Nobody's Hero
Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters recognizable as being from Sanctuary. They are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
When Magnus Zimmerman was twenty, he saved humanity. He supposed that made him a hero, but he really didn't know. He'd never been all that clear on what transformed a mere mortal into a legend and he'd have hated to look up and find himself as the test case. So, no, Magnus Zimmerman didn't consider himself a hero, but he'd heard of a few.
If urban legend could be believed, his father had died protecting a ghost. Helen Magnus was supposed to have been dead, long dead by the time the plague finally overwhelmed Old City. She'd been the last hope of humans and Abnormals everywhere and when she'd been killed at the Battle for Buenos Aires, well, all hope had gone with her. Her being alive after so long had seemed tantamount to a divine pardon. The things she could have done, he still thought with some regret.
She hadn't survived the second time either though, vanishing during a siege on the old Sanctuary when Magnus, her namesake, was three. She had almost truly been immortal and they had almost gotten a reprieve. That wasn't a failure Magnus blamed his father for. After all, it's the thought that counts, isn't it? He thought Will Zimmerman was brave for daring to try.
Magnus had never had the chance to know his father very well, but he liked to think that dying for a dead woman had to qualify as some kind of heroism. Thus, Will became a hero in his book and the one by which he measured all others.
…It was damned complex meter stick to wield sometimes.
When he was fourteen, Magnus had saved a boy who hated him from drowning after falling through ice on the lake. The kid used to call him, 'the little curse' or 'the bane' of the colony. His favorite had always been, 'Typhoid Magnus' though. He'd liked that one best because he knew it hurt Magnus on a number of levels. They all believed that renowned doctor had forsaken them and left her protégés to clean up the mess; abandoning them to die in the offing. Magnus was all that remained of any of them and so had been brought up carrying the burden of the informed world's displeasure.
He'd pulled the bully from the freezing water and wrapped him in his coat, holding him close to keep him warm. When the others had come, he'd made himself scarce, reappearing only long enough to share the warm broth he'd pilfered from the kitchens with the recuperating boy. They'd had so little sometimes that minor illnesses were worsened by their fear of wasting resources to treat them. Magnus couldn't watch the boy, even his tormentor, grow sicker and die.
The boy hadn't died. At least, not that day and not of hypothermia. He'd lived to see another day and Magnus had slept fine that night. He'd always been an advocate of doing what was right. That had never seemed heroic to him.
He'd been sixteen years and three months old when he helped stop an infected band from entering the heart of the colony.
The colonists had long since retreated to the meeting hall, the one place in which all of the colonists could fit at once. Those willing to fight had broken into groups to take them on. The plan had been to do it from a safe distance to avoid infection. Due to his immunity, Magnus had found himself leader of Alpha, the close-range group. If anyone had to die, it would be them. Even in hindsight, that choice felt like spite.
Although the guns were older than he was, they had been well-tended and protected from the dry atmosphere and cold. He had awful aim but there were so many coming that he always hit something dangerous.
Stationed on the roof of their ramshackle schoolhouse, he split his worry between fear of falling to the ground and fear of those things crawling up to meet him. Blood tests might have confirmed that he could never be infected but they'd said nothing about immunity to terror.
He stayed on the roof till his semiautomatic rifle ran out of rounds. Then, he leapt to the ground and used his pistol instead. This strategy was surprisingly effective.
Some called him a hero for it; he thought himself a damned idiot. He could have died.
He didn't sleep fine that night or really any night after that. The infected had been people once and there were so few of those left.
Some heroism, he thought. He doubted his father would approve.
At twenty-six, he wandered the halls of Sanctuary, peering into rooms, empty and full alike, and wondered what it would be like to live here. He supposed he did live here now even if the other inhabitants couldn't see him. This certainly wasn't the experience he'd dreamed about.
He sat at the breakfast table beside his parents and listened to them murmur sleepy hellos, half-leaning on one another as they both reached for the orange juice. The touch of their fingers jolted them both back to awkward, bumbling life.
Magnus smirked and shook his head. He didn't know these people or their smiles and play. He didn't even know this kind of sunshine, but he thought he was beginning to love it. A boy of the eternal night loving the sun. Would wonders never cease?
With a lingering glance at their shy smiles, he began to think that there might be a place for young Magnus Zimmerman yet. And even if there wasn't, he couldn't be sorry. There were certainly less worthy things to die for than a peace like this. Whistling tunelessly, he left his-future, past, never?-parents to their perpetual mating dance and sought out his childhood legend.
In her office, Helen Magnus sat trapped behind an intimidating stack of Sanctuary network status reports from around the world. They laid in wait for her but she had no mind for them. Her fingers danced over the picture of a girl who Magnus knew must have been her Ashley. Her smile was challenging, he would even dare say it was cheeky. In that face was everything of Helen that time had not beaten away and with which death had never bothered. He imagined he wasn't the only one to envy Ashley for living her life to the fullest in its too short extent.
The good doctor could not let the picture go, seeking life in the snapshot and wishing she hadn't been doomed to live for all time if this was what forever had come to mean. The sadness that dimmed her eyes would have wounded someone unaccustomed to it. Instead, it made Magnus feel strangely warmer and closer to woman whose name he bore. Only one who had seen their entire world disappear could understand that expression. Her daughter had been everything; for Magnus, his parents had been the same.
Emboldened by her distress, he touched disembodied fingers to her slumped shoulders and willed what strength he had to her. After all, it was the strength she had given to his parents that had sustained him all his life long. It was the least he could do to return it to the source.
She closed her eyes tiredly, dropping her fingers from Ashley's smiling portrait and breathing deeply to keep the threatening tears at bay. He couldn't breach the fabric of time and space to comfort her, but he could return a favor he'd never owe.
Seating himself comfortably at her right hand, he began to tell her hair-raising adventures of his childhood and adolescence up at the arctic colony. He told her how he'd saved that boy's life. He told her how he'd been charged with disposing of infected bodies when no one else could. He even told her how her research had eventually changed the world. He told her everything that had transpired in a life that would never be.
There were times when her gaze seemed to drift or she'd smile and he thought she might have heard him. Most likely that was just the little boy who'd adored her memory talking and he talked too much as it was. But from one motherless child to a childless mother, he hoped he'd helped.
Sitting beside her as she closeted her grief for one minute, one day, one lifetime more, he realized that she might have been the biggest hero he'd never known. He had always believed it heroic to give one's life for a worthy cause. His father had been his prime example as a child, his gold standard. He realized now, however, that sometimes bravest thing a person could do was carry on, even after they'd lost the will.
This was his godmother's burden that she bore so well and would bear for decades to come. And it required a valor all its own.
His doctor was a hero, too, he decided. The meter stick be damned.
~!~
When Magnus Zimmerman was twenty, he saved humanity. He supposed that made him a hero, but he really didn't know. He'd never been all that clear on what transformed a mere mortal into a legend and he'd have hated to look up and find himself as the test case. So, no, Magnus Zimmerman didn't consider himself a hero, but he'd heard of a few.
If urban legend could be believed, his father had died protecting a ghost. Helen Magnus was supposed to have been dead, long dead by the time the plague finally overwhelmed Old City. She'd been the last hope of humans and Abnormals everywhere and when she'd been killed at the Battle for Buenos Aires, well, all hope had gone with her. Her being alive after so long had seemed tantamount to a divine pardon. The things she could have done, he still thought with some regret.
She hadn't survived the second time either though, vanishing during a siege on the old Sanctuary when Magnus, her namesake, was three. She had almost truly been immortal and they had almost gotten a reprieve. That wasn't a failure Magnus blamed his father for. After all, it's the thought that counts, isn't it? He thought Will Zimmerman was brave for daring to try.
Magnus had never had the chance to know his father very well, but he liked to think that dying for a dead woman had to qualify as some kind of heroism. Thus, Will became a hero in his book and the one by which he measured all others.
…It was damned complex meter stick to wield sometimes.
When he was fourteen, Magnus had saved a boy who hated him from drowning after falling through ice on the lake. The kid used to call him, 'the little curse' or 'the bane' of the colony. His favorite had always been, 'Typhoid Magnus' though. He'd liked that one best because he knew it hurt Magnus on a number of levels. They all believed that renowned doctor had forsaken them and left her protégés to clean up the mess; abandoning them to die in the offing. Magnus was all that remained of any of them and so had been brought up carrying the burden of the informed world's displeasure.
He'd pulled the bully from the freezing water and wrapped him in his coat, holding him close to keep him warm. When the others had come, he'd made himself scarce, reappearing only long enough to share the warm broth he'd pilfered from the kitchens with the recuperating boy. They'd had so little sometimes that minor illnesses were worsened by their fear of wasting resources to treat them. Magnus couldn't watch the boy, even his tormentor, grow sicker and die.
The boy hadn't died. At least, not that day and not of hypothermia. He'd lived to see another day and Magnus had slept fine that night. He'd always been an advocate of doing what was right. That had never seemed heroic to him.
He'd been sixteen years and three months old when he helped stop an infected band from entering the heart of the colony.
The colonists had long since retreated to the meeting hall, the one place in which all of the colonists could fit at once. Those willing to fight had broken into groups to take them on. The plan had been to do it from a safe distance to avoid infection. Due to his immunity, Magnus had found himself leader of Alpha, the close-range group. If anyone had to die, it would be them. Even in hindsight, that choice felt like spite.
Although the guns were older than he was, they had been well-tended and protected from the dry atmosphere and cold. He had awful aim but there were so many coming that he always hit something dangerous.
Stationed on the roof of their ramshackle schoolhouse, he split his worry between fear of falling to the ground and fear of those things crawling up to meet him. Blood tests might have confirmed that he could never be infected but they'd said nothing about immunity to terror.
He stayed on the roof till his semiautomatic rifle ran out of rounds. Then, he leapt to the ground and used his pistol instead. This strategy was surprisingly effective.
Some called him a hero for it; he thought himself a damned idiot. He could have died.
He didn't sleep fine that night or really any night after that. The infected had been people once and there were so few of those left.
Some heroism, he thought. He doubted his father would approve.
At twenty-six, he wandered the halls of Sanctuary, peering into rooms, empty and full alike, and wondered what it would be like to live here. He supposed he did live here now even if the other inhabitants couldn't see him. This certainly wasn't the experience he'd dreamed about.
He sat at the breakfast table beside his parents and listened to them murmur sleepy hellos, half-leaning on one another as they both reached for the orange juice. The touch of their fingers jolted them both back to awkward, bumbling life.
Magnus smirked and shook his head. He didn't know these people or their smiles and play. He didn't even know this kind of sunshine, but he thought he was beginning to love it. A boy of the eternal night loving the sun. Would wonders never cease?
With a lingering glance at their shy smiles, he began to think that there might be a place for young Magnus Zimmerman yet. And even if there wasn't, he couldn't be sorry. There were certainly less worthy things to die for than a peace like this. Whistling tunelessly, he left his-future, past, never?-parents to their perpetual mating dance and sought out his childhood legend.
In her office, Helen Magnus sat trapped behind an intimidating stack of Sanctuary network status reports from around the world. They laid in wait for her but she had no mind for them. Her fingers danced over the picture of a girl who Magnus knew must have been her Ashley. Her smile was challenging, he would even dare say it was cheeky. In that face was everything of Helen that time had not beaten away and with which death had never bothered. He imagined he wasn't the only one to envy Ashley for living her life to the fullest in its too short extent.
The good doctor could not let the picture go, seeking life in the snapshot and wishing she hadn't been doomed to live for all time if this was what forever had come to mean. The sadness that dimmed her eyes would have wounded someone unaccustomed to it. Instead, it made Magnus feel strangely warmer and closer to woman whose name he bore. Only one who had seen their entire world disappear could understand that expression. Her daughter had been everything; for Magnus, his parents had been the same.
Emboldened by her distress, he touched disembodied fingers to her slumped shoulders and willed what strength he had to her. After all, it was the strength she had given to his parents that had sustained him all his life long. It was the least he could do to return it to the source.
She closed her eyes tiredly, dropping her fingers from Ashley's smiling portrait and breathing deeply to keep the threatening tears at bay. He couldn't breach the fabric of time and space to comfort her, but he could return a favor he'd never owe.
Seating himself comfortably at her right hand, he began to tell her hair-raising adventures of his childhood and adolescence up at the arctic colony. He told her how he'd saved that boy's life. He told her how he'd been charged with disposing of infected bodies when no one else could. He even told her how her research had eventually changed the world. He told her everything that had transpired in a life that would never be.
There were times when her gaze seemed to drift or she'd smile and he thought she might have heard him. Most likely that was just the little boy who'd adored her memory talking and he talked too much as it was. But from one motherless child to a childless mother, he hoped he'd helped.
Sitting beside her as she closeted her grief for one minute, one day, one lifetime more, he realized that she might have been the biggest hero he'd never known. He had always believed it heroic to give one's life for a worthy cause. His father had been his prime example as a child, his gold standard. He realized now, however, that sometimes bravest thing a person could do was carry on, even after they'd lost the will.
This was his godmother's burden that she bore so well and would bear for decades to come. And it required a valor all its own.
His doctor was a hero, too, he decided. The meter stick be damned.