Notes: This seems like a good time to remind people that I don't own anything about Sanctuary :D Again, many thanks to my reviewers and those who have favorited (yes, that's a verb) and are following the story! Now, on with the text...

-Juls

Chapter 6: Three Twenty-Seven

"Helen…" John's voice was distant at first. She searched blindly in the darkness for the source of her name. A misstep in the pitch black. The whooshing of air. Her hands reached out to grab hold of anything to stop her fall. A ledge, a wall, a crevice, a hand.

At the terrifying sensation of free falling she startled awake. Magnus quickly surveyed her surroundings. The pulsating beep of the monitor, the soft rumbling of the environmental systems and her hand resting on familiar flesh grounded her. The clock on the monitor read 3:27, it was the dead of night and the Sanctuary was eerily quiet.

Slowly, she removed her hand from his and lightly felt his forehead. It was still hot to the touch, but the monitor revealed his temperature had dropped to near 39 C. His eyes moved quickly under his eyelids as he shuddered in his sleep, muttering her name again. She stood carefully before waking him, so as not to betray her position at his side. He stirred again, a look of anguish flashed across his face. She gently shook his shoulders, "John."

He startled awake. She placed her hand on his chest to prevent him from sitting up, "You were having a nightmare." She could feel his heart racing under her palm. "It's ok, you're safe." Leaning against the bed, she placed her hand on the mattress next to his head and hovered over him assuredly, "Do you remember coming here?" Glancing into his pupils, she could see that they were no longer fully dilated and were responsive to the changes in light as she cast a shadow over his face.

"Helen," he swallowed and appraised his environment as she had done only moments before. Nodding slowly in acknowledgement of her question his eyes returned to hers. He caught the faint scent of lavender and sandalwood as her hair cascaded down in front of her shoulders. Even after all this time she still used Yardley's English Lavender talc. The familiarity of the scent, her scent, was subconsciously comforting. "Thank you," he exhaled slowly.

"Of course," she stared into his eyes and smiled softly. The moment lasted a few seconds too long and her skin began to flush. She cleared her throat as she stood to full height, pulling herself away from his gaze and collecting her tablet. "Your fever has come down slightly. How are you feeling?"

John inhaled deeply and stared upwards savoring the last of her bouquet in the air, "Tired but better than I have in days, no doubt a result of your ministrations." His head turned to watch her as she focused on the device in her hand.

"Scans show you are not contagious but I have been unable to isolate the cause of the infection. Based on your symptoms, I have ruled out a virus, but that leaves bacterial, prion, fungal, parasitic, protozoan, auto-immune..." her voice trailed off. She rubbed her forehead with her hand and tossed the tablet aside, notably frustrated with her own inconclusive results. "When did the symptoms start?

"Over a week ago," the air was thick with her frustration and he wanted to assure her that all would be all right, but he was not one to make empty promises. "I was fatigued and sore. After two days I noticed fever and chills."

She paced at the side of his bed. "Any localized pain? Nausea? Vomiting?" A century of medical knowledge and she wasted over eight hours just coming up with a diagnosis. Frustrated was an understatement. Her characteristic composure was already threatened at this late hour. Suddenly aware of her pacing, she stopped abruptly. She leaned back against the counter and crossed her legs at her ankles, her red heels tapping lightly on the ground.

"No and no." It was not often that he had seen Helen Magnus on the brink of losing her composure. There was nothing he could say to remedy the situation. He offered up what information he could, "I was in Latin America."

"What for?" She picked up the tablet and tapped a few buttons. No malarial antigens were detected in his blood sample. No sign of bug bite. No noticeable rashes on his chest or arms.

"I," John hesitated, "I had found an old Cabal lab that was still operable." In truth he had found the lab almost two years ago, shortly after Ashley's death. It was one of the last sites he had infiltrated before killing the head of the organization, Dana Whitcomb. He had managed to take out the operatives on site before they had the opportunity to activate the self-destruct sequence.

"The Cabal?" Her eyes cast downward for a moment. "What were you doing there?" She tapped idly on the pad, instinctually trying not to dwell on those last moments with Ashley. An intense sadness filled her heart as she pictured her baby girl transporting into oblivion in front of her. She quickly pushed the emotions aside.

"I was trying to extract the creature from inside me." He noticed the change in her expression as he continued, "The Cabal had been working on ways to control their latter attempts at creating super soldiers. At this lab, they had done research on managing their teleportation abilities - my abilities. They were developing a machine that would trap the abnormals as they were in transit between locations. In theory, it would act as a magnet for the type of energy used during transportation. Once the individual was caught inside, it would prevent him or her from rematerializing… indefinitely." He swallowed, trying to abate the scratching and pain in his throat.

"Were you successful?" He had claimed the creature was gone, but his tone led her to believe that he had not succeeded.

"I was attempting to reprogram the machine to extract the being from inside of me. I was close but," he looked upwards regretfully, "somehow it discovered my motives. It…" John searched for the right words; his vision blurred slightly as sweat dripped off his brow, "it left me and is hunting me. Once it kills me, its murderous rampage will continue anew."

"How is that possible?" Her mind tried to wrap itself around the story. It could be an elaborate deception, but that was more Nikola's style. What purpose would he have to deceive her?

The creature was the most malignant force she had ever encountered. For over a century, John had done what he could to hold it at bay, to protect the world from the depth of its evil. If it had found a new host it would indubitably find ways to fuel its homicidal rage. She stared at the floor, lost in thought.

" It found a new host. I was attempting to return to the lab to continue to modify the machine when it attacked. I realized that," his voice softened as he confessed, "I need your help to beat it, Helen."

Her gaze rose from the floor and she immediately noticed the color had drained from his face. She turned to the monitor. His fever had risen and his heart was racing. She adeptly pulled a vial of meperidine from the cabinet. "What you need, is to rest." Carefully yet quickly, she prepared a 50mg syringe. "This will help with the pain and will allow you to sleep."

"I will be fine," he managed, more for his own assurance than hers, as he attempted to sit up. "There is work to be done. If the creature…"

She placed a hand firmly on his bare chest and pushed him gently into the bed with a caring stare, "You came to me for help, John. So let me."

He nodded in defeat. She injected the opiate solution into his IV line. "Rest. We can talk in a few hours." She wiped his forehead with the towel before reaching for his hand, "I will be here when you wake up. We can work then."

"Thank you, Hel'n." He gently squeezed her hand as his eyelids fought to close.