[item post]

[inabmovie]

Will found that teaching three classes in the island school was keeping him busy. That wasn't to say he didn't like it, because he definitely did. It was just kind of time-consuming coming up with enough material to keep the classes interesting. After all, people took classes here because they wanted to, not because they had to, and he didn't want

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[inabmovie]

"I just haven't thought about him in a while." He thumbed through the papers until he got to a specific page he'd been looking for.

"We argued, that last time I saw him. I was almost finished at Quantico when he was indicted. I went to see him in prison while he was waiting for his trial and it was like... I didn't need him. I was on my own and we weren't close. But I guess I thought if he went to prison for years that would be it. The little bit of family I had left would be gone and I didn't know if I'd ever get him back. You'd think I wouldn't care, we could hardly stand each other, right? But it was so important, it seemed so important then, that I try to help him even though I knew he was guilty as hell. So I went over his files, and there was this error, this little clerical error right here, just a mistake in filling out a form. I told him maybe I could take that mistake and make it bigger, enough to give him a loophole and maybe his lawyer could get the charges dropped or reduced or something, and he wouldn't have it. He wouldn't even talk about it and I got so mad... stupid, right? He's the criminal and he won't let me break the law for him. Maybe it was the first time he ever really looked out for me."

[lastof_five]

"It would have destroyed you, Will. You're not the sort of man to break your own morals for anyone...I daresay you wouldn't even break them for me. I'm so glad he could see that and wouldn't let you."

Would Will have even ended up at the Sanctuary, having made that choice? Helen couldn't say. She didn't want to think about the alternative at much length.

[inabmovie]

"I guess it's better in the long run," Will said. "Just, at the time... I'd seen him make all these bad choices for years and there wasn't anything I could do to stop him. I guess I felt like I had to try, somehow."

[lastof_five]

"He's your father. He won't stop being that just because he made poor decisions," Helen said quietly. "Perhaps even more than that, as a good man, you wanted to help him change, if you could."

[inabmovie]

Will leaned back with a sigh, close enough to Magnus that their shoulders touched. "Maybe he's changed," he said. "Maybe spending time in prison taught him some things. I don't know, and the thing is, maybe I'll never know, because we're here." He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to have a relationship with his father again, but whether he wanted to or not, being here made that an impossibility.

[lastof_five]

"He might show, Will," Helen said. "After all, we've gotten Nikola, Kate and Declan all in the same year. Who knows what next year holds for us? Your father, your mother...Ashley. Clara? It could be anyone that comes next for us."

Helen wished for Ashley or James every single day.

[inabmovie]

"Anyone, yeah." Ashley or Watson or Clara were all possible (and though he had mixed feelings about Clara, the idea of seeing her alive again would be... something, since he still felt responsible for her death) but it could just as easily be Druitt or Adam Worth or who knew who else that none of them would want to see. "The uncertainty of it is just..." He exhaled, shaking his head, trying to let go of some of the tension these papers and his thoughts were building up.

Then he hugged her, just because he needed to right then.

[lastof_five]

"I love you so much, Will," Helen whispered, holding him close as she could. She turned her head slightly to brush her lips against his ear, trying to impress upon him just how important he'd become to her. Without Will, she'd be a mere shadow of herself on the island and even back in Old City, he was the mirror she could always trust to see herself in as she truly was, without artifice or arrogance, without self-loathing or regret.

He had become so much more than a protege and so much more than a lover. He was her biggest fan and her greatest opponent all at once and Helen knew that those qualities of his had been shaped by how he'd grown up. She'd affected his life profoundly but he, in turn, had affected hers.

"You are both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness, my trial and my joy. Without you, I am but half of me, and I thank God for you every day, Will. I trust we can do anything together. Anything. With you, I can dare to believe in the unbelievable."

[inabmovie]

He hadn't expected Magnus to come out with all that, and it threw him a little for a loop. Not because he didn't expect her to mean it--he knew she did--but he didn't expect her to say it all, all at once like that. So it touched him, and he held her for a minute or so longer than was maybe actually necessary so he could pull it together.

"Let's go home," he said after a minute, finally letting go of her. "I don't think I'm getting anything else done for my classes today."

[lastof_five]

[Continued Here.]