New Sanctuary Fic: "Like Sunlight"
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: Like Sunlight
RATING: Teen
CATEGORIES: Angst, hurt/comfort, Helen/John
TIMELINE: Immediately following "Vigilante"
SPOILERS THROUGH 'VIGILANTE'!
Major thanks to sarbear12456 and annienau08 for betas that made me THINK. *g*
With apologies to verita_truth for the brief distraction from task on my part.;) I promise you I'm right back to it.
LIKE SUNLIGHT
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2010
"I can't climb up that slope, not in these skirts!"
"My dear love, when have you ever let such a thing stop you before?"
"If I fall and end up covered in dandelion smudges I shall blame it all upon you."
"And I shall gladly take full responsibility for the demise of your lovely frock. It's not as though I haven't been the detriment of a few other of your garments in the past."
"You are wicked, John Druitt. Through and through."
"And you love me as such."
She shakes her head against his irresistible smile.
His laugh rings over the meadow like a bird's cry.
*****
When she left Will in his rooms, she touched his shoulder and he squeezed her hand -- for too long.
The warmth felt precious, and she pulled away.
She stopped in Henry's room, took his pulse with her fingers and touched a testing hand to his brow. She kissed him goodnight, warm lips to his shadow-rough cheek, tucked him in for the night as she hadn't since he was a child. The room swam when she leaned, but she didn't let on.
She left before she caught Henry's seeking gaze.
She walked down to the infirmary. Her old friend slept quietly. She checked the readings on his vitals, reviewed his blood work. Kate assured her he was doing fine, had been talking with her just a little while ago. Helen brushed the lightest of touches through his tousled braids, and left him for the night.
Alone in the kitchen, Magnus tried to eat something, but it wouldn't stay down. She brewed some chamomile tea and carried it with her to her room.
She hadn't felt so exhausted in over a century.
Funny, how 159 years could seem like more than enough. Until someone told you you were going to die.
*****
"Oh, John...this is beautiful. I had no idea this was up here. When did you find it?"
The sun glints off the pond like a jewel crusted sea and the breeze sings of jasmine. She has never followed the trail so far.
"I walked up here last Friday night. Couldn't sleep after you left me at your doorstep."
"You walked this at night? In the dark, alone? John, you shouldn't..."
"Fear not, my love. There was plenty of moonlight. You forget I grew up in the country. I was safe as houses."
"You had better stay that way. I intend for you to outlive me by at least a day. So I shall have you always." She grins and wrinkles her nose at him as she teases.
*****
Lying down hurt. She was moving forward on drugs and adrenaline, but the longer she pushed, the more painful the fall. She couldn't force herself to her feet any longer. She curled beneath the blankets in her favorite dark silks and shook like a leaf and couldn't make it stop. Fragility had always been her greatest fear.
*****
In the end, it is John who slips. And on nothing more than a tree root. All big feet and gangly limbs, tumbling into the soft spring grass and tangling with her skirts and sprawling her gracelessly on top of him.
Helen squeals in alarm as she falls, but the moment she lands on John's warm body, she dissolves into helpless laughter. The humor spreads between them like falling rain until they have collapsed carelessly on their backs in the tall green growth, staring at the clear sky with tears of joy in their eyes. Helen's fits of giggles continue to bubble in diminishing blurts until at last they fall to contented quiet. Helen shifts closer and rests her head on John's shoulder as they gaze up at the sky.
"See?" John says, deep voice resonating in his chest and into her bones. "What did I tell you? Perfectly safe. And well worth the journey."
"I'm always safe with you. We take our journeys together."
*****
"NO!!" Her voice rang frighteningly sharp in the silence of her bedchamber.
She couldn't remember the details of her dream and she didn't want to. She woke with tears on her cheeks and hard sobs caught in her throat. The cold was penetrating her bones, and she was trembling and her head ached and the silk across her midriff offered no protection against the cruelties of the night.
She first thought his timing to be too good to believe. Then she realized he had already been in the corner of her room -- there, where the curtains still swayed -- watching over her as she slept.
He was here, now, body pressed tight behind hers, arm across her stomach and lips warm in her hair.
"Sssshhh...it's all right."
She tried to reply, tried to tell him it was only a dream, he could go, tried to tell him to get out of her bedroom, out of her bed...but her fingers curled around his and for a moment she could smell the grasses of England mixed up with the bells of a Cambodian street market.
She turned her face into her pillow and covered her eyes.
John's arms tightened around her like steel and the urgency in his deep whispered words shivered through the hollow places within her.
"Don't you ever...EVER...give up, Helen Magnus. It's against your very nature, and I will not allow it. You've never given up on anyone, myself included; it's not an option to give up on yourself."
She drew a trembling breath, willed her pulse to slow. "I'm not giving up," she whispered, and she hated the quaver in her tone, though she knew the words to be true. "I just...I'm exhausted and I feel so ill... I'm just..." terrified. She hadn't confessed to such a thing as fear since the silent night before Nikola slipped a prophetic needle into her arm.
His mouth pressed to the back of her jaw. "I know. I know, Helen. Believe me, I'm scared as well. But this will pass... We will fix this, you and I, and you'll feel yourself again. I promise you."
For all eternity.
"My stomach feels sick all the time."
"I know," he whispered again. And she knew he did. He had always read her like a book. "Part of that's the medication," he said simply. "You've never tolerated antibiotics well."
The practical observation tore a bitter laugh from her throat. "I know that," she whispered.
Helen closed her eyes and they breathed together, bodies rising and falling in time.
"You have...the most beautiful laugh," he breathed.
John. John's voice on the back of her neck. John on his back in a meadow in her beloved English countryside. John at her back with cold steel at her throat. Tears burned.
"We used to laugh all the time. Do you remember?" he said.
"Of course, I remember."
She was shaking again.
"Sssshhh... don't think. You need peace. You need to rest."
"John...when you were last here...months ago...you said something to me--"
"Don't. Rest."
She squirmed in his arms, impatient and angry and frustrated and aching. "John, this is important, I need to--"
"Stop. This is not the time."
She scoffed. "Time. John, I know you're not free of your burden, not yet, not like you were, but you said something to me then, and I should have--"
He placed his fingers over her lips. She tasted the salt and electricity of his skin. "Rest, Helen. Sleep."
"I need to tell you." Her lips moved against his flesh.
John lifted onto his elbow, staring down at her in the shadowy moonlit room. "Then tell me. Two months from now."
Helen clicked her tongue and cringed at his words. But his voice was as rich and commanding as it had ever been, and she had never held the power not to follow. She lost her words.
"It's a date, then," he said. "Two months." He settled into the pillow behind her.
In the haze of the darkness, she whispered, "Ashley had your laugh. Like sunlight."
He held on. She cried until she slept.
*****
"Did you ever think we'd end up here? When you were first allowed to attend Oxford?"
"Never for a moment. You were never in my plans. All the women in my life were just certain my whole reason for wanting to follow such an unladylike career was a desire to snag a brilliant handsome scientist for my own. I railed against their accusations with a fire I’m sure you can imagine."
"That I can. And yet..." the smile in his words is unmistakable and contagious, "...here you are. Wantonly spread in the grass with a handsome and brilliant scientist sliding his hand up your thigh."
"And a modest gentleman, as well, don't forget modest."
"Of course."
"You'll be the ruin of me yet, John Druitt."
She is teasing, but she feels him turn suddenly serious and she meets his gaze, open and earnest in the afternoon sun.
"Helen. I never want to stop you from anything you want to do. You do know that? Whatever you want, whatever you need, wherever you're meant to go in this world...I will take you. And I will follow."
She touches tender fingers to his cheek, stretches up to meet his lips with her own. "I love you. I love you, John."
*****
She woke to the first glimpse of dawn, and he had not yet let her go. He feigned sleep for a few moments longer, granted her the freedom to slide from his arms and steal away; retreat to her dressing room by candlelight.
They had a journey ahead. They had a city to find.
***
#
TITLE: Like Sunlight
RATING: Teen
CATEGORIES: Angst, hurt/comfort, Helen/John
TIMELINE: Immediately following "Vigilante"
SPOILERS THROUGH 'VIGILANTE'!
Major thanks to sarbear12456 and annienau08 for betas that made me THINK. *g*
With apologies to verita_truth for the brief distraction from task on my part.;) I promise you I'm right back to it.
LIKE SUNLIGHT
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2010
"I can't climb up that slope, not in these skirts!"
"My dear love, when have you ever let such a thing stop you before?"
"If I fall and end up covered in dandelion smudges I shall blame it all upon you."
"And I shall gladly take full responsibility for the demise of your lovely frock. It's not as though I haven't been the detriment of a few other of your garments in the past."
"You are wicked, John Druitt. Through and through."
"And you love me as such."
She shakes her head against his irresistible smile.
His laugh rings over the meadow like a bird's cry.
*****
When she left Will in his rooms, she touched his shoulder and he squeezed her hand -- for too long.
The warmth felt precious, and she pulled away.
She stopped in Henry's room, took his pulse with her fingers and touched a testing hand to his brow. She kissed him goodnight, warm lips to his shadow-rough cheek, tucked him in for the night as she hadn't since he was a child. The room swam when she leaned, but she didn't let on.
She left before she caught Henry's seeking gaze.
She walked down to the infirmary. Her old friend slept quietly. She checked the readings on his vitals, reviewed his blood work. Kate assured her he was doing fine, had been talking with her just a little while ago. Helen brushed the lightest of touches through his tousled braids, and left him for the night.
Alone in the kitchen, Magnus tried to eat something, but it wouldn't stay down. She brewed some chamomile tea and carried it with her to her room.
She hadn't felt so exhausted in over a century.
Funny, how 159 years could seem like more than enough. Until someone told you you were going to die.
*****
"Oh, John...this is beautiful. I had no idea this was up here. When did you find it?"
The sun glints off the pond like a jewel crusted sea and the breeze sings of jasmine. She has never followed the trail so far.
"I walked up here last Friday night. Couldn't sleep after you left me at your doorstep."
"You walked this at night? In the dark, alone? John, you shouldn't..."
"Fear not, my love. There was plenty of moonlight. You forget I grew up in the country. I was safe as houses."
"You had better stay that way. I intend for you to outlive me by at least a day. So I shall have you always." She grins and wrinkles her nose at him as she teases.
*****
Lying down hurt. She was moving forward on drugs and adrenaline, but the longer she pushed, the more painful the fall. She couldn't force herself to her feet any longer. She curled beneath the blankets in her favorite dark silks and shook like a leaf and couldn't make it stop. Fragility had always been her greatest fear.
*****
In the end, it is John who slips. And on nothing more than a tree root. All big feet and gangly limbs, tumbling into the soft spring grass and tangling with her skirts and sprawling her gracelessly on top of him.
Helen squeals in alarm as she falls, but the moment she lands on John's warm body, she dissolves into helpless laughter. The humor spreads between them like falling rain until they have collapsed carelessly on their backs in the tall green growth, staring at the clear sky with tears of joy in their eyes. Helen's fits of giggles continue to bubble in diminishing blurts until at last they fall to contented quiet. Helen shifts closer and rests her head on John's shoulder as they gaze up at the sky.
"See?" John says, deep voice resonating in his chest and into her bones. "What did I tell you? Perfectly safe. And well worth the journey."
"I'm always safe with you. We take our journeys together."
*****
"NO!!" Her voice rang frighteningly sharp in the silence of her bedchamber.
She couldn't remember the details of her dream and she didn't want to. She woke with tears on her cheeks and hard sobs caught in her throat. The cold was penetrating her bones, and she was trembling and her head ached and the silk across her midriff offered no protection against the cruelties of the night.
She first thought his timing to be too good to believe. Then she realized he had already been in the corner of her room -- there, where the curtains still swayed -- watching over her as she slept.
He was here, now, body pressed tight behind hers, arm across her stomach and lips warm in her hair.
"Sssshhh...it's all right."
She tried to reply, tried to tell him it was only a dream, he could go, tried to tell him to get out of her bedroom, out of her bed...but her fingers curled around his and for a moment she could smell the grasses of England mixed up with the bells of a Cambodian street market.
She turned her face into her pillow and covered her eyes.
John's arms tightened around her like steel and the urgency in his deep whispered words shivered through the hollow places within her.
"Don't you ever...EVER...give up, Helen Magnus. It's against your very nature, and I will not allow it. You've never given up on anyone, myself included; it's not an option to give up on yourself."
She drew a trembling breath, willed her pulse to slow. "I'm not giving up," she whispered, and she hated the quaver in her tone, though she knew the words to be true. "I just...I'm exhausted and I feel so ill... I'm just..." terrified. She hadn't confessed to such a thing as fear since the silent night before Nikola slipped a prophetic needle into her arm.
His mouth pressed to the back of her jaw. "I know. I know, Helen. Believe me, I'm scared as well. But this will pass... We will fix this, you and I, and you'll feel yourself again. I promise you."
For all eternity.
"My stomach feels sick all the time."
"I know," he whispered again. And she knew he did. He had always read her like a book. "Part of that's the medication," he said simply. "You've never tolerated antibiotics well."
The practical observation tore a bitter laugh from her throat. "I know that," she whispered.
Helen closed her eyes and they breathed together, bodies rising and falling in time.
"You have...the most beautiful laugh," he breathed.
John. John's voice on the back of her neck. John on his back in a meadow in her beloved English countryside. John at her back with cold steel at her throat. Tears burned.
"We used to laugh all the time. Do you remember?" he said.
"Of course, I remember."
She was shaking again.
"Sssshhh... don't think. You need peace. You need to rest."
"John...when you were last here...months ago...you said something to me--"
"Don't. Rest."
She squirmed in his arms, impatient and angry and frustrated and aching. "John, this is important, I need to--"
"Stop. This is not the time."
She scoffed. "Time. John, I know you're not free of your burden, not yet, not like you were, but you said something to me then, and I should have--"
He placed his fingers over her lips. She tasted the salt and electricity of his skin. "Rest, Helen. Sleep."
"I need to tell you." Her lips moved against his flesh.
John lifted onto his elbow, staring down at her in the shadowy moonlit room. "Then tell me. Two months from now."
Helen clicked her tongue and cringed at his words. But his voice was as rich and commanding as it had ever been, and she had never held the power not to follow. She lost her words.
"It's a date, then," he said. "Two months." He settled into the pillow behind her.
In the haze of the darkness, she whispered, "Ashley had your laugh. Like sunlight."
He held on. She cried until she slept.
*****
"Did you ever think we'd end up here? When you were first allowed to attend Oxford?"
"Never for a moment. You were never in my plans. All the women in my life were just certain my whole reason for wanting to follow such an unladylike career was a desire to snag a brilliant handsome scientist for my own. I railed against their accusations with a fire I’m sure you can imagine."
"That I can. And yet..." the smile in his words is unmistakable and contagious, "...here you are. Wantonly spread in the grass with a handsome and brilliant scientist sliding his hand up your thigh."
"And a modest gentleman, as well, don't forget modest."
"Of course."
"You'll be the ruin of me yet, John Druitt."
She is teasing, but she feels him turn suddenly serious and she meets his gaze, open and earnest in the afternoon sun.
"Helen. I never want to stop you from anything you want to do. You do know that? Whatever you want, whatever you need, wherever you're meant to go in this world...I will take you. And I will follow."
She touches tender fingers to his cheek, stretches up to meet his lips with her own. "I love you. I love you, John."
*****
She woke to the first glimpse of dawn, and he had not yet let her go. He feigned sleep for a few moments longer, granted her the freedom to slide from his arms and steal away; retreat to her dressing room by candlelight.
They had a journey ahead. They had a city to find.
***
#