New Sanctuary Fic: "Interview With the Protégé" - Chapter 3
All ratings, categories, etc., apply to the series as a whole, rather than individual parts, and I reserve the right to revise these as the series develops.
DISCLAIMER: All belongs to Damien Kindler and Stage 3 Media and Ms. Tapping and all the usual suspects who aren't me. Just borrowing these beautiful people. Thanks for the favor.:)
TITLE: Interview With the Protégé
RATING: The overall series is rated Mature
CATEGORIES: Hurt/comfort, angst, adventure, Helen/John, Helen/Will (friendship now, telling you whether there's more would be a spoiler:))
SUMMARY: In his last years, Will sits down with a visitor and shares his memories of life beside Helen Magnus.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a series. Though there is an overall unifying storyarc, each of the chapters will somewhat stand alone as well, though they really should be read in order, and I do believe it's necessary to read the first chapter in order to establish the basic scenario. But this is not, I believe, a dangerous sort of WIP to begin reading, as it doesn't exactly leave you "hanging" in the sense of a more traditional story. And the final chapter is, in fact, largely written and can be applied by me at any time, once enough of the stories have been told.:)
Jumps from present day to flashbacks will be denoted by "~~~". Traditional section breaks will use "*****".
Many thanks to helenhighwater7 and annienau08 for the wonderful betas and for committing to a long term project!
INTERVIEW WITH THE PROTÉGÉ
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2010
Chapter 3:
The wind has gained an edge and a bite and the birds gather in dark smatterings like paint across the pale sky. The ground is cooling and the old man knows winter is visible as a streak on the far horizon.
He sits beside Orman on the narrow balcony outside his sitting room. The younger man appeared on Will's doorstep at 9am with a box of donuts and a carton of orange juice. For now, they have chosen eating over talking.
"Don't you ever have to be at work?" Will asks around a bite of glazed donut that tastes far better than it should. He nurses a fleeting and private memory of Helen Magnus sucking glazed sugar off her ring finger while she scans an intake report.
"I've taken some time off. I live and work in Miami most of the time," Orman says simply, and he takes a sip of his orange juice.
"A journalist you said?"
"It's a day job," Orman replies, and from the flick of his eyelid, the curl of his fingers around the arm rest of the chaise lounge, Will understands the story behind the man's words. Orman is as displaced in the normal world as he himself once felt.
"Hmmm," is all Will offers in reply as he invests himself in a bite of apple cinnamon.
"Did the parasite really destroy the entire population of mermaids?" Orman asks, apropos of nothing, and Will understands Orman's mind has not left their conversation of the previous night for a moment, he has only allowed this respite to appear respectful and patient.
Will lets the shift happen and responds as though the comment naturally followed their current conversation. "Nearly. That wasn't the only colony in the world, but it was the largest. And the other colonies were of slightly different species."
"There is more than one kind of mermaid?"
"There are many races of human, aren't there?"
Orman gives a soft smile and chooses another donut. "Indeed there are."
"At the time we found no evidence of survivors from Sally's colony. But through the years...we found a few who had survived. Living alone."
"Were you friends with...Sally?"
"Yes. Yeah, I considered her a friend. I wasn't nearly as close to her as Magnus, but...."
"Dr. Magnus was close friends with your mermaid?"
"Very. Sally...she'd been at the Sanctuary for nearly a century. She was one of Helen's oldest companions."
"I can't...I can't imagine living your everyday life...out in the light of this world, on the surface. And all the while, your close friend is a mermaid."
Will gives a soft chuckle. "I can almost remember how surreal those things seemed at first." I was you. A long time ago. "But the human mind is an amazingly adaptable entity. And these creatures, they have existed beside us all along. We are prepared to understand them, to accept them."
"I suppose so..."
Will takes a sip of the juice, dabs at his mouth with the cuff of his sweater, then allows himself a nostalgic smile. "You know, I realized along the way, that the moments with Dr. Magnus that seemed the most surreal to me weren't the ones involving vampire squid or Tesla and Watson, or blowing up a helicopter, or vanishing nubbins. Somehow Magnus fit right in on that landscape. She made sense. It was the more normal moments that never stopped catching me off guard. The moments when this brilliant and strong and brave and adventurous woman with a century and a half of life under her belt suddenly appeared completely normal. It took me a long time to be able to fit all the pieces of her personality into the big picture. Now, she's just Helen to me, in the normal moments and the bizarre. Not that I fully understand her," he clarifies with a pointed glance toward his companion. "I don't think anyone can, there just isn't enough common ground of experience, but...eventually you find the woman in the legend."
"That's exactly what I'm here to do, Dr. Zimmerman. That's exactly why you're the only one who can help me."
Will lets that statement ring for a long moment. He feels the truth in the words, knows this is the very reason he has indulged this young man's questions. Because he himself remembers the angel with the warm lap and welcome blanket, remembers searching for years to find the humanity behind the mythical arms carrying him to shelter. Wondering if she ever existed at all.
"I came down the stairs to the main foyer of the Sanctuary one morning," Will begins, closing up the last remnants of the donuts in the box, thinking he will stick them in the refrigerator for an afternoon snack, "and Magnus and Ashley...they were throwing Superballs."
"Excuse me?" Orman gives a light cough born of donut crumbs, and touches his napkin to his mouth. "Did you say..."
"Superballs, yes. See it was all stone and marble in there, and the two of them were...they were bouncing the balls off the floor and trying to shoot them up to the ceiling. And they were throwing them pretty hard...both ladies had some impressive strength when needed. So the balls were ricocheting with authority, and Ashley and Magnus were ducking and dodging trying not to get hit. And they were laughing...like 10 year olds..."
"What were they trying to do?"
Will shifts and turns in his chair, faces his guest more directly as the story pulls them into its web. "See, that was my first question as well. I figured there was surely some scientific principle behind it, some kind of...experiment they had started out with, and then... But when I asked, they just looked at me like it should have been so obvious. They were just having fun."
Orman doesn't know what to say, Will can see it, and he just stares at his host in wonder. He isn't taking notes, they are still eating donuts. The wind rises, and Will thinks they should move inside. Or at least move.
Orman manages to say, "They were...playing?"
"They were. And Magnus was ducking and laughing and cheering when hers got higher than Ashley's, and...sometimes..." Will draws a slow breath, stops to drain the last of his juice. His styrofoam cup threatens to fly away on the breeze. "...sometimes...I think that's when they really became my family. Not when they let me see their work, but...when they let me see them...play."
"Tell me more," Orman says.
Will draws a slow breath. "Let's walk," he says. He takes two tries to push up to his feet from the low chair. But his legs do not fail him when he stands.
*****
The path wanders through the manicured gardens, into more shadowy places beneath draping trees.
"Aren't you cold?" Orman asks. "Would you like me to go back for your coat?"
"Man...it's really gotten cold tonight." He shrugs free of his worn barn jacket and drapes it over her shoulders, sheltering her from the icy wind whipping through her thin silk blouse. "Did we get the last of them on the transport ship?"
She nods, gaze on the far reaches of the sleeping city. "What was left of them."
"Heeeyy. We did the best we could."
Her mouth twitches slightly, but she gives only a small sound of acknowledgement. When she finally looks his way her gaze slides curiously over his t-shirt and down his bare arms, then she glances at her shoulder. "Is this...did you take off your jacket and give it to me?" Her gaze is intense and seeking.
He's lost as to what she's thinking and doesn't have a clue what to say. "Um...yeah, I'm...I'm sorry, were...weren't you cold?"
The crease still lines her brow and her tongue slips out to moisten her lips as she nods. "Quite freezing."
"Um...soo..." He can't piece it together. He can never profile her.
Magnus offers him a small smile, then turns away almost shyly, and he catches the haze of tears filling her eyes.
"Whoa, whoa, hey...hey, what..."
"Nothing. I'm sorry, it's just..."
His fingers are brushing her inner elbow. The lightest of touches. "Just...?"
She shakes her head. "Just no one's done that for me...in a long time."
He tries to breathe. "Oh."
"Dr. Zimmerman?"
"Hmmm? I'm sorry? Oh, my coat. No. No, I'm not cold. Thanks."
Orman watches him for a moment, then lets it go, sliding his hands in his pockets and turning his attention to the poplar trees by the side of their path. "You were telling me of the surreal moments," he says.
Orman is relentless in the subtlest of tones, and Will is once again admiring. He remembers the thirst, the quest. They walk several more paces in silence, and Will is conscious of Orman deliberately slowing his customary pace to match the old man's steps. The awareness sinks in Will's stomach like sour milk. He wants to be running the streets again. He is the same man within the declining flesh.
He thinks of her running on the dampened blacktop, a breath and a pace ahead, high-heeled boots and tight leather slacks, weapon in her grasp and hair slapping in the wind. "There was this one time...," Will says with a careful glance up the path, assuring their privacy, "...we were running late, we'd been working half the night, and we had an early meeting that morning. We were in Magnus's office, and I was trying to brief her on the police reports on this violent attack in New City before we left to meet with the victims. And Magnus was sitting at her desk...painting her nails some dark mauve color. She didn't seem to think this was anything out of the ordinary, but, me, I could hardly make sense reading her the reports, because it just seemed so...incongruous. Seeing her painting her nails. I don't know why it just...it just struck me that way," he trails away with a shrug and a step to the side.
"I understand," Orman offers.
Will eyes the man for a moment, watches the speed of his blinks, the movement of his fingers against his thigh, and believes the words to be truth.
"Magnus is always meticulously groomed," Will continues, wondering how they came to such a topic, but likewise feeling this is an important part of the picture he is painting, "always fashion conscious, as to her own style, at least. She's certainly never been governed by popular trends. She's seen too many come and go to care about that. But I think it took me a while to really realize that all that image didn't just happen. That despite her business-like nature, there was a woman in there who was taking time out of her days to shop for clothing, earrings, choose make-up, try on high-heeled shoes."
"Indeed, I can see where it would be difficult to imagine."
"I think Kate did a lot to help her bring that side of herself into the open air more often. Kate certainly wasn't what I would ever call a girly-girl, not least because she'd probably kick me in the balls if I did. But she was very serious about dressing to her own image. Choosing her clothes, her jewelry. And she and Magnus sometimes went shopping together. I remember them walking together once through a bazaar in India, trying on scarves and pendants. It was...it was very sweet, actually." Will breaks into a genuine grin and slides his hands into his pockets, mirroring the posture of the younger man beside him. He fingers the small golden treasure in his left fingers. "I remember one time when Magnus was giving orders to Henry and me, all formality and severity in a crisis situation, but she was sitting on the arm of the couch in her office, and Kate was standing behind her braiding Magnus's hair. It was just...well, it was memorable. I used to see barrettes or belts or bracelets change places between Helen and Ashley. And later, things started getting mixed up between Magnus and Kate."
"An impressive detail for a man to have absorbed. I'm quite certain I would never have noticed such a thing. And I have two daughters."
"You do? Hmmm. Well...I have a bit of an eye for detail, if none for fashion," Will says, deflecting the compliment as is his custom. He is who he is. He remembers subtle proud smiles, gently acknowledging nods, and crinkles at the corner of pale blue eyes that made him long for things he had convinced himself in childhood were gone.
"From all I've gathered in my research...I understand Dr. Magnus could be...quite memorably beautiful." Orman's tone is careful, testing; implying he will allow Will to lead the conversation deeper or farther away without argument.
Will lifts his chin into the wind. He lets the thought brew and steep for long moments, then says carefully, "Her sexuality was always subtle. She never made a point of it. But it was always there. In the way she moved, the way she spoke..." The way she drew words across her tongue like ambrosia, her lop-sided smile and the way she half winked as she brushed your shoulder in the hall... "We were on a stakeout one night. Camped out in a van outside a hip New City night club where the owner was some kind of...modern day slave trader of the abnormal population. We were doing all we could to bring him down. That night we were monitoring every word and movement in the place while Kate wormed her way into the back rooms to find the evidence we were sure was there. But then something went wrong. Kate almost had what we needed, but our guy was cutting out of the main floor of the club scene early...which was way out of pattern for him. And we needed a distraction to show up and fast."
~~~
"Ten more minutes! I need ten more minutes and I'll have everything you need," Kate whispered urgently into the mic in her bracelet.
"We're workin' on it," Henry whispered back, then with a quick flip of the outgoing mute switch, he turned to the team gathered around him. "All right, guys, we need a distraction and now."
Minds raced around Will in the tight quarters, but all words seemed to fail. Prompting people to shape their thoughts into verbal truths was home ground for him. "Okay, what's Rossworth's weakness?" he asked. "What blinds him to business?"
Will hadn't even realized what the reply to his prompting would be until the words were out of his mouth. The somewhat awkward realization rippled through the bodies around him, and then without a word everyone in the van was staring at Magnus. Who was the last to catch on.
"What?"
Henry fidgeted with his stylus pen and tapped his fingers on a nearby keyboard. "Uh...the guy pretty much loses his marbles around beautiful women."
"The club is filled with beautiful women," Magnus said flatly.
"True that," Henry said, with an appreciative glance at the camera feed monitoring the main floor of the club, "but I imagine they're all women he's seen around before. Clones of the usual fare, so to speak. But someone new on the landscape...somebody flashy, noticeable...might..."
Will was more than clear on what Henry was trying to say, and both he and the Big Guy were staring openly at Magnus.
Her sharp gaze darted amongst the three, and finally she cocked her jaw in a mock grin and cringed. "You're not serious."
Will tested his power of speech. "You...are the only woman here. Kate's kinda busy."
"Yes, but--" she stopped on an exasperated sigh. Because seconds counted at this point, and she knew it. Magnus squeezed her eyes closed. "Crap," she breathed, and Henry almost laughed, burying his reaction in a well-placed cough. "Fine," she snapped. Then addressing all of them, "Turn around."
The three men shifted in the cramped space to give her at least a modicum of privacy. She never did tell them to turn back around, their only cue was the opening of the van's rear doors. "I'll get you ten minutes," she said, and the three men sat speechless as they watched her disappear around the building, then appear on their surveillance monitor at the front of the club.
Magnus had slipped out of her slacks, leaving the bodysuit beneath, then taken the wrap she'd had around her shoulders and tied it about her waist as a skirt. Sans jacket, her blouse proved to dip quite low in the back, and her legs were bare down to her strappy heeled shoes that had apparently come from the still half open bag in the back of the van. Her discarded boots lay near the rear door.
Magnus slipped past the bouncer with little more than a smile and a whispered word too soft for their microphones to catch, and then she was on their monitors on the main floor.
Will gripped the back of Henry's chair, leaning close and watching Magnus with an intensity he told himself was professional concern for a colleague walking into the lion's den unprepared. Henry had turned up the volume on Magnus's personal mic and the team could hear the steady techno beats of some popular and particularly sex-infused melody pounding through the club. Magnus made her way almost effortlessly through the throng of hot bodies, drawing hungry gazes as she passed, to the corner where Rossworth was working himself free of his posse.
Will was almost certain -- even all these years later -- that the image on the monitor had somehow slipped into slow motion as Magnus walked the path through Rossworth's vision, reached up and unpinned her hair and let it cascade down her largely bare back.
The awkwardness level in the van was tangible in the air, though not a word was spoken.
Magnus got them their ten minutes. Kate came bounding back into the van, all adrenaline and accomplished vitality, babbling about her brilliance until her eyes followed the rest of the team's to the monitor and her words turned to, "Holy fucking crap, is that Magnus?"
"Yeah," the three men replied in unison.
"What the freak is she doing?"
Henry gestured feebly toward the monitor where the woman who had raised him was leaning over one of their worst enemies and affording him an up close and personal view of the valley down her blouse. "You said...," Henry stuttered, "...you said you needed ten minutes, so...we thought..." Kate reached over Henry's shoulder and snatched up his microphone. "Magnus. I've got it, we're clear, you can get out."
Henry looked as though he wanted to melt through the floor, while Will opened and closed his mouth without achieving sound. The Big Guy grunted and Kate rolled her eyes. "Jesus Christ, I leave you all alone for five minutes. How did you keep this place alive before I got here?"
~~~
"So, she actually..."
"She did. You see most of the time we just didn't...we chose not to notice how beautiful Helen Magnus is. We...it just wasn't how we related to her. We stayed focused on the work, on our roles we had chosen to play in her life. But that night..."
"...that night...you noticed?"
"I noticed," Will says, then he looks away, watches a flock of birds rushing from the shrubbery as the unwelcome humans pass. He is drawn into memory and treading into territory he has thus far chosen to keep in silence. He thinks silence is better.
"Let's go inside," he says.
****
#
DISCLAIMER: All belongs to Damien Kindler and Stage 3 Media and Ms. Tapping and all the usual suspects who aren't me. Just borrowing these beautiful people. Thanks for the favor.:)
TITLE: Interview With the Protégé
RATING: The overall series is rated Mature
CATEGORIES: Hurt/comfort, angst, adventure, Helen/John, Helen/Will (friendship now, telling you whether there's more would be a spoiler:))
SUMMARY: In his last years, Will sits down with a visitor and shares his memories of life beside Helen Magnus.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a series. Though there is an overall unifying storyarc, each of the chapters will somewhat stand alone as well, though they really should be read in order, and I do believe it's necessary to read the first chapter in order to establish the basic scenario. But this is not, I believe, a dangerous sort of WIP to begin reading, as it doesn't exactly leave you "hanging" in the sense of a more traditional story. And the final chapter is, in fact, largely written and can be applied by me at any time, once enough of the stories have been told.:)
Jumps from present day to flashbacks will be denoted by "~~~". Traditional section breaks will use "*****".
Many thanks to helenhighwater7 and annienau08 for the wonderful betas and for committing to a long term project!
INTERVIEW WITH THE PROTÉGÉ
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2010
Chapter 3:
The wind has gained an edge and a bite and the birds gather in dark smatterings like paint across the pale sky. The ground is cooling and the old man knows winter is visible as a streak on the far horizon.
He sits beside Orman on the narrow balcony outside his sitting room. The younger man appeared on Will's doorstep at 9am with a box of donuts and a carton of orange juice. For now, they have chosen eating over talking.
"Don't you ever have to be at work?" Will asks around a bite of glazed donut that tastes far better than it should. He nurses a fleeting and private memory of Helen Magnus sucking glazed sugar off her ring finger while she scans an intake report.
"I've taken some time off. I live and work in Miami most of the time," Orman says simply, and he takes a sip of his orange juice.
"A journalist you said?"
"It's a day job," Orman replies, and from the flick of his eyelid, the curl of his fingers around the arm rest of the chaise lounge, Will understands the story behind the man's words. Orman is as displaced in the normal world as he himself once felt.
"Hmmm," is all Will offers in reply as he invests himself in a bite of apple cinnamon.
"Did the parasite really destroy the entire population of mermaids?" Orman asks, apropos of nothing, and Will understands Orman's mind has not left their conversation of the previous night for a moment, he has only allowed this respite to appear respectful and patient.
Will lets the shift happen and responds as though the comment naturally followed their current conversation. "Nearly. That wasn't the only colony in the world, but it was the largest. And the other colonies were of slightly different species."
"There is more than one kind of mermaid?"
"There are many races of human, aren't there?"
Orman gives a soft smile and chooses another donut. "Indeed there are."
"At the time we found no evidence of survivors from Sally's colony. But through the years...we found a few who had survived. Living alone."
"Were you friends with...Sally?"
"Yes. Yeah, I considered her a friend. I wasn't nearly as close to her as Magnus, but...."
"Dr. Magnus was close friends with your mermaid?"
"Very. Sally...she'd been at the Sanctuary for nearly a century. She was one of Helen's oldest companions."
"I can't...I can't imagine living your everyday life...out in the light of this world, on the surface. And all the while, your close friend is a mermaid."
Will gives a soft chuckle. "I can almost remember how surreal those things seemed at first." I was you. A long time ago. "But the human mind is an amazingly adaptable entity. And these creatures, they have existed beside us all along. We are prepared to understand them, to accept them."
"I suppose so..."
Will takes a sip of the juice, dabs at his mouth with the cuff of his sweater, then allows himself a nostalgic smile. "You know, I realized along the way, that the moments with Dr. Magnus that seemed the most surreal to me weren't the ones involving vampire squid or Tesla and Watson, or blowing up a helicopter, or vanishing nubbins. Somehow Magnus fit right in on that landscape. She made sense. It was the more normal moments that never stopped catching me off guard. The moments when this brilliant and strong and brave and adventurous woman with a century and a half of life under her belt suddenly appeared completely normal. It took me a long time to be able to fit all the pieces of her personality into the big picture. Now, she's just Helen to me, in the normal moments and the bizarre. Not that I fully understand her," he clarifies with a pointed glance toward his companion. "I don't think anyone can, there just isn't enough common ground of experience, but...eventually you find the woman in the legend."
"That's exactly what I'm here to do, Dr. Zimmerman. That's exactly why you're the only one who can help me."
Will lets that statement ring for a long moment. He feels the truth in the words, knows this is the very reason he has indulged this young man's questions. Because he himself remembers the angel with the warm lap and welcome blanket, remembers searching for years to find the humanity behind the mythical arms carrying him to shelter. Wondering if she ever existed at all.
"I came down the stairs to the main foyer of the Sanctuary one morning," Will begins, closing up the last remnants of the donuts in the box, thinking he will stick them in the refrigerator for an afternoon snack, "and Magnus and Ashley...they were throwing Superballs."
"Excuse me?" Orman gives a light cough born of donut crumbs, and touches his napkin to his mouth. "Did you say..."
"Superballs, yes. See it was all stone and marble in there, and the two of them were...they were bouncing the balls off the floor and trying to shoot them up to the ceiling. And they were throwing them pretty hard...both ladies had some impressive strength when needed. So the balls were ricocheting with authority, and Ashley and Magnus were ducking and dodging trying not to get hit. And they were laughing...like 10 year olds..."
"What were they trying to do?"
Will shifts and turns in his chair, faces his guest more directly as the story pulls them into its web. "See, that was my first question as well. I figured there was surely some scientific principle behind it, some kind of...experiment they had started out with, and then... But when I asked, they just looked at me like it should have been so obvious. They were just having fun."
Orman doesn't know what to say, Will can see it, and he just stares at his host in wonder. He isn't taking notes, they are still eating donuts. The wind rises, and Will thinks they should move inside. Or at least move.
Orman manages to say, "They were...playing?"
"They were. And Magnus was ducking and laughing and cheering when hers got higher than Ashley's, and...sometimes..." Will draws a slow breath, stops to drain the last of his juice. His styrofoam cup threatens to fly away on the breeze. "...sometimes...I think that's when they really became my family. Not when they let me see their work, but...when they let me see them...play."
"Tell me more," Orman says.
Will draws a slow breath. "Let's walk," he says. He takes two tries to push up to his feet from the low chair. But his legs do not fail him when he stands.
*****
The path wanders through the manicured gardens, into more shadowy places beneath draping trees.
"Aren't you cold?" Orman asks. "Would you like me to go back for your coat?"
"Man...it's really gotten cold tonight." He shrugs free of his worn barn jacket and drapes it over her shoulders, sheltering her from the icy wind whipping through her thin silk blouse. "Did we get the last of them on the transport ship?"
She nods, gaze on the far reaches of the sleeping city. "What was left of them."
"Heeeyy. We did the best we could."
Her mouth twitches slightly, but she gives only a small sound of acknowledgement. When she finally looks his way her gaze slides curiously over his t-shirt and down his bare arms, then she glances at her shoulder. "Is this...did you take off your jacket and give it to me?" Her gaze is intense and seeking.
He's lost as to what she's thinking and doesn't have a clue what to say. "Um...yeah, I'm...I'm sorry, were...weren't you cold?"
The crease still lines her brow and her tongue slips out to moisten her lips as she nods. "Quite freezing."
"Um...soo..." He can't piece it together. He can never profile her.
Magnus offers him a small smile, then turns away almost shyly, and he catches the haze of tears filling her eyes.
"Whoa, whoa, hey...hey, what..."
"Nothing. I'm sorry, it's just..."
His fingers are brushing her inner elbow. The lightest of touches. "Just...?"
She shakes her head. "Just no one's done that for me...in a long time."
He tries to breathe. "Oh."
"Dr. Zimmerman?"
"Hmmm? I'm sorry? Oh, my coat. No. No, I'm not cold. Thanks."
Orman watches him for a moment, then lets it go, sliding his hands in his pockets and turning his attention to the poplar trees by the side of their path. "You were telling me of the surreal moments," he says.
Orman is relentless in the subtlest of tones, and Will is once again admiring. He remembers the thirst, the quest. They walk several more paces in silence, and Will is conscious of Orman deliberately slowing his customary pace to match the old man's steps. The awareness sinks in Will's stomach like sour milk. He wants to be running the streets again. He is the same man within the declining flesh.
He thinks of her running on the dampened blacktop, a breath and a pace ahead, high-heeled boots and tight leather slacks, weapon in her grasp and hair slapping in the wind. "There was this one time...," Will says with a careful glance up the path, assuring their privacy, "...we were running late, we'd been working half the night, and we had an early meeting that morning. We were in Magnus's office, and I was trying to brief her on the police reports on this violent attack in New City before we left to meet with the victims. And Magnus was sitting at her desk...painting her nails some dark mauve color. She didn't seem to think this was anything out of the ordinary, but, me, I could hardly make sense reading her the reports, because it just seemed so...incongruous. Seeing her painting her nails. I don't know why it just...it just struck me that way," he trails away with a shrug and a step to the side.
"I understand," Orman offers.
Will eyes the man for a moment, watches the speed of his blinks, the movement of his fingers against his thigh, and believes the words to be truth.
"Magnus is always meticulously groomed," Will continues, wondering how they came to such a topic, but likewise feeling this is an important part of the picture he is painting, "always fashion conscious, as to her own style, at least. She's certainly never been governed by popular trends. She's seen too many come and go to care about that. But I think it took me a while to really realize that all that image didn't just happen. That despite her business-like nature, there was a woman in there who was taking time out of her days to shop for clothing, earrings, choose make-up, try on high-heeled shoes."
"Indeed, I can see where it would be difficult to imagine."
"I think Kate did a lot to help her bring that side of herself into the open air more often. Kate certainly wasn't what I would ever call a girly-girl, not least because she'd probably kick me in the balls if I did. But she was very serious about dressing to her own image. Choosing her clothes, her jewelry. And she and Magnus sometimes went shopping together. I remember them walking together once through a bazaar in India, trying on scarves and pendants. It was...it was very sweet, actually." Will breaks into a genuine grin and slides his hands into his pockets, mirroring the posture of the younger man beside him. He fingers the small golden treasure in his left fingers. "I remember one time when Magnus was giving orders to Henry and me, all formality and severity in a crisis situation, but she was sitting on the arm of the couch in her office, and Kate was standing behind her braiding Magnus's hair. It was just...well, it was memorable. I used to see barrettes or belts or bracelets change places between Helen and Ashley. And later, things started getting mixed up between Magnus and Kate."
"An impressive detail for a man to have absorbed. I'm quite certain I would never have noticed such a thing. And I have two daughters."
"You do? Hmmm. Well...I have a bit of an eye for detail, if none for fashion," Will says, deflecting the compliment as is his custom. He is who he is. He remembers subtle proud smiles, gently acknowledging nods, and crinkles at the corner of pale blue eyes that made him long for things he had convinced himself in childhood were gone.
"From all I've gathered in my research...I understand Dr. Magnus could be...quite memorably beautiful." Orman's tone is careful, testing; implying he will allow Will to lead the conversation deeper or farther away without argument.
Will lifts his chin into the wind. He lets the thought brew and steep for long moments, then says carefully, "Her sexuality was always subtle. She never made a point of it. But it was always there. In the way she moved, the way she spoke..." The way she drew words across her tongue like ambrosia, her lop-sided smile and the way she half winked as she brushed your shoulder in the hall... "We were on a stakeout one night. Camped out in a van outside a hip New City night club where the owner was some kind of...modern day slave trader of the abnormal population. We were doing all we could to bring him down. That night we were monitoring every word and movement in the place while Kate wormed her way into the back rooms to find the evidence we were sure was there. But then something went wrong. Kate almost had what we needed, but our guy was cutting out of the main floor of the club scene early...which was way out of pattern for him. And we needed a distraction to show up and fast."
~~~
"Ten more minutes! I need ten more minutes and I'll have everything you need," Kate whispered urgently into the mic in her bracelet.
"We're workin' on it," Henry whispered back, then with a quick flip of the outgoing mute switch, he turned to the team gathered around him. "All right, guys, we need a distraction and now."
Minds raced around Will in the tight quarters, but all words seemed to fail. Prompting people to shape their thoughts into verbal truths was home ground for him. "Okay, what's Rossworth's weakness?" he asked. "What blinds him to business?"
Will hadn't even realized what the reply to his prompting would be until the words were out of his mouth. The somewhat awkward realization rippled through the bodies around him, and then without a word everyone in the van was staring at Magnus. Who was the last to catch on.
"What?"
Henry fidgeted with his stylus pen and tapped his fingers on a nearby keyboard. "Uh...the guy pretty much loses his marbles around beautiful women."
"The club is filled with beautiful women," Magnus said flatly.
"True that," Henry said, with an appreciative glance at the camera feed monitoring the main floor of the club, "but I imagine they're all women he's seen around before. Clones of the usual fare, so to speak. But someone new on the landscape...somebody flashy, noticeable...might..."
Will was more than clear on what Henry was trying to say, and both he and the Big Guy were staring openly at Magnus.
Her sharp gaze darted amongst the three, and finally she cocked her jaw in a mock grin and cringed. "You're not serious."
Will tested his power of speech. "You...are the only woman here. Kate's kinda busy."
"Yes, but--" she stopped on an exasperated sigh. Because seconds counted at this point, and she knew it. Magnus squeezed her eyes closed. "Crap," she breathed, and Henry almost laughed, burying his reaction in a well-placed cough. "Fine," she snapped. Then addressing all of them, "Turn around."
The three men shifted in the cramped space to give her at least a modicum of privacy. She never did tell them to turn back around, their only cue was the opening of the van's rear doors. "I'll get you ten minutes," she said, and the three men sat speechless as they watched her disappear around the building, then appear on their surveillance monitor at the front of the club.
Magnus had slipped out of her slacks, leaving the bodysuit beneath, then taken the wrap she'd had around her shoulders and tied it about her waist as a skirt. Sans jacket, her blouse proved to dip quite low in the back, and her legs were bare down to her strappy heeled shoes that had apparently come from the still half open bag in the back of the van. Her discarded boots lay near the rear door.
Magnus slipped past the bouncer with little more than a smile and a whispered word too soft for their microphones to catch, and then she was on their monitors on the main floor.
Will gripped the back of Henry's chair, leaning close and watching Magnus with an intensity he told himself was professional concern for a colleague walking into the lion's den unprepared. Henry had turned up the volume on Magnus's personal mic and the team could hear the steady techno beats of some popular and particularly sex-infused melody pounding through the club. Magnus made her way almost effortlessly through the throng of hot bodies, drawing hungry gazes as she passed, to the corner where Rossworth was working himself free of his posse.
Will was almost certain -- even all these years later -- that the image on the monitor had somehow slipped into slow motion as Magnus walked the path through Rossworth's vision, reached up and unpinned her hair and let it cascade down her largely bare back.
The awkwardness level in the van was tangible in the air, though not a word was spoken.
Magnus got them their ten minutes. Kate came bounding back into the van, all adrenaline and accomplished vitality, babbling about her brilliance until her eyes followed the rest of the team's to the monitor and her words turned to, "Holy fucking crap, is that Magnus?"
"Yeah," the three men replied in unison.
"What the freak is she doing?"
Henry gestured feebly toward the monitor where the woman who had raised him was leaning over one of their worst enemies and affording him an up close and personal view of the valley down her blouse. "You said...," Henry stuttered, "...you said you needed ten minutes, so...we thought..." Kate reached over Henry's shoulder and snatched up his microphone. "Magnus. I've got it, we're clear, you can get out."
Henry looked as though he wanted to melt through the floor, while Will opened and closed his mouth without achieving sound. The Big Guy grunted and Kate rolled her eyes. "Jesus Christ, I leave you all alone for five minutes. How did you keep this place alive before I got here?"
~~~
"So, she actually..."
"She did. You see most of the time we just didn't...we chose not to notice how beautiful Helen Magnus is. We...it just wasn't how we related to her. We stayed focused on the work, on our roles we had chosen to play in her life. But that night..."
"...that night...you noticed?"
"I noticed," Will says, then he looks away, watches a flock of birds rushing from the shrubbery as the unwelcome humans pass. He is drawn into memory and treading into territory he has thus far chosen to keep in silence. He thinks silence is better.
"Let's go inside," he says.
****
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