Timeline: Between "Sanctuary for All" and "Fata Morgana"

Now I Remember

"Mom!" Will shouted as the monster grabbed him by the ankles and started dragging.

"Will, hide!" she called, rushing towards them with a large stick. She raised it over her head and brought it down hard on the monster's shoulder.

The creature abandoned Will, spinning and…

"Mom!" he shrieked, watching in terror as sharp claws ripped through her shirt, leaving a spreading red stain in their wake.

Mom looked down at her chest with an expression of surprise. "Will…" Then her knees crumpled and she hit the ground in an untidy heap.

With a sound like thunder, the creature jerked back before turning and running.

"Go!" a strangely-accented female voice ordered. "Do not let it escape!"

Will shook off his paralysis, taking a step towards his fallen mother as a man dropped to his knees next to her, rolling her onto her back. Hands grasped his shoulders and pulled him back, not roughly but with too much strength for a child to resist.

He was drawn back until he could not clearly make out every wound on his mother's body. The man who had been kneeling next to her rose and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Doctor."

"Go help the others," the woman directed, wrapping Will in a blanket and picking him up, cradling him to her chest. The smell of lavender washed over him.

"Mom?" he wavered.

"It's all right," she murmured, rubbing his back and holding him close. "You're safe now." She spent a moment more looking over the campsite, then turned away. "Let's bring you somewhere warm."

"Mom?" he repeated more insistently as she started walking. He went rigid in her arms, struggling.

"Don't be afraid, son," she whispered. "You're safe now. Drink this. It'll make you feel better."

A cup was pressed into his hands. Cocoa. He didn't want any, but he took a sip because good boys always did what adults said.

"And a little more," she urged, sitting down and not loosening her firm hold on him.

Her touch was comforting, like her smell. He took another sip of the cocoa, and its warmth spread through him, making him feel a little less empty inside.

"It'll all be better soon," the woman assured him in her pretty voice. "By tomorrow, tonight will seem like a dream to you. It won't seem real and, just maybe, that'll give you a chance at a normal life." She smiled down at him, looking sad.

"But, my mom?"

"I'm sorry." She bent and pressed her lips to his forehead. "Just rest now."

"Doctor," a man said, jogging up to them. "We have to go. The cops are almost here."

"Tell me you managed to get the body disposed of?"

"It's on its way back to the Sanctuary now."

"Good. The rest of you go. I'll wait nearby until they find him."

"Doctor," he began, shaking his head.

"It's a cold night. I want to make sure he's found promptly. Now go. And tell Ashley that her mum will be along shortly."

"Yes, Doctor." He nodded and moved off.

"I have to go now," she told Will, kissing his forehead again. "But I'll be close by, watching over you. I'll keep you safe," she promised. "Believe me?"

He nodded weakly. "I'm tired."

"I know. Rest now. I'll be watching. Be brave, dear-heart."

She transferred him from her lap onto the bench she had been sitting on, making sure he was snuggly wrapped in the blanket. Eyes growing heavy, he watched her go, melting into the shadows of a nearby copse of trees. When he was finally able to resist sleep no longer, he was still aware of two things: sirens nearby and a woman's silhouette watching him from the trees.

0101010

Will woke abruptly but without moving or making a sound. Everything about that night had always seemed like a dream, and no wonder if this latest mental reconstruction was accurate.

Magnus had drugged the cocoa. It must have seemed the kindest thing to her and Will was not sure he could argue. Remembering that night with any kind of clarity would have been horrible beyond words. The disjointed flashes he still occasionally suffered even in the light of day were bad enough.

Her gift to him continued: he could lay in bed, reflecting on the full sequence of events without particularly strong emotion.

Yes, his mother had been killed horribly and he had been rescued by a band of monster hunters and then left to be found on a park bench, but that was well in the past. He had come to terms with his mother's death long since, perhaps in part thanks to the intervention of Magnus.

He could not be angry at her. In modern psychiatry, it was not unheard of to administer large doses of certain drugs to a patient who had just experienced an extremely horrific event. It could help stave off, or at least reduce the severity of, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But how had Magnus known that all those years ago? Had she, in fact, spiked his cocoa with beta blockers at all, or had his exhaustion been nothing but a stress-reaction? Was any of the dream an accurate recollection?

He could almost have dismissed it as nothing but a reconstruction, possibly quite accurate but still by no means a recollection. Except…

Lavender.

To this day, the mere scent was enough to diffuse tension or anxiety. To make him feel safe. Protected. Likewise the taste of hot cocoa.

And there was the blanket the police had found him wrapped in. He might merely have inserted that detail into the dream based on the knowledge that there had been a blanket, but somehow he doubted it. It just felt too much like the sort of thing Magnus would do.

Well, there was one way to find out.

He climbed to his feet, shrugging on his robe and heading for her office, fully intending to ask her outright. It was early enough that she was likely to still be there, hard at work.

And she was.

"Oh, good evening, Will," she greeted him with a distracted smile, staring at her computer screen and chewing her lower lip.

"Problem?" he asked, approaching her desk.

"Oh, it's this infernal thing." She waved an aggravated hand at the computer. "For an intelligent woman, I can occasionally be remarkably inept at its operation."

"Well, you didn't exactly grow up with the technology the way the rest of us did," he pointed out, circling the desk to stare at the screen. "What's wrong?"

"I'm getting a security error message every time I attempt to access the Sanctuary hub. See?" She pointed to the error on ther screen.

"I get that sometimes. It doesn't really like cookies that much. When's the last time you deleted yours?"

His question was met with a blank frown.

"That long?" he asked, laughing and leaning around her to type on the keyboard.

Lavender flooded his senses and, though he had never really thought about it before, it smelled right on Magnus. Familiar. It was, he realized belatedly, her favorite.

"In the morning, you can have Henry program the computer to automatically delete them once a week for you," he told her, pulling up the internet settings and erasing all her temporary files. "For now, this should do you." He pulled up the hub that connected all the world's Sanctuaries. "See, there you go."

She smiled at him. "Thank you, Will."

"No problem." He cleared his throat. "It occurs to me. I never did thank you."

She frowned. "What for, Will?"

"Saving my life."

She colored slightly, shaking her head. "That's my job, Will."

"Maybe," he agreed. "But the blanket and the cocoa were above and beyond."

Her expression turned bemused. "You remember?"

"I remember the drugs, too."

"Oh." Her expression turned wary, and mildly apologetic. "And?"

"And, they worked. I still developed PTSD, but it could have been a lot worse. So, thanks for those, too."

She smiled sadly. "I never told you because I was afraid you might consider it one more betrayal."

He shook his head. "If you brought a child to me now who had watched a monster rip his mother apart five minutes previous, I'd probably do the exact same thing. I'm not sure how you knew to do it, or whether I really want to know, but thanks."

"I wish I could have done more."

"You did enough. Hell, you probably saved my sanity as well as my life that night."

"Your own inner strength is largely to thank for that." She gave a faint shake of her head. "I should really get back to work. Get some sleep, Will. Sweet dreams."

"You know, it's funny. For once I feel like that might actually be possible."

She smiled. "I'm glad for you, Will. Now, shall I see you to your room and tuck you in?"

He grinned, taking the hint. "I'll let you get back to work. Night, Magnus."

He went back to his room, shedding his robe and climbing back into his still-warm bed. The panic that always accompanied lying alone in the dark started to rise in him, but was abruptly quelled.

"It's all right. You're safe now."

He smiled, feeling not just better but actually, for once, ready to face sleep without a fight.

"I know I am, Magnus. Thanks."

End