The End Is Where We Start From
Disclaimer: The angst-whore muse is all mine. Everything you recognise from Sanctuary is not. The title is a quote from the last episode of Torchwood season 2.
A/N: Sorry this is up so late, guys! I could blame my beta T-man626 for taking forever to get back to me, but that would be mostly a lie. I've been trying desperately to get some work done, which I finally finished today. Also, I'm going to the shore for the weekend, so I'm going to try to post the next chapter in the morning.
As a consolation for the lateness, this is a much lighter chapter than the previous ones.
FYI: I didn't mean to come off as quite so anti-Henry as it appears I'm being. I swear, it's Nikola, not me.
Chapter Three (1403 words)
Kate comes bearing gifts, but that makes Nikola no more willing to let her in. He doesn't need to be a genius to know that the way the "children" have been simultaneously avoiding him like the plague and sending someone at regular intervals to check on his well-being indicates that they're worried about him. They appear to need some of his spare brilliance; they have no concept of the idea that he is immortal and therefore can't die.
Never mind the fact that he's trying to invent a way to kill himself.
"Please, Nikola, let me in," Kate pleads. The solid, metal door into his lab has been securely bolted shut from the inside, and she knows with the strength of a vampire keeping it shut, she has no chance of getting it open by force.
"No," growls the vampire.
She doesn't want to give up, but she doesn't know how effective her pleading can be when it falls on deaf ears. "At least let me give this to you."
No response comes from within the vault of a lab in front of her.
"It's just an envelope. You don't even have to open the door, just slide back the delivery flap and I'll pass it to you."
Why the lab doors within the Sanctuary needed additional mail slots in the middle of them, with their own lockable sliding metal flaps, was completely beyond her understanding when Kate first arrived. Now, however, they begin to make at least some sense to her – though they still feel extremely redundant.
To her surprise, after a moment's more hesitation, the metal flap slides back. She offers him the envelope, saying, "Please don't lock yourself away in here."
The small window into his private world slams shut in the middle of her talking, but it doesn't faze her.
"We miss her too, you know."
Henry is the next to try to get the vampire out of his shell, but he meets with notably the least success.
"Go away, Wolf-boy," Nikola growls before he can get anything out. "Go play with the rest of the children like a good little Wolf-boy."
Henry lets loose a low growl of his own and shifts into his werewolf form. With all the additional strength he can muster, he slams into the door at top speed.
It doesn't budge.
Clutching his probably-dislocated shoulder, he growls angrily at both the vampire and the reinforced door as he slinks off to the infirmary.
Bigfoot tries each and every day. He doesn't try to get the vampire to speak to him, because he of all people knows how much can be said without a word. He simply tries to provide Nikola with an opportunity to interact with the rest of the team over something that is bothering them all.
Every morning, he leaves the vampire with a bottle of wine, a pint of their unique blood mixture with his medication mixed right in, and an open invitation to re-join the team. Every evening, he replaces the empty bottle with a fresh one and hesitates a moment for the vampire to say something, but he never does.
Each day, he starts again, tries again, and gets no further, but never once does he come close to giving up.
Will is the last to try, but some combination of his timing and persistence pays off better than the others. He knocks on the thick door, not expecting the reinforced steel plating to give way under his touch.
Nikola sits in a corner of his lab, which is a complete and chaotic mess. It's nothing like Nikola's usual organised clutter: Broken pieces of equipment lie in heaps at the bottom of every flat surface. Beakers and test tubes and small microscope slides clutter the floor in heaps as though they've been knocked by an angry hand.
The man in question hunches in the foetal position, clutching a few sheets of paper to his chest. The papers are sodden, crumpled in fists squeezed tight, and held to his breast like a lifeline.
"Nikola?" Will asks softly.
He is expecting a crack about 'Dr Expendable' but nothing comes. When the vampire doesn't respond at all, his worry increases.
Will crouches down in front of Nikola and says his name again.
"Get back," he growls, his vampire side coming out in full force.
Will doesn't falter. The blood bags are empty, and he knows Bigfoot has been infusing them with medication so he has nothing to fear.
"We all miss her," the psychoanalyst says, but he gets no answer. So he tries again: "It's perfectly normal to miss her, but you don't have to suffer through it alone."
In response, Nikola shoves the papers at him, and what Will reads there breaks his heart more than his own letter did.
My dearest Nikola–
We all knew this day would come to pass. I know you, with your brilliant mind, must have known this was coming. I am so very sorry that you were the one of the Five to outlive the rest of us. Out of all of us, perhaps only I truly know how hard you take the death of someone you care deeply about.
I thank the Gods that have been smiling upon my life so as to allow me that my life has been so intimately intersected with yours. Not a day passes in which I find myself regretting the chance I took in talking to a stranger who was feeding pigeons.
Longevity may seem a blessing, but it is in many ways a curse. I have seen so many of my friends die, swallowed up by the sands of time, and now, I fear, my time has come to join them. We have always known the Source Blood did not affect my healing. In fact, do you remember those remarkable few days when we believed it had done nothing to any of us? And years had passed before we even speculated that my physiology may have been affected.
Here I am, over a hundred and fifty, and I still cannot master the simple task of writing a letter which says no more and no less than I want it to. But how do I finally admit to you something I have been denying for as long as I've known you?
I love you, Nikola Tesla. I have loved you from our first conversation, from when the most I knew about you was that the pigeons were your closest friends. I loved you even as I was to marry John, but those were the days when a passionate love was unheard of, and you married the man who made you feel safe. John did, until that, too, was shattered, like so much else of the Five.
You, Nikola, have made these many long years of living worth it. I didn't realise it until you returned, but you have made me happy like only my daughter could. In fact, it is one of my deepest regrets that the two people I loved most never had a chance to meet.
You make me feel so wonderfully alive that it must be some sort of cruel trick of fate that the only way I have the courage to admit the truth to you is in my death. I am truly very sorry that my courage to speak the words you need to hear comes only when I know the only instance in which you would read this text and learn the truth is if there were no way I would be around to face the consequences.
I love you, Nikola. I'm sorry that I can leave you my heart only when my life is gone.
Helen Magus
"She had so many opportunities to tell me," Nikola says in a broken voice, and tears begin to slip down his cheeks. "So many. I left her every chance – I even told her I loved her."
"That must have been hard for you."
Nikola laughs harshly. "Don't even pretend you understand what I'm feeling, Huggybear," the immortal man replies with a cruel-hearted twist of sarcasm.
"We want to help you, Nikola. You aren't suffering this alone."
"Don't," he growls back. He gestures roughly to the door and orders, "Out!"
Leaving the letter on top of a lab table, Will follows his order and shuts the door securely behind him.