dropped down onto it. Mina came to him and moved to the table, moving through the instruments she had used the night before and began to clean up. He was obviously in a better condition than she would have thought him to be in.

He had never once remembered feeling so weak. Even when he had first woke in the care of the Vatican he had never felt so utterly spent. Every muscle was trembling and aching from the stress of being tensed as he slept. Every breath felt like his last, as if at any moment his whole rib cage would break and collapse. He closed his eyes and breathed as deep as he could without causing himself too much pain.

Mina's footsteps left the room for a moment before she returned with a glass of water in her hand. She gave it to him.

"You should drink some of that. You're probably dehydrated." He looked from the water to his hostess. Mina's eyes refused to leave him, willing him to drink it instead of simply hold it. Gabriel watched her as he drank it down, the liquid causing his throat to cool and ease to normal once more. The raw surface burned from the cold water and his stomach tied itself in knots when it hit it. Mina took the glass away when she was satisfied he had drank enough of it.

"You have two strange masses of scar tissue on your back." She said out of nowhere, the conversation made to sound casual. To Gabriel it was not. His back held the only two scars that never faded. He shot his eyes to her but she missed them, too busy cleaning up the mess she had made the night before. She picked up the bloodied fabric she had cut from his shirt and wrapped them in a large ball in her hand. "I did not mean to pry. I discovered them when I was stitching up the wound on your back. They appear as if they have bones and joints beneath them."

He was silent, not wanting to delve into the conversation further. "I can't remember where they're from. I awoke with them."
"You have forgotten many things, Mr. Van Helsing." She said to him. "It is a shame you cannot remember our meeting."

Gabriel was quiet. He closed his eyes, trying to recall when they had first met. Mina watched him silently, turning away.

"Although there are some things better left forgotten." Gabriel looked back at her. She walked from the room.


He awoke with a start, sitting straight up in the small cot he was lying in, and immediately he was screaming.

There was an unconscious loss he was feeling. It wasn't the pain from his back, although it added to the growing pain within his body. The rest was emotional. It made his heart ache and his throat constrict, a growing lump in his esophagus. He reached his hands to his back, feeling the soft bandages running around his bare chest and over his spine. He stopped his cry of pain only to breathe heavily, satisfying his racing heart rate and shaking body. Hot tears moved down his face, finding their way to his chin as he tried to remember. He tried to remember anything but found only darkness in his mind.

There was nothing left of who he once was. Every bit of his life had been stolen from him, ripped from him and carried away to a place he could not reach. He heard footsteps outside the door to his right and he frantically stood up and hopped from the cot before falling onto the floor. His legs refused to hold him upright. They were limp and weakened from his bedridden state.

How long had he been there? And for that matter, where the hell was he?

He could tell quickly that the simple furnishings and the crucifix on the wall denoted an area of faith. The bed was soft but primitive, stuffed with just enough feathers to keep him comfortable. The night table he found above his was filled with odd tools he had glanced at before he had fallen off the bed.

The door opened as a red robed man walked in, a skulking friar at his side. He got to the edge of the bed, pulling himself up as far as he could. The two men stopped short.

"Good God he is alive."

"Stop staring, Carl." The red robed Cardinal ordered. "Help me."

"Stay away from me. Where the hell am I?"

"You see, he doesn't want to be helped." The friar said innocently, hunched over. The Cardinal rolled his eyes.

"I would ask that you not swear inside the house of God." The Cardinal said calmly. "I realize you must have a lot of questions."

"Tell me where I am."

"The Vatican, in Rome, Italy."

That didn't make sense. He furrowed his brow in confusion. There were a million questions on his mind.

"Who are you?"

"I am Cardinal Jinette of the Knights of the Holy Order. This is Carl." The small friar gave a small wave. "May I ask what your name is?"

Good question, he thought. Come on, you must know your name. It's a simple question. Everyone knows their name.

"I don't know." He answered in disbelief. "I don't know."

There was an awkward silence in the room. He closed his eyes and tried to remember. "I don't know." He said again, feeling himself hurt once again. He released his hold on the bed, sliding back onto the floor. He was ignoring the pain in his back by then, eyes closed in disbelief. He couldn't remember his name. He couldn't remember his age. He couldn't remember anything about himself.

Jinette moved around the bed, kneeling down to him on the other side. His eyes were still closed. At first, the Cardinal thought he had lost consciousness, but his mouth opened and he spoke again after much thought.

"Gabriel." He said. "My name is Gabriel Van Helsing."


Morgan slammed the sword upon the circular table in her bedchamber, the whole pile of metal weapons striking each other with a sound that made her ears ring afterwards. Her council let out shrill shrieks of fear for their mistress's rage, some scampering off to her castle and other waiting around, moaning and crying with pain for their deity. She stormed through her room and threw over furniture with her power, angry at herself.

That blasted Mina Harker, she thought to herself, running to the window and opening it wide. She gave off a scream into the night that caused lights to go on and children to cry. Lightning flashed in the distance and danced through the sky before she slammed the window shut and caused the weather to go back to normal. That blasted Gabriel Van Helsing. I'll kill them both before I leave London. I swear to it that they will not live to see another day.

She stormed down the hall to her library and slammed the door. The books were filled with unlimited knowledge and all she had to do was look. Morgan grabbed the first off her desk, the page opened to the Latin references to the Left Hand of God, the arch angel Gabriel. She smiled at the picture. I suppose I'll just have to find out more about you, Gabriel Van Helsing. She slammed the book shut and threw it across the room, scattering the old pages across the floor and through the air. She extended her right hand and struck the book with blue lightning that extended from her fingers. The book crumpled to the floor in a cloud of dust, and only then did Morgan relax, dropping her arm to her side and leaving it alone.

You'll soon be as dead as your story, Gabriel, she vowed. As will your old friend Mina Harker.


"You're healing unnaturally quickly, Mr. Van Helsing." Mina said, running the wet cloth over his back. The mess of stitches was covered in the lavender water. Every time she moved it his back twitched and various muscles tightened. He gripped the couch material beside him, his injuries still paining him as she cleaned them.

"I always have." Gabriel hissed as she ran the wet rag over the stitches. The water seeped between the flaps of skin and stung terribly. It was as if a million bees were stinging the singular area of his back. He groaned. Mina stopped for a moment, dipping the rag back into the warm water near the couch. She came back up and dabbed more water onto the gash.

She took a moment to look at the lumps of scar tissue on his now bare back. He had removed his shirt entirely at her promise of a new one.

"Mr. Harker is dead." She confessed unquestioned, simply to keep their conversation going. Talking to him had comforted her once and it was doing so once more even though he could not remember her. Van Helsing looked over his shoulder at her. He already had an idea that there was no Mr. Harker.

"He was killed years ago." She continued, washing the open skin further. "I wanted you to know."

"I'm sorry." Gabriel said to her. "I wish I could remember."
"You must be able to remember something." She pressed him, aggravated that he truly did not recall anything.

"I can remember certain things."

"Like what?"

Gabriel stopped himself. What could he remember?

"I can remember fighting the Romans at Masada." It was one of the first that he mentioned. It was becoming clearer over the years. "I can remember riding through Europe in the Crusades and fighting against the Celtic armies in England." Mina was uneasy about the conversation. She wrung out the cloth and dropped it into the water, grabbing a fresh roll of bandages from the table. Gabriel's eyes slid shut lazily, looking back at the fragments of memory he had gathered. "I remember killing, mainly."

Mina was silent, pressing the bandage on top of the wound before rolling the bandages over his back and down to his side. She slid her hand around his front. Gabriel remembered her for a moment, the memory nothing but a flash, but enough to calm his nerves. She was speaking to him worriedly, asking him if Jonathan was insane. He opened his eyes at the memory, feeling her tighten the bandages enough to keep the bleeding at a halt.

"You arrived in England to help a friend of mine." She began speaking. Gabriel wanted to stop her but couldn't bring himself to do it. He was torn between a life that he could depend on and a life he had no control over. He could be a killer in his past life. He could have been a murderer of innocent people. There was no telling what or who he was before the Vatican found him. Mina could see that he was visibly uncomfortable. "I'll stop if you wish me too."

Gabriel did not reply. She slid onto the couch next to him and stood up.

"Perhaps another time." She said. "Are you hungry?"


Author's Notes: It's a little short I realize, but I have wanted to post for a few days. I thought I should explain my reasoning behind Gabriel's little conversation with Mina. I wanted to display that he could feel their trust from long ago in a small sense. If I delved too deep into his life that he became OOC, please tell me in a review. Thank you very much!

Oh, and Carl will be returning in the next chapter.