IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE: When this site recently stopped accepting character section breaks like rows of asterisks, it removed this essential formatting from all earlier chapters of this fic. This means the jumps from present time to flashbacks are no longer denoted, which makes reading extremely confusing...sigh. I am attempting to go back and fix all early installments with some kind of notation for breaks, but this hasn't happened as yet, and I deeply apologize. Please bear with me!
All ratings, categories, etc., apply to the series as a whole, rather than individual parts, and I reserve the right to revise these as the series develops.
DISCLAIMER: All belongs to Damien Kindler and Stage 3 Media and Ms. Tapping and all the usual suspects who aren't me. Just borrowing these beautiful people. Thanks for the favor)
CATEGORIES: Hurt/comfort, angst, adventure, Helen/John, Helen/Will (friendship now, telling you whether there's more would be a spoiler)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a series. Though there is an overall unifying storyarc, each of the chapters will somewhat stand alone as well, though they really should be read in order, and I do believe it's necessary to read the first chapter in order to establish the basic scenario. But this is not, I believe, a dangerous sort of WIP to begin reading, as it doesn't exactly leave you "hanging" in the sense of a more traditional story. And the final chapter is, in fact, largely written and can be applied by me at any time, once enough of the stories have been told)
Jumps from present day to flashbacks will be denoted by "###". Traditional section breaks will use "88888".
Many thanks to Teddy E, Annie, and TaliaToEnnien for the wonderful betas and for committing to a long term project!
INTERVIEW WITH THE PROTEGE
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2010
Chapter 6:
The sun trickles through the shade elms, peppering the balcony in checkerboard light. The flickering pattern colors the tables, the cushioned chairs, the garden planters, and the cloth of Will's shirt.
He is growing tomatoes and strawberries this year. His fingers in the dirt, the leaves against his skin, offer constant reminders of his place in nature, ground him in the seasons and the turning of the Earth.
Will reaches for a set of shears. Today he is repotting petunias. He decided the balcony could use some color.
"As long as you're here, you can make yourself useful," he says to his companion. "Take one of these pots and stack some of the stones in the bottom."
Orman looks around a bit awkwardly for a moment, then picks up a spare pair of gardening gloves from Will's bucket of supplies and attempts to join the work.
"Did you keep a garden at the Sanctuary?" Orman asks.
Will shakes his head. "No, not really. No time, back then. Life at the Sanctuary is never dull. But..." He trails off as his attention gets caught up in tracing a petunia vine to its end, deciding what leaves to keep and what to prune.
"But?" Orman places a pot laid with drainage stones on the far edge of the work table, then picks up an empty pot.
"Magnus kept an herb garden. In her bedroom window. I didn't even know about it for years. Not until I start-- not...until I'd been there a long time."
"In her bedroom? I would have thought her laboratory perhaps? Or her office?"
Will brushes at his forehead with his sleeve, wonders if he leaves a streak of dirt. He misses, sometimes, the dirt of field work. The feeling of pushing to his limits running through warehouses and alleys and sewers, coming home tired and bruised and dirty and sometimes victorious. Showering tired muscles and collapsing into bed spent and satisfied. "Straight to the showers, all of you, don't you dare set one foot in my office." He shakes his head. "Not enough sun in the lab. And her office...no, the garden meant too much to her. It was part of...you see, Magnus's private rooms, they were...well they were different than the rest of the Sanctuary." He lowers the petunia plant into its new home and gathers dirt about the delicate roots. "They were her private haven, designed to nurture sides of her the rest of her environment neglected, I think. So...the garden belonged there, with her."
Orman places a pot in the waiting queue and starts on the next. "Understandable. I would imagine most of her life was structured more around what she could do for others, what she wanted to do for others, than it was around what she needed. Or what she...enjoyed?"
Will tosses Orman an appreciative glance, offers a simple nod of acknowledgement. "That's a fair assessment, yes," he says.
"Did you help tend her garden?"
Will stops mid-motion. In his peripheral view, he sees Orman staring intently at the pot in his gloved hands, not breathing. Will can't decide if the man intended him to hear every hidden meaning in his words, or if he didn't realize what he was saying until it was out of his mouth and is now trying to disappear through the floor.
Will decides to give the man the benefit of the doubt and take the high road rather than tax his brittle bones trying to throw the man off the balcony. "I watered her plants a few times when she had to be away for a while," he says. "Of all of Helen Magnus's gifts, gardening was not one of them." He returns his focus to his petunias.
They work for some time in silence, until Will declares it is time for lunch.
88888
"Magnus has been my friend from the beginning, not just my employer. So, my perspective on her is undoubtedly biased. But for all we've talked about, I don't want to give you the impression she was without her flaws." Will takes a bite of his sandwich and reaches for his glass of water. The doors of his rooms are still open onto the balcony, and the sweet breeze carries inside, bringing the scent of fresh earth and flowers. "Helen Magnus can be...a difficult person."
Orman lifts an eyebrow and Will thinks this is partly for show. Orman has likely picked up more of what lies between the words of his stories than Will is giving credit for.
"I would imagine a certain amount of...how should I put this...talent for intimidation...would be essential to her survival, in the life she chose for herself," Orman says diplomatically.
Will gives a wry smile and takes another sip of his lemonade. "That would be one way of describing it. And you're right, she has had to develop sides to her persona, her approach, purely for survival in her unique environment. Helen built and ran and developed the Sanctuary in times when women were not accepted in powerful professional positions. She had to prove herself at every turn, time and again. She couldn't be soft or lenient and earn the respect of her contemporaries. And sometimes she had to choose being feared or even hated over being liked if she wanted to keep the system moving forward for the greater good. That was a lot of it." Will pauses, returns his glass to the small glass-topped table, then says. "And some of it...was just Helen."
A voice calls out from the lawn below, and the squawk of a bird seems to offer a reply. Will fingers his glass and contemplates what words he might offer. These are concepts he has had no occasion to give voice to in a long time. "Any doctor, any surgeon, has to believe in herself more than your average person, or she won't be able to do what she does. You can't play God with people's lives if you doubt your choices at every turn. And when you make a mistake, try something and fail, and because of that someone dies...you can't fall apart. You accept the mistake, learn from it, and move on. That's the only mentality that works. But it can seem harsh to people outside that life. That said, I don't think Helen had to work very hard to cultivate such an attitude for her career...I think maybe she was born with it," he finishes with a brief sidewise glance at his companion, a hint of dry humor leaking into his tone. "Helen was always right until proven otherwise. And proven repeatedly."
Orman gives a soft chuckle and turns the page in his steno. He crosses his legs, brushes at a lingering haze of potting soil on his loafer. "She could be a strict boss?"
"Yes. Oh, yes. A strict boss, a strict doctor, a strict mother. You keep monsters in your house, you can't slack on rules. I won't lie to you, Helen Magnus has a hell of a temper, and it's no fun to be on the wrong end of it. She never let it compromise her sense of professionalism or cloud her course of action at the end of the day. But she could be very hard on Ashley and Henry. Hard on all of us, on occasion. She was perceptive, intuitive, and she knew just where to cut to hurt the deepest when she thought the situation warranted it. There were days when we all took the long way around the Sanctuary rather than risk passing her in the hall and falling in the line of fire. Not that I blame her for any of this. I can't even...begin to imagine the weight of the responsibility she has carried -- alone -- for longer than any human was even meant to be alive. There has to be a steam valve against the hardening of the shell. I don't know how long I'd been working there...not so long...when some of the others starting asking me to be the go-between. The one to approach her and ask the questions or deliver the news they didn't want to try themselves. I think they were hoping that would be part of my job, as the team psychiatrist."
"And you didn't like that?"
Will straightens in his chair. "No, of course not. That would have been the opposite of my job. The team needed to be able to interact with Magnus directly at all times, work out their own relationships. And you could, she was always fair and reachable if you were willing to take a little heat to get to the bottom line. It's never healthy to depend on a liaison. It's like a child who never speaks directly to an intimidating father but always asks the mother to speak for him, present requests in the best possible terms without any need for direct interaction. If the mother is suddenly removed from the picture, the father and child find they have no real relationship at all. I certainly wasn't going to aid the development of that kind of imbalance. My job entailed assuring the mental health and functionality of the residents and employees of the Sanctuary."
"Clearly, you're good at what you do."
"I hope so. But that doesn't mean I didn't drag my feet when I had to tell Dr. Magnus the security systems had been down for three hours before we actually noticed," he offers with a grin.
"Oh, Dear God."
"Indeed. Not an afternoon I wish to repeat. But, seriously, Helen's...she is a good woman, a good person. Once she loves you, she loves you, and that never changes. We all understood that. She could be in the middle of ripping you a new one over something asinine you did in the field, and then you trip or cut your finger, and in a heartbeat she has a hand on your shoulder asking if you're all right. She's there. Even at her worst. You could see that watching Ashley stand up to her. Bark was worse than her bite, and all that, you know."
"I understand," Orman says simply.
"The Big Guy was pretty thick skinned. Literally and figuratively. He could talk her down sometimes, wasn't afraid to stand up to her when it was needed. He's one of the few," Will finishes with a smile.
"But sometimes you had to be the one?"
"Sometimes...yes." Will gazes off into the bright sea of light at the windows, letting echoes of a life dance through the sunbeams. "I remember one day," he begins, "my third or fourth year at the Sanctuary...Magnus had had crap coming at her from every direction since the crack of dawn. Nothing life threatening, on another day she might have just taken it all in stride, but on this day I think she ran out of patience with the human race before noon. To top it off, we had this abnormal...seemingly harmless little pig thing we'd had with us for a few weeks....and it was electric. It liked to chew on wires, and when it did it would get excited and send out these power surges that would short circuit and reroute things like you wouldn't believe. Usually it was confined in a custom habitat, so no big deal, but this one day it got out loose in the Sanctuary, we totally lost track of it, and it wreaked havoc with every system we had."
###
"Henry!" Magnus was shouting into the walkie as she punched at buttons on the security pad. The lockdown doors had dropped without warning.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Doc, I'm here." Henry's voice crackled through the walkie.
Magnus let go of the keypad and turned all her attention to the radio. "Henry, tell me what the hell is going on! What's the status of our security systems, why aren't my codes working?"
Will pulled back the last of the closed curtains, tucking the tails of the cloth behind a filing cabinet. They had only meant to be in this cramped and disused third floor room for a few minutes. A search for an ancient reference document to help them with their current crisis. The pig.
This latest development must have had something to do with the pig.
Henry's voice came back to them through Magnus' walkie. "Yeah...Doc, things are kind of...not so good here at the moment."
Will finished securing the curtains to let in the light, gazed through the lockdown bars, out the window to the lawn below. Sunlight spilled across the grass and he suddenly felt a bit claustrophobic locked in this tiny room and wished he could be out in the sun.
"Henry, you're going to need to be a bit more specific." Helen's biting tone made Will cringe on Henry's behalf. He could feel the kinetic strain as Magnus fought to keep her words civil. She'd been strung like a nine day clock all morning, and the great pig escape had only escalated the tension.
"Okay, okay, I know," Henry babbled. "Uuummm...we've got...the SHU is secure, that's on a separate circuit. But general lockdown is in full gear, everything's latched itself, blast doors are down."
"Keep talking. General lockdown still accepts my pass codes. I can't get out of here."
"I know that, Doc. You're gonna have to give me a little while to track this down."
Magnus sighed heavily and closed her eyes, letting the antenna of the walkie rest for a moment against her temple. "All right. Just...now, Henry. All right?"
"I'm on it."
Will moved over near the door, sliding his hands in his pockets as he watched Magnus work.
She tucked her walkie back in its holster and started trying to make some headway with the access panel. Which, for all his respect for her electronic capabilities, was unquestionably a futile task until Henry made some progress on his end.
"Magnus..."
"Dammit," she breathed. "I can't reach any of the...of all the rooms, I don't even have a terminal in here..."
He dared one step closer. She hadn't looked his way. "Magnus."
She dug her nail into the side of the security panel, apparently contemplating popping off the cover to mess with the internal wiring.
Will watched her for two more breaths, felt the waves of tension and anger wafting off her and settling on his skin. But he was nothing if not trained to keep his own equilibrium in the face of others' distress. And for the life of him he couldn't keep a smile from gracing his lips and a soft chuckle from escaping into the air between them.
Magnus snapped her head his way, daggers shooting from blue eyes. "You find this entertaining? You have any brilliant ideas?"
"Not one. But, come on, the SHU's all right, it's not like anyone's in deadly peril."
"Our security systems are presently out of our control. I'd say that has potential for quite significant danger."
"Henry will handle it, give him a chance."
She returned to her task of prying at the panel cover with a renewed fervor. "Henry has no idea what's even happened."
Will felt the anger directed at him, now, but he refused to take the bait. The situation was too ridiculous. "Oh, come on," he offered through a smile, "I mean...you get waked up by a wrong number from Yugoslavia asking for some guy named Elmo--"
"Vigo!"
"--the London Sanctuary gets hit by a plague of chicken pox -- and by the way, I had no idea so many abnormals were susceptible to the varicella virus -- The Big Guy accidentally scares the paper boy half to death, your tea cup explodes in the microwave, and now you're trapped in a storage room because an electric pig is running around inside your walls. A pig. You really need to step back and see the humor here."
"I do not." The panel casing cracked warningly and she dug in deeper.
Will persisted. "A pig. Snuffling its way through your walls, sucking on power cords." Will punctuated his point with his best pig snort.
He could have sworn Magnus almost smiled. "Will. If you don't mind, we really need to--"
He pig-snorted again. "Taking out an entire Sanctuary, just snuffling along, looking for a snack, like Arnold on 'Green Acres', did you ever watch that?"
"Will--"
He snorted once more, and Magnus choked on a laugh.
Will's eyebrows shot up and he pointed an accusing and gleeful finger. "OH! You laughed."
She turned his direction, her efforts to loosen the panel cover momentarily abandoned. "I did not! That was...a huff of incredulity at your unprofessional conduct."
"Oh, no, no, no. A very wise woman once told me," he flipped easily into her accent, "a laugh's a laugh."
Magnus glared at him like she was going to keep up the indignant fight, then a grin pulled at the corner of her mouth, and she said, "Okay, it's a little ridiculous."
Will's smile widened and a surprising warmth sparked between them.
With an exaggerated sigh, Magnus sagged against the wall, chuckled a bit more, and slid gracefully to sit on the carpet.
Will found a place across from her, propping his back against the side of a sturdy desk, legs stretched out to mirror hers. His ankles rested a short distance from her thigh.
Magnus closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. "At least this place is never boring," she said.
"Oh, I'll definitely give you that. I learned that Day One when you gave me an office with something living behind the bookcase."
He won a genuine smile as Magnus lifted her head to meet his gaze.
They held eye contact for a long time. Magnus was a little flushed and tousled from the rush and the look well suited her. She was all elegance and power today. A fitted cream skirt and draping navy blouse. Hair pinned in a black jeweled barrette and earrings sparkling at the back of her jaw. The light from the window streamed through dust sparkles and drew elegant lines along her cheekbone. She ran a tongue over her lower lip and sucked it in between her teeth. "I'm sorry," she said. Her voice lowered at last to speak to a friend and not a co-worker. "I probably have been a little...difficult today."
Will quirked an eyebrow and watched her lashes shade her gaze. "Would I get fired if I said that was an epic understatement?"
"Possibly."
He fell into an easy smile and Helen lifted her gaze, encouraging the warmth between them. Will softened, and let the teasing go. "So, what's goin' on?" he asked simply.
Helen shook her head and wrinkled her nose. "It's nothing. No brilliant dramatic revelation. Sorry to disappoint. It's merely been...one of those days. Things have been hectic all week, I haven't slept properly. The grind. I don't know... Maybe I just need a--"
"Oh, my God! You're were going to say vacation!"
Magnus's eyes flashed indignity and the slight lethargy to her manner vanished. "I was not! I was going to say just a break...a little time--"
"Away? Like a VACATION.."
"Like an ordinary work day," she insisted, voice rising to clarify the point. "Without any extra chaos or mindboggling incompetence."
But Will was having none of this. He shifted his weight on the thin carpet, leaned in a bit. "No, no, no, no. You were gonna say vacation. Could it be it's been seven years? Are you due for that terribly extravagant long weekend in your villa in Capri?"
Magnus drew a deep breath, held it in a moment, waging some sort of inner debate. Then she let go on a heavy exhale. "Perhaps I am," she said, hands settling in her lap and head dropping back to the wall once again. "To be honest, it sounds rather lovely right now. Bloody lot better than this storage room floor, I'll give it that."
"I should hope so, or you want your money back," Will joked.
"Oh, God," Magnus let go a tired breath. "I do hope Henry doesn't take long. Confinement is not something I do well."
"Really? I never would have guessed that."
Magnus tossed him a wry glance, and he surrendered his bluff. "I'm sure Henry'll have us out of here in no time."
She gave a soft murmur of assent, but her gaze had settled on her lap and she'd pulled into herself a bit.
Will contemplated her graceful line for a while, absorbing her body language, the subtle nuance and shallow breath. He'd been watching Helen Magnus for a long time. He hadn't begun to crack the codes. "How about a 20 questions kind of thing. Only more like truth or dare," he said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Questions. You know, to pass the time. We ask each other stuff we never have time to ask at work. Learn stuff about each other. Kind of like we do during our Morrocanfest nights."
Magnus narrowed her eyes skeptically.
Will lifted his hands like a white flag. "Hey, this was your game, if I recall. You can even go first."
She continued to study him, just long enough he started to feel the strain of the scrutiny. Easier to give than receive. Then she said, "When I first told you my real age, did you think I was crazy?"
Will couldn't suppress an incredulous laugh. "Are you kidding me? After everything I'd seen that week? Your brand of strangeness seemed downright boring by comparison."
Magnus eyed him with profound doubt.
"Okay, maybe not boring. But definitely in the realm of believable. Not that I had incorporated any of your world into my perception of acceptable reality yet at that point, but... No, I didn't think you were crazy. Although I think it crossed my mind at some point that maybe I was."
She offered a sad smile and lowered her gaze. "Your turn," she said softly.
"My turn...umm...most reread novel?"
"Hmmm. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier."
"Really?"
"Yes. It's comfort food. I like the cliffs, the sea. And I like the way the story is all about Rebecca, when she isn't even there at all."
Will contemplated that for a moment, followed the threads and tried to understand what those words might mean to Magnus. In the end, he decided not to analyze, and let it go with a smile and a nod. "That's cool."
"What's yours?"
"My most reread?"
"Yes."
"Uhh...I'd probably have to say The Catcher In the Rye."
Magnus cocked her head and gave him a critical scowl. "That's a bit cliché for you, Will, isn't it?"
He nodded and let his gaze fall, weathering a small rush of self-consciousness. "Yes, it probably is. But what can I say, it speaks to me."
She watched him for a moment longer, then said gently, "Fair enough."
"Okay, my turn." Will leant back against the unforgiving desk and contemplated his prey for a while. He could easily ask another predictable question, and the answers were sometimes more revealing than first expected. But it wasn't often he was stuck in a confined space with Helen Magnus (and they weren't in danger of drowning or freezing to death), and he couldn't resist the temptation to up the stakes.
"Your turn?" she prompted.
"Okay, okay, I've got it. What were the three worst nights of your life? And deaths of loved ones don't count, because that would just be telling me what I already know, so..."
Magnus kept her gaze on her lap, hands clasped, her only movement a slight stroking of her palm with the opposite thumb. A long silence hovered before she said softly, "That's a very personal question, Will."
Will drew a breath, a rush of unwelcome heat burning his stomach. He watched the lines and flinches of Magnus's jaw. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think...You're right, I...you don't have to answer that if you don't want to."
Magnus gave a soft exhale through her nose. The barest hint of a mirthless smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. "Stay in my tower..." she said, soft words like a thought spoken aloud.
"What? Magnus?"
"Mmmm...the last private conversation James and I ever had. He said I'd...locked myself away in a tower. Never really opening up to anyone, anymore. He said I never contacted him for anything but business in recent years. And hardly ever even that. I brushed him off at the time, offering platitudes, thinking we'd have a real conversation when things settled down." Magnus shifted against the wall, re-crossed her ankles and straightened her skirt. Will was caught utterly off guard when he realized there were tears in her eyes. Two years since she'd knelt beside her dying friend in a collapsing catacomb, and Will had never again seen her cry for James Watson. "Too late," Magnus finished with a light shrug and a glance away.
Jesus. "Aw, Magnus..."
But she shook her head, brushing off the sympathy and blinking away the glimpse of moisture. "He was the oldest and closest friend I've ever had or ever will. And he thought I was closing him out. And he was right. I have closed off too much for too long now. " She looked up at Will, her gaze sincere and open to him. "It hurts less," she said. "But after a while...you're just too alone. And that's no good either."
"No. No, it's not. Magnus, I can't imagine what..."
"I know. Anyhow, the point is...and what Jimmy was trying to tell me...is that..." she paused, tilting her head and giving him a meaningful look to connect him to her next words, "...with the people I trust, I should answer the personal questions as well."
Will nodded, letting that soak in. "All right. If you want to tell me, I want to hear."
Magnus offered a fleeting smile of something like gratitude, then returned her attention to restless fingers.
Will had drifted in the silence when she said abruptly, "The night I found out John was the Ripper."
Will clamped his jaw, forced his expression and voice to still. The woman knew how to cut to the heart of things.
Her gaze remained on her lap as she spoke. Will held his breath, afraid the slightest shift of air would burst the bubble of confession.
"At that time I loved him so completely. I've never loved anyone before or since like that. And to find out... You see, I was supposed to help him. Supposed to be his savior. And then he... I'd never trusted anyone like I trusted John. With all of me. And to see the sheer hatred, the...to see that...in his eyes, toward me. I was so lost for a while. Everything I'd believed in just... just thinking of those bloodied hands all over my skin, I... "
Will closed his eyes to escape the image.
Magnus softened into a bittersweet smile and lifted her gaze. "James was my savior in the days after. And Nigel...dear Nigel and his box of draughts. And...as much as I'm sure you won't believe it...even Nikola was at his best."
Will blinked. "Tesla. Was there for you."
Magnus grinned, caught in the warmer side of the memories. "Nikola would bring me flowers for no reason at all. Pick them up from the girl on the street, then simply show up at my door, out of the blue, and drag me out of the house by my sleeve, all propriety aside, take me down to the park for a spontaneous picnic or something. And we'd talk. And he'd make me laugh. Which, for a while, was something I thought I'd left behind."
"I am having so much trouble picturing this."
"You know there was a reason we were friends in the first place. I mean...he was always a pompous ass. Some things just are what they are. But...well, he has his points," she finished simply.
"If you say so. Okay, that's one. Number two?"
She lifted an eyebrow. "Isn't this three questions?"
"You have a way out of here? Some pressing appointment?"
"Appointment, yes. Way out...no."
"Number two, then?"
Magnus exhaled and pulled her back up straighter, shifted the angle of her hips on the tiring floor, and Will thought fleetingly of how much her movements, her breath, had become an integral part of the landscape of his days. "All right," she began. "The second one...there was an abnormal I had to euthanize. A little girl. Sweet...sweet little girl. You see, she could...she could set people on fire. Send them up in flames in a heartbeat. An emotional reaction on her part, and she had next to no control at all. We tried fire proof suits, concrete rooms, freezers, drugs... But the protection was pointless, because she lit you from the inside out, and we couldn't find a single treatment to suppress her abilities. We lost...three staff members. One of them...someone quite close to me. And I can tell you Will, it's not a pleasant death, nor is it desirable to watch. I had no choice in the end, and I know it. I shouldn't even have resisted as long as I did. But the girl wasn't evil. She was actually quite kind. And perceptive. So young. No more than eight. So I did it. And I had to do it. Not only because I would never ask my employee to take on a task like that for me, but because she trusted me. The others would have been in danger, she would have been suspicious. But not me. She trusted me implicitly. So I went into her room, and read her a story, and told her I was giving her something to help her sleep, help keep away the nightmares she'd been having." Magnus's voice quivered with her next words, "And she believed me."
"Oh, Christ, Magnus, you don't have to tell me this. I'm sorry, I should never have started..."
"I could have told you something else," she said, with an almost unnerving simplicity. "I want you to know."
Will took a moment to process this and saw the truth of her words. This was Helen Magnus. She would not be dragged anywhere she did not wish to be. If she hadn't wanted to talk, she would have shot him down. Will held her gaze, and gave a slow nod. "Okay."
"I stayed with her until she was gone. Then I walked out, ignored everyone, went straight to my private bath chambers, locked all the doors behind me, and threw-up."
Will felt ill. The room seemed claustrophobic, thick and demanding. He swallowed on a dry throat and wished for water. "That's...Magnus, I'm so sorry," he managed.
She nodded, didn't reply. When at last she spoke, hoarse threads dampened her voice to a tone he normally heard only in quiet bubbles of intimacy in the midst of a crisis. Staying awake on guard in the dark of the jungle, sitting by a friend's hospital bed for the first 24 hours after surgery. "You need to know what it can be like. What decisions you may face one day."
Will pulled one knee toward his chest and exhaled in a forced rush. "No. Magnus, I can't..."
"Don't. Just hear what I'm saying, and let it soak in. Over time."
He tried to speak, fell silent and draped an arm over his knee. The wind dropped out of his lungs.
Magnus nodded. She was studying him, and he would have given a year's pay to hear the thoughts tumbling behind her sky-blue eyes. There were moments he felt she existed on a plane separate from them all.
"You don't have to answer the third," he said, wishing he had never begun this game. Wishing for a thousand more questions and intimate confessions.
"Ashley told me she hated me."
Will's eyebrows shot toward his hairline, and he dropped his knee indelicately to the floor. "Oh, come on. Ashley loved you. She was devoted to you, everyone could see that."
Magnus offered a tired and tolerant smile. "I know. This was a long time ago. Ashley was only fourteen at the time. And she apologized the very next night, told me she hadn't meant it. Ended up in tears across my lap, actually. She felt nearly as bad about it as I did, I think. But you asked about my worst nights. And the night she said that...I knew she was a teenager, but... Well, nothing's ever hurt like that."
Will found it difficult to believe this was the third item on Helen Magnus's list of the darkest of the dark in a century and a half. A night of cliché teenaged angst. But the lingering ache in her voice left no question. He took a moment to shift gears, to move from the horrors of strategically killing a child, to the snap and crack of mother-daughter drama. "I imagine that must have been pretty bad," he offered, responding to the pain wafting off her skin as much as to her words. His thoughts raced to step into her shoes, process the evolution of feeling. "I mean...all those decades of doing all you could to keep her safe, taking such extreme measures just to preserve her life. Then you took a risk with your own life to try to carry such an aged fetus to term. Ashley was the only family you had left, or could hope to have for the future. Your only blood tie. To give so much love and then...to think, even for a moment, that it wasn't returned...that you might lose her...that's a hell of a lot at stake. A hell of a sting."
Magnus nodded slowly, a painful vulnerability in her eyes. "It was," she whispered. And for a moment, Will couldn't see the commanding leader of a global Sanctuary network, the cutting edge risk taker, the daring surgeon. On the storage room floor, speaking in soft tones of the beloved daughter she had cherished and lost, Helen Magnus was a grieving mother. Nothing more.
"Hey," Will said, and Helen's gaze flickered to his on an instinctive response. Will ignored the pleasurable ache in his chest. "I'm starving," he said. He reached out a hand and gripped her calf, squeezing reassuringly. "What do you say when Henry gets things up and running again and gets us the heck out of here, you and I go out and get some Thai food. Or maybe Italian. Your choice."
Only then did Will realize the inherent intimacy in the touch he had offered, in the placement of his hand. He had moved on instinct, offering comfort without reserve. But as he watched Magnus now, all he could see was easy acceptance of his offer. No reserve or reaction; no pointed glance, no uneven breath or shift of stance.
Her stockings were slippery silk beneath his fingers.
"By the time we get out of here, Will, I'll have six hours of work to do in two."
"You'll still have to eat."
"Maybe while I wor--"
"Magnus." Will let the silence stand between them, his gaze holding hers, thumb rhythmically stroking her skin.
She drew a soft breath through parted lips, let her gaze slide down his length and back. "Something nearby," she said, acquiescence in her voice.
Will smiled. "Wherever you want."
"You're buying."
"On what you pay me?"
She tossed him a glare that only widened his smile.
"Italian," she said.
"Italian it is, then."
Magnus straightened her posture and re-crossed her ankles, effectively dislodging his hand, and he pulled it back into his lap.
"My turn, again," she said.
Will narrowed his eyes as hers sparked with a renewed air of mischief.
"Tell me something really embarrassing about yourself," she said. "Something like, you can't tie your own tie properly, or you still sleep with a teddy bear, or you're afraid of escalators."
"Afraid of escalators? What made you think of that?"
"Absolutely nothing, a random thought."
"Are you afraid of escalators?"
"This is my question. Start talking. I want three things, actually, turnabout is fair play."
Will let his jaw drop in mock dismay. "Three?"
She lifted an eyebrow. "You have somewhere to be?"
"Touché. All right...uh...I can't ride a bicycle."
"What? A bicycle? Just an ordinary..."
He winced and lifted his knees, boots flat to the floor. "Yes, an ordinary bicycle. I tried, I can't do it."
"You're kidding, right?"
He shook his head. "Nope. 'Fraid not."
Magnus narrowed her eyes and touched her tongue to the corner of her mouth. "You're telling me, that one of my team members can't ride a bicycle. Did no one ever teach you or...?"
"No, a couple of my foster families tried. Just didn't take. I can't do it."
"But you can ride a motorcycle."
"No pedaling."
"You do realize, we need to fix this."
"Why, you expect us to be chasing down a crazed cycling abnormal sometime soon?"
"I like my employees to be able to pilot all sorts of common vehicles, you never know what situation may arise, I just...I never thought to actually ask about bicycles. At least not for humans. Hunh." She paused a moment, then, "Really? Not at all?"
"Your sensitivity is overwhelming, Doctor. No, not at all. And I have the scars on my elbow to prove it."
"Ouch."
"Yeah."
"What else?"
He wanted to protest the line of inquiry, but he knew he'd lost the right somewhere around euthanasia.
"Uhhhh....my handwriting is so bad, that when I filled out the application for my first driver's license, they misread my writing and typed in my name wrong, didn't even look at the birth certificate or anything to check. I didn't catch it before the license was printed, and then there was this whole long procedure required to document and change it, and I changed foster homes right after that, so I never got the chance to go through all the paperwork. So for the whole first year I was driving, I had to keep explaining to people I was not William Zitterman."
Magnus laughed out loud. He tried to look offended. Her voice was too beautiful.
"Yeah, yeah, enjoy it. Believe me, the humor's a lot harder to see when you're sixteen."
"I'm sure it is," she said, but her eyes still danced with a laughter he couldn't help but catch. "One more," she said sweetly.
He cleared his throat. "One more. Okay....uhhhhh...every year, I watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas on TV. And every year I get all sappy when all the Whos down in Whoville start singing anyway, even without all the presents and bows and the roast beast. Go ahead, laugh."
But she didn't. She just smiled softly, and said, "I love Christmas. You'd think it would wear down after a century or so, but...it doesn't."
Will held her wistful gaze for a long breath, then said, "Good to know."
They lingered in the sparkle of the moment for several beats, then Will said, "My turn."
Magnus gave a soft hum of annoyance, which he ignored.
"Tell me about...some secret treasure of yours."
"There is no pirate booty hidden in the Sanctuary."
"That's not what I meant. Not treasure to other people, treasure to you. Some object, material possession, something you keep that means a great deal to you, that you never tell anybody about. Like the ticket stub from your first date, or your beagle's baby teeth."
The room fell unnaturally quiet, and the electric currents wafting off Magnus's still form seemed to rival their pig friend's. Will watched long enough to realize she was debating something, and he wondered if in the end he would be offered a treasure of his own, or passed off with an easy reply.
Something more than electricity infused the air, that afternoon.
Without lifting her gaze, Helen slowly and deliberately edged back the collar of her blouse. With skilled fingers, she unfastened something just inside her bra, right where the strap met the silk cloth, and Will attempted to gracefully redirect his gaze. He failed. Magnus straightened her blouse, and silently held out the small object in his direction.
Fingers brushing hers, Will took the treasure and held it up to the dusty light. A ring. Gold and diamond. "Was this...your mother's? Her engagement ring?"
Magnus remained subdued, almost shy in her muted gestures. She shook her head. "No. I do have hers, it's in my rooms. But this...this one..."
The light dawned. Will met her gaze full on and said without question, "It's yours."
Helen bit the inside of her lip and gave a small nod.
Will lost his words.
He forced the breath into his lungs.
The radio crackled to life. "Doc?"
Magnus leaned forward and scrambled for the walkie at her hip. "Henry! What's going on?"
Will hadn't moved. He held the ring tight between thumb and forefinger, watching her with eyes wide as she transformed from Helen to Dr. Magnus before his eyes.
"Yeah, Doc, I think I've got security controls rerouted. I can't trigger the unlock from here, yet, but you should have access from the local panels. Can you give your pass code a try?"
"On it." Magnus rose to her feet, brushing at her skirt after the dusty floors. "Any luck tracking down our friend?"
"Only in the sense of following the disasters behind him."
She keyed in her pass code, and the familiar snap of the door release rang through the room.
Helen's head dropped back with a heavy sigh, and she tossed a relieved glance down to Will.
"You think our pig fell asleep somewhere?" he asked. "Piggy tummy full?"
Helen gave him a wry smile. "Entirely possible. It's still young, needs naps." Then speaking to her radio, "Henry, it worked, we're out."
"Awesome!" Henry replied.
Magnus popped the door open for reassurance, and a gust of fluid air rushed Will's nostrils. He shoved to his feet, legs stiff and cramped.
Magnus snatched up the file they had come up for in the first place and started out into the hall. "I need to get to the lab."
Will quickened his pace to catch up with her. "Whoa. Lunch."
Magnus gave a brisk nod, still half a pace ahead. "Yep. As soon as we find that pig."
"No!" He grasped at her elbow but she kept walking. "You said--"
"Will, we can't leave it loose! It shouldn't take much longer, we'll just organize a methodical search of the--"
"Helen."
She turned at the use of her given name, then slowed her steps as she met his gaze.
Will waited until he was certain she was with him. Then he held out the ring still pinched between his fingers.
Magnus caught her breath. Her gaze fluttered to his, then back to the diamond and gold. She took the small object from his fingers, her touch both warm and fleeting. Then she lifted her eyes to hold his for a long moment and gave a single nod of thanks.
There was more than a thank you for the ring. He wished he knew.
Will gave a nod of reply.
They were off.
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