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Disclaimer: All belongs to Damien Kindler and Stage 3 Media and all the usual suspects who aren't me. Just borrowing them. Thanks for the favor.:)
Title: Don't Say A Word
Author: Rowan Darkstar
Rating: PG
Pairings: Shades of Will/Helen UST
Category: Ummm...angsty fluff? LOL
Many thanks to Teddy E for the speedy beta.:)
"Don't Say A Word"
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2007
He is deeply surprised to learn there are mandatory vacation weeks.
He never expected this from a seeming workaholic like Dr. Helen Magnus. Perhaps 157 years have taught more about survival than he took into account.
Will Zimmerman is summarily informed, only hours before the event, that if he wishes to continue working at the Sanctuary, he will be required to participate in the vacation weeks. He learns from the alarming butler that approximately once a year these are actual pre-planned events involving plane tickets and hotel rooms and tourist attractions. The other times they are merely weeks where no one is allowed to work, unless there is an abnormal in danger or in need of immediate protection. They go on group outings for nothing but fun.
Will finds this tradition more jarring than he does the thing living behind his bookcase.
The first vacation week when he is in Dr. Magnus's employ is a simple one of leisure and fun. On the first day they all lounge about the castle, messing with things not guns or lab equipment or dead bodies. Will catches Ashley reading a paperback romance, follows a melodious sound to find Helen in a sunlit upstairs room playing the violin. She possesses no small amount of skill at the task. She smiles at him when she finds him hovering in the doorway and she tells him the violin was her mother's; that her father insisted she start lessons young.
He thinks she could have started at a hundred and still play this well.
He took a few piano lessons when he was young and wishes he had kept it up. She invites him to practise up and play with her. And he finds himself nodding awkwardly and wandering away as her focus returns firmly to the sea of notes propped on the carved mahogany music stand in front of her.
He's not ready to comprehend Helen Magnus.
On the second day he is loaded into a car with Ashley and Helen and Albert and a man named Jeffrey he doesn't really know but suspects is a former patient from the way things he touches seem to...glow for a bit afterward. Along the drive to their destination -- the nature of which still eludes the new guy -- the strange group stops by a small sky-blue house outside the city and a girl of no more than 11 jogs down the walk and climbs onto Ashley's lap in the rear seat of Helen's sedan. She stretches across the back of the seats to kiss Helen's cheek and stroke the red streak in her hair.
Will is too captivated by this tableau to notice the elbow in his ribs or the cramps in his legs.
He finds their destination is an open air marketplace near the west river.
They stroll about browsing booths of antiques and paintings and hand-crafted jewelry and chess sets. He has lived in this city many years and never knew this place existed.
Ashley chooses a dark and swirling painting of a fantasy battle scene for her room. Her mother wrinkles her nose at the violence but indulges her daughter, even picking up the tab. The young girl, whose name Will learns is Leslie, is captivated by the hand-painted dolls, and Helen promises to dig out some of her own childhood treasures from the attic for Leslie to rummage through.
Will speaks only when spoken to and finds himself taking on the role of the quiet observer, learning about his new co-workers...hell, his new family, he has already seen the evidence of how this strange new world works...from a safe distance.
It is Helen who captivates him. She is dressed...differently -- a soft and flowing sundress baring her freckled shoulders to the late autumn sun. Her hair is held back from her face by a wide black and white scarf tied at the base of her neck, scarf tails blowing with her hair in the warm, thick wind.
Ashley is at Will's side, analyzing a collection of antique knives, Jeffrey is kneeling his lanky 6-foot-something frame beside Leslie to search through a spread of quilts, and Albert is trailing The Good Doctor.
Helen has discovered a box of puppies for sale. The box is up on a table at eye level, and Helen is grinning like a child, nose to nose with one of the brown-and-white-and-black mixed-up mutts, holding her hair down on her shoulder against the building wind . She's chatting with the man at the box and making over the puppies like she's never seen one before.
Will doesn't know how long Ashley has been watching him watch her mother when he's startled by her words. "Mom and dogs. Fatal combination," she says.
"How so?" he asks. He has learned not to make the simplest assumptions with these people he's found himself amongst.
Ashley shrugs. "She's a bigger sucker for dogs than she is for the freaks, if that's possible."
Will frowns, slipping his hands in his pockets. "But you don't have any dogs, do you?"
Something flickers across Ashley's stoic expression and he catches a hint of her mother in the girl's eyes he hadn't noticed before. She sniffs brusquely. "We had one when I was young. Mom said every little girl should have a puppy. We doted on Petrie like he was one of the family."
"No traditional pack of hounds by the hearth, guarding the sanctuary gates, though?"
The wind toys with Ashley's hair and her black blazer and dark jeans seem incongruous with blonde locks and the sunlit day. Will knows from pictures this golden hair is Helen's. He doesn't know why or when she made the choice to go dark. Ashley's voice is soft and there is something more human in her tone than the nonresponses she has bestowed upon him since his arrival. "Well...Mom would never admit it, but... She says it's because we're gone so much, and there's no governess around to pick up the slack, anymore. But you've seen our place, there's always somebody. It's just that, she's such a dog person. She loves them so much, but... Well, if you think about it, the average dog lover loses, what, maybe 5 or 6 dogs in their lifetime? Rough, but... And the average dog lives 13 to 15 years if you're lucky. You divide that into 157, and... well, you're the doc, you do the math."
Will narrows his gaze, silent in respect of the moment. He has learned in his trade that words can break a confessional moment like a hammer on glass.
"I just...I don't think she wants to do it...too many more times," Ashley finishes softly.
Will returns his gaze to Dr. Magnus as she is giving the basket of squirming warmth one last affectionate touch and moving on. He stands some time watching her stroll up the path of booths, Albert at her heels and the deep vee at the back of her sundress exposing the whiteness of her shoulder blades to the daylight as the wind pushes her black hair. He's never seen her quite this way before.
*****
He buys a puppy three days later. He isn't sure how it happens. He doesn't go back to the bizarre. He wanders past the local pet shop where a rescue foundation is holding an adoption day. And a small and squirmy beagle-like thing looks up at him with the most sincere chocolate eyes Will Zimmerman has ever seen. The next thing he knows he is driving down the road with a crate and a puppy and a back seat full of kibble and chew toys and ear cleaning solution.
He tells Helen he's been meaning to buy a dog for a while, but his hours at the hospital hadn't made it feasible. He promises the puppy won't be in the way while he is at work.
She smiles and casually pets Bartholomew before nodding her professional approval. "He'll be good for your patients," she says simply, and disappears down a hallway.
Bartholomew begins hanging out in the lab while Helen works.
It makes sense. There are few items on the floor to be chewed upon, while Will's office is still thick with boxes and stacks of books and papers and dangling upholstery. When Bartholomew wears himself down with the many toys that begin to appear around the laboratory, he sleeps under Helen's stool. When she thinks no one is looking, she slips off her shoes and rests her toes on the puppy's back.
One night Bartholomew is sleeping contentedly beneath Helen's stool, when Will passes her doorway on his way home for the night. He watches in silence for a while, then lets them be. Next morning, he finds Doctor and puppy sleeping on the cot in the small room off Helen's laboratory.
At 5 months old, Bartholomew becomes ill. He can't keep food down and is limp as a rag. Helen and Will rush him to the emergency veterinary clinic. He needs a day on antibiotic IV. Helen and Will stay in the waiting room for the duration, then bring the tired and miserable animal back to the Sanctuary near midnight. Helen states without ceremony that it only makes sense to keep Bartholomew on her bed for the night. He will need to be watched closely the first hours, and "you could sleep through a steam roller. Besides, your bed is too narrow. He might fall off. And your floors are hard. I've plenty of room, and a carpet."
Will gives no argument.
He takes up Helen on her offer of use of the guest room that is gradually becoming his home away from home.
The next night, after finally eating a proper dinner, Bartholomew determinedly walks his growing puppy legs up the lengthy staircase of the Sanctuary and plants himself in the center of Helen's bed.
Will doesn't speak.
For perhaps the first time, Ashley gives him a genuinely warm smile as he passes her in the hallway.
Three months on, Helen's thigh gets burned on a mission. Badly. The acid singeing her isn't part of the known world, so they can't take her to a conventional emergency room. Will and Ashley rush Helen back to the Sanctuary, and by the time they reach the medical rooms she's in desperate pain and screaming with every attempt of help they offer. She has an agent in her refrigerated stash to stop the effects of the acid, to lighten the scars. Ashley's shaking as she works, and Helen's butler is growling and snarling, but among the three of them they manage to follow Helen's breathless orders and treat the wound.
Bartholomew cries through the entire display. Then, he plants himself across Helen's stomach and won't move for the rest of the night.
Two days later, Will leaves Bartholomew's adoption paperwork on the pillow of Helen's bed, just above where "his" dog sleeps.
Helen doesn't mention it. But not long after, Will is lingering in the doorway of the Sanctuary's dining room after a delectable dinner, and as Helen passes she slips her gentle hand into his and kisses his cheek. Her shawl falls across his shoulder and her distinctive scent of adventures-yet-unlived pulls him out of time for a breath. "Thank you," she whispers, gaze never lifting from the wool of his sweater.
He offers a flicker of a smile. But he has learned much in his trade, and he doesn't say a word.
*****
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