Disclaimer: I own nothing and profit none.
A/N: This was about the point where Magnus decided Will really needed to shut up for awhile. Blame her for this one. I hope *she* at least knows where it's going...
Eight Weeks Later
"Longest. Trip. Of m' life."
Helen looked up at this pronouncement, startled, quickly rising to her feet as she recognized the announcer.
"Will! Where on earth have you been, we expected you a day ago."
"Plane," was his succinct response, "Storm," he clarified as he sank onto the sofa in front of the fire, gazing at it distractedly.
"I suppose those are the essentials, but might I have a bit more information?" she asked bemusedly, coming to sit beside him and taking the opportunity to look him over. His clothes had clearly seen better days and his posture screamed exhaustion to her, "We saw the storm had forced your plane to ground, but we couldn't reach you at the airport and didn't see any other planes leaving the area. How did you get here? We were worried sick."
For a moment, Will just blinked at her, before shaking himself and beginning to speak. She was starting to feel concern at this point - surely speaking shouldn't take this much effort. How long had it been since he had slept?
"A guy... the one fr'm the place. Wi' the trees? He was there. Had a plane," Will looked pained for a moment and then turned an exhausted version of his normal puppy-dog eyes on her, "Really wanted t' be home."
"You took off on a private plane with another gentleman despite the copious warnings grounding all transport in the area," Helen translated neatly, torn between sinking her head into her hands to combat the burgeoning headache and strangling the pathetic-looking man in front of her. She closed her eyes and decided on the verbal method of strangulation. It might even make her head feel better, "Do you have any idea what..."
The sentence was interrupted by a poke to her knee cap. Her eyes flew open to stare at Will, now sporting a sheepish expression.
"Sorry," he mumbled, "Make s're y're real. Y'know," he shrugged as though his statement explained everything.
"Will," Helen gave up with a sigh, "I'll save the lecture for later. I suspect you won't remember it at this point anyway," she added, noting his genial, slightly vague smile, "Can you at least tell me why it took you an extra twenty-eight hours to get here?"
"Oh," he frowned, his brow furrowing in serious thought. Despite her frustration, Helen couldn't help but smile and reach out to smooth a thumb over his forehead. He looked up at her, wide-eyed, before sitting up straighter to say, "I r'member - we crashed!"
He looked so pleased with himself that it took a minute for his words to register.
"Were you hurt? Where did you crash?" Her nerves couldn't take this on top of the worry of the past day of frantically trying to locate him.
Will weathered the storm of questions with a slightly puzzled air, before stating, "'M fine. Bouncy crash," he cheerfully added, "Plane'll be good, too."
"Oh, well that's a relief," Helen muttered sarcastically, "Wouldn't want the plane to be hurt." A thought occurred to her, "How did you get here from the crash site?"
"There was a car. And a train?" Will paused for a moment in thought, "and one of those yellow cars. With the black bits? And numbers?"
"A taxi?" she supplied, trying to suppress her smile once more. One day she would really have to tape one of these conversations where he was less than compos mentis. Of course, if she did, he would probably never treat her to another one of these highly entertaining conversations again. I suppose it's not worth it. Pity.
"Yes!" he slurred happily, "Y' very smart," he finished, nodding sagely.
"I'm not sure you're in any position to judge that right now," Helen gave in and chuckled. I knew I should have been taping this, "When was the last time you slept?"
"The place I was at before the plane," he stopped, before adding helpfully, "With the beds."
"Assuming you mean the New York Sanctuary, you've gone at least thirty-six hours without sleep. Let's get you to a bed, shall we? I suppose the lecture on purposely risking your life can wait until you've emerged from your room tomorrow," she extended her arm to help him rise and was startled when Will apparently took it as an invitation to hug her instead. After a beat, she huffed in amusement and wrapped her own arms around him tightly, grateful that the crash was such a 'bouncy' one.
"Y'are real, aren't you?" Will said wistfully, his face tucked into her neck, "The guy wi' the shirt said to be careful 'cause of the head-bump 'n not fall asleep. But if I fell ac'dent'ly asleep and dreamt you, would I b'able t' hug you?"
"Head-bump?" Helen pushed Will upright again, with great reluctance on his part, to look at his eyes, "I thought you said you were fine after the crash."
"Am," he blinked, looking back at her guilelessly.
"Will," she spoke slowly, "did you hit your head?"
"Um, yes?" he frowned again, "At leas', t' guy wi' the shirt said so."
"When did you hit your head?"
"On t' train," Will shook his head mournfully, "'N I really wanted to sleep i' t' bunk."
"Where did you hit it? Let me see," she demanded and, after a moment while he processed her request, Will began running a hand over his head as though he'd momentarily lost track of from where the pain was coming. Helen was about to give up and just examine his entire head when he hit a spot that prompted a wince and she took over, tilting his head down to examine the gash near the crown of his head.
"Ow," he said as she probed near the edges of the wound. She ignored him.
"Your friend 'with the shirt' was right about this 'bump'," she finally decided, letting his head come up again while she fished in the pocket of her cardigan for a penlight, "I don't like the looks of it. Here, look at me, please. No, me, not the light. There we are."
After a brief period of studying his pupil reactions, Helen flicked off the light and frowned into his rapidly blinking eyes.
"You do need sleep," she said, adding dryly, as he reached up a hand to bat at whatever dots were still lingering in front of his vision after the bright light, "Desperately. Not in your own bed tonight, though, I'm afraid."
"No sleep?" Will asked mournfully, latching on to what he perceived as the salient point of her sentence.
"Yes sleep," Helen smiled, "Come along, the sooner the better, I think."
She stood up and reached down to help Will to his feet, slipping an arm around his waist when he swayed into her. Rubbing a hand down his side soothingly, she propelled him towards the small bedroom set just off of her office. Ostensibly put in to give her a place to catch sleep during difficult, otherwise sleepless periods, the room was more often used as a catch-all for those patients whom she didn't want to let out of sight and who, for some reason, were not in the infirmary. Her staff appeared there with alarming frequency. Alarming to them, certainly – they had some qualms about her being so near that they 'couldn't even twitch.' Helen pretended not to know about their grumblings; the whole point of them being under her eye was so that she could see every twitch. It was particularly important with a group this eager to overdo it before they were even fully healed.
She didn't think that Will would be complaining tonight. In fact, she would be surprised if he remained awake long enough for her to get him into bed. She slowed him to a stop in his headlong drive towards the bed in question.
"Pajamas," she detoured to the small dresser against the wall and withdrew a pair of scrubs. Handing them to him, she gave him a nudge towards the en suite bathroom, "I don't want to consider how long you must have been wearing these clothes."
For a moment Will simply blinked at her, the same expression of befuddlement returning that had been appearing on his face since he had walked through her door. Helen hoped that she wouldn't have to strip him herself. He always blushed for weeks after she did. In all honesty, she found it cute, but it made working together inconvenient when one party, to all appearances, conducted their end of the conversation with the floor in mumbled stutters.
"Will?" she asked, "Go change clothes. Okay?"
He nodded, though she wasn't certain if he had understood or was just reacting to being asked a question, but he ambled towards the bathroom. Helen decided to be optimistic. Turning towards the bed, she began pulling down the covers and getting the pillows in order. Luckily, the linens were fresh. They were always kept that way on the off chance that something went awry without warning. Such as wayward protégés crashing planes and banging heads on innocent trains.
Task complete, she looked towards the bathroom when she heard a noise that turned out to be Will walking into the door frame while attempting to pull his shirt over his head. Muffling another smile and reflecting that he was giving her weeks of blackmail material at least, Helen went over to tug him into the bedroom and untwist his shirt to pull it into place.
"Much better," she smiled into the exhausted face that instinctively smiled back, and put an arm back around his waist as she walked him to the bed. Settling him on the edge of it, she pulled out a small medical kit from the bottom drawer of the night stand.
"I'm surprised your friend 'with the shirt,'" and she would never be able to think of the man as anything else now, "didn't put a bandage on this at the time."
"'E did," Will refuted, overly-wide eyes watching her movements between long blinks. "I' came off. I' th' river."
"The river?" Helen weighed whether she wanted to fight the reason he had been in a river to begin with out of him tonight. While she was considering, Will took it upon himself to expound on the subject.
"Di'n't know a' th' time," he squirmed away from the bite of the disinfectant and Helen did her level best to both keep him in one place and apply it gently. Ah well, it wasn't as though the chemical would hurt the rest of his scalp, but if he moved one more time, she was going to upend the bottle over his head. "T' busy tryin' to ge' out ag'in."
"Hold still," she took hold of his chin in an attempt to keep him in one place. "I'm almost done." Finally, she reached the other end of the gash and let him go. Honestly, sometimes he was worse than a child. All of that nervous energy he normally displaced by pacing and gesturing, plus his habitual avoidance of anything medical, made him a very twitchy patient. And then he would turn around and complain about her sticking fingers in his ear. "Did you fall into the river by yourself?"
"Mm hm. Me 'n' the wheel. Cold, 'n' deep," he shivered as she carefully taped the bandage down over the gash. "Why does th' wat'r hate m' so?"
"Perhaps you should stay out of rivers, then, Will," No, not pursuing this one tonight, Helen decided. She'd wait until he was able to defend himself before she dragged out all of the reasons that she ought to kill him. Tugging him to his feet, she reached down and pulled the blanket back further before she gently directed him towards it.
"In you go," was the calm order, which she enforced by pulling the blankets up to tuck him in when his fingers fumbled at the task, "I'll be waking you up hourly… but you aren't going to remember that, are you?" she concluded to herself, watching Will's eyes fall shut almost immediately. "Poor lad," she said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing his hair back away from his face, "Not quite the easy mission I promised, was it?"
Helen allowed a few moments to simply watch as his body relaxed into sleep, ridding itself of the tension he carried all his waking hours. Reaching over, she brushed the back of her fingers over his cheek, smiling as he sighed faintly and turned into the pressure. Tonight, for a change, all of her myriad charges were safe and sound and most of them asleep, aside from the nocturnal ones – and Kate, who possibly qualified as the latter. She allowed the comfort at the thought, even though she knew if wouldn't last. What would you do, Helen, she chided herself, wryly, smother them in moth balls and store them in the attics? Shaking her head for anticipating danger instead of enjoying the peaceful interlude, Helen ruffled her fingers through Will's hair, smirking when he simultaneously muttered inaudibly and pushed into her hand. Repeating the gesture, she sighed and stood from the bedside. Paperwork wouldn't complete itself, more was the pity. Although at least with Will back she could share the joy. Allowing the smirk to reawaken and stake out more territory around the corners of her lips, she headed back towards her office proper. She turned to pull the door almost shut, lips softening into a gentle smile at the slumbering form. Sleep well, m'lad.
The steady fire burning brightly behind the grate, flickering light over the solid familiarity of her office deepened her contentment. Purposely ignoring her desk, Helen wandered over to her bank of monitors instead, flicking through the cameras and making certain that all was right in her particular world. Most of the images showed dim figures sleeping, empty hallways, or nocturnal residents going about their nightly business. Kate, awake as expected, at the heavy bag in the gym, mid-workout. Henry, curled up tightly on the cot in his lab. She shook her head affectionately at that. He did have a perfectly good room, though one would never know it from its infrequent use. Reassured, Helen moved away from the monitors, circling her office slowly once, lingering in its comfort, before her steps brought her full circle.
Seated once more behind her desk, she surveyed the stack of files yet to be signed off on with the resignation of the doomed. Sleep very well, she directed to the room behind herself, I need you awake enough to file. This smirk lasted through the next two files, at least.
As it turned out, Helen didn't have to wake him in an hour. A little over thirty minutes later, she heard noises coming from the bedroom. Concerned, she pushed out from the desk she was still ensconced behind and quickly walked towards the cracked door to see what was happening.
Whatever she expected to see, it wasn't Will desperately fighting his blankets and uttering sharp, low cries. She hurried to the bedside and, deciding that restraining him would only worsen his nightmare, quickly began to untangle him from the covers that he had managed to wrap himself in thoroughly. His nightmares haven't been this bad in quite some time. The thought flickered through her mind briefly then escaped for a later date, subsumed in the moment.
Once free, she reached to shake him by the shoulders, hoping the movement would jolt him out of his nightmare, "Will? Wake up. You're just dreaming, Will. Wake up now."
The stimulus seemed to have some effect, but once his eyes opened, Will's efforts turned to getting away from her. Still not awake, I see. Helen took a tighter grip to try and quell some of the thrashing, "Will! It's just me. Look at me. It's Magnus. Calm down. It's okay. You're safe."
She continued on in a similar vein until Will woke up enough to truly look at her and she felt the fight slowly leave his body. After barely a beat of peace, Helen unexpectedly wound up with an armful of Will for the second time that evening. She rocked slightly back under his weight until she adjusted enough to re-center herself and bring her arms up around him. It did make it easier to check on him. The shaking was pure reaction, Helen knew, but his breaths were on the verge of hyperventilating. She ran her hands up and down his back and softly whispered in the conveniently near ear to breathe slowly.
"Breathe with me, Will. In. Out. Slowly. You're alright, just breathe."
The catch in his breath told her he was trying to obey, but his grip on her only tightened, so she continued her soothing.
As she listened closely to the breathing slowly falling back into a normal rhythm, Helen caught herself rocking them both gently and wondered if she ought to stop before Will noticed. The slowing cadence of his breaths convinced her otherwise, however, and she tried not to think about how he would react should he remember this come morning. Will never did accept any lapses into what he considered 'weaknesses' very well.
In anyone else, he would call it overreacting and tell them everyone needs comfort at some point. Internally, she snorted at giving the same logic that Will had pressed upon her in the past right back to him. No, he ought to be above it simply because he is a psychiatrist and my right hand and needs to be relied upon. If I could even manage to coax that much out of him, given the platitudes about 'fine' that he would undoubtedly try and hand me. Nonsense – and not something I'll let him get away with this time, either.
Once Will was breathing normally for a few minutes, Helen let her running monologue in his ear stop, but continued to hold him close. The fact that he made no indication that he wanted her to stop worried her some. Despite, or perhaps because of, how clearly Will reacted to tactile comfort, he always sought to avoid it as a matter-of-course. As though his buried needs were impositions or unhealthy habits that he could leave behind with time and effort.
Helen had been waging a quiet, private battle since the early autumn to provide more of the reassurance he denied himself and was fairly proud with how well he was responding. She was honest enough with herself to admit that it had been good for her as well. The comfort of touch was something that she had always appreciated, even if it wasn't always possible given the times or her companions. She had considered telling Will this before, had even half-told him in an oblique fashion, but hesitated to proceed further. If this became one more thing about her, then yes, he would undoubtedly lose a great deal of his resistance. Whether that was healthy, she had yet to determine. She could, and had, survived without touch, waiting for the next tactile person to come along. This one was about him and it would be nice if, this once, Will would let her care for him, emotionally, the way he always strove to do for her.
As of yet, however, he was still reluctant to reach out to her and never had he been as receptive as he was acting tonight. It was definitely cause for concern if Will's need for contact was so deep that it overrode his doubts and inhibitions. Doubtless his exhaustion is helping in no small measure, though.
After a while of rocking in silence, Helen broke the quiet and gave in to her curiosity and concern, "Better?"
The small nod against her shoulder confirmed her belief that he had not fallen back to sleep. She knew that should she ask if he wanted to talk about it, he would simply say no, and decided to remove the choice.
"What happened?"
His only response was a slight shrug.
"Will," her willingness to accept non-verbal answers from him was small, as well he knew.
"Dream."
Clearly, they were back to the monosyllabic responses from earlier in the evening. This might take a bit of time, Helen decided and moved them both slightly backwards so that her back rested against the headboard. Once settled, she returned to their conversation, "You had a dream? What happened in it?"
There was a short pause. "Nigh'mare."
"Alright, not a good dream, then," she gave him a few moments before pressing again, "What happened in it?"
Repetition and contact was the recipe she had finally figured out for getting answers from Will, but somehow it still surprised her every time it worked.
"I's bac' ther'."
Still exhausted enough to slur, she noted with the doctorial part of her mind even as she translated tired-speak into English.
"Back where, Will?" when they question went unanswered, she prompted him with suggestions, "The New York Sanctuary?" No response there, "The Asuncion Sanctuary?" Nothing, but his breathing was picking up again. Helen began rubbing his back once more as she continued. Oh please, don't let it be, "The Rio Paraguay Haven?" He pressed himself impossibly closer to her, but still didn't speak. "Will?"
He mumbled something into her neck that she couldn't hear.
"What was that?" she tried to pull him away a little, but the action panicked him and he fought to cling to her more tightly, "Sh, sh, you don't have to go anywhere, just speak up a little. Now, you were back at the Rio Paraguay?"
To her surprise, after a few breaths he leaned back of his own accord so that he could see her face. He looks exhausted and thinner. What happened on this trip?
"Please," Will's voice was low and scratchy; she strained her ears to catch his words, "Please, don' sen' me back righ't'way. They nee' help 'n' I'll go, if y'wan' m'to, but pleas' n'now."
He tucked himself back into her shoulder as though his words had drained whatever energy he had left. Before she could process his extraordinary statement, Helen noticed he was whispering still. After a moment, she closed her eyes in realization. He was whispering 'please' over and over again.
She was trying to decide if she should press any further when her ears caught a sound suspiciously like a muffled sob. No. Helen stiffened and tried not to panic. Will never cried. When he was upset, he turned it inwards and tried to push everyone and his own thoughts away with anger or, worse yet, simply shut down altogether. Further questions were pushed to the back of her mind as she pulled Will closer to her. Bending her head down near to his ear, Helen began to utter all the soothing nonsense she could think of quickly.
"It's all right. You're safe, Will. I'm here. You don't have to go anywhere," and won't be any time soon. At least, Helen decided, not until he gave a good reason for scaring her like this. A bloody good reason.
There were no more crying noises, a blessing for her nerves, but her shoulder did feel a bit damp. After a while, Will's grip on her loosened and his breathing began to settle into a deeper, sleeping rhythm. She leaned back against the headboard again and tried to calm her own overstressed system. Her mild concern from earlier in the evening was now edging into deep concern and worry. Something was wrong here beyond a poor plane trip, a concussion, and sleep deprivation.
Slowly, Helen moved off the bed and settled Will back under the covers. Her exit hit a snag, however, when she tried to leave the bedside. Almost immediately, Will began to rouse and reached out after her, prompting her to return and quiet him back down before he could completely wake. Clingy, emotional, desperate enough to get back here to chance flying in poor conditions despite being the world's worst flier, Helen found her mind ticking off concerns as she let Will cling to one hand, while she ran her fingers through his hair until he calmed once more. What the hell had happened? After a few moments thought, she slipped out of her cardigan and tucked it into his arms. Nervously, she took a few steps from the bed, half-ready to return. He mumbled a bit and hugged the cardigan closer, but this time he didn't wake.
Carefully, she slipped out of the room and pulled the door nearly shut, leaving enough of a crack that she could hear if he woke again. Satisfied that he was fine for the moment, Helen turned towards her desk with grim determination. It was time for a few answers.