#itsnotsupposedtodothat

itsnotsupposedtodothat

You look like you’re about to pass out...

Helen blinked as she heard Anni, glancing over to her and offered a half smile, shaking her head a little.

“I’m fine.. It’s just.. been a very long day and I haven’t even had anything to eat yet...”

She looked back at the lab table before her.. she was trying to do an autopsy on the body of an abnormal Declan’s team had found outside London. It was a creature unlike any they had encountered before.

It had been a very long day indeed, getting the creature’s body back to the Sanctuary more or less intact. Nevermind the fact that she’d been feeling a little less than top-shape lately, to begin with.

It was a shame, really, that the creature had been killed -- struck by a truck whose driver had reported to the police seeing some sort of monster and later been taken in on charges of drunk driving.

"It's okay .. you're gonna be okay"

Why didn't he believe her?

Shaking his head, he looked over at her.  The creature was long gone; it had rushed off down the tunnels right after finishing its attack.

"That thing's the Hollow Earth equivalent to a pleski, Anni... the spores.." He sighed, shifting a little with a growl of pain. Struggling not to HAP reflexively, knowing it would only hasten the effects of the creature's toxins.

Sure, Rachel had survived a similar attack, but it had flown in the face of everything they knew about pleskidara and had nearly killed Rachel in the process.  And that was in a much more controlled setting- she'd been injured in a Sanctuary facility and moved quickly to the Old City Sanctuary; it had still almost been too late.

"We're too far in the tunnels.. they won't be able to reach us for at least two hours." He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.

Hazel eyes locking on her he shook his head.

"You need to get out of here. Go, before the creature comes back. Make sure it doesn't get you too.  Nathan and Freya need you..

"I'm sorry Anni.. I never meant for this to happen.." He sighed.. "I mean we knew.. someday... you're immortal and I'm not.. but I was hoping for another.. I dunno seventy years with you?" He smirked a little, sadly.

itsnotsupposedtodothat

He'd known loss. 

He'd never known his family. Abandoned at the Moors, he had only been three years old when Magnus found him and took him in, raising him as her own alongside her daughter, Ashley.

He had no memory of the ones who had given him life, and when he had finally found a band of HAPs in Oldham, he'd declined the offer of a DNA analysis to try to see if he had kin among them.

He'd known loss. The loss of any knowledge of his original identity and roots. 

The loss of a life spent "more or less human" at 26 years old, when his lycan abilities had first come to light in a violent and shocking way. "The rudest of awakenings," Magnus had called it.

The loss of a sister, when Ashley had been taken by the Cabal, changed, irreparably destroyed. Then she'd sacrificed herself to save the Sanctuary.

The loss of his first and truest HAP friend, Alistair, on an icebreaker on a joint mission between Magnus and Declan's teams. Lost to the illusions and ruthless genius of the migoi.

The loss of love, when his marriage to Erika had dissolved. He'd been right all along when he realized it "takes more than just being a HAP to make a good match." But he had his son, and that made it all worth it.

The loss of home, when he had watched the Old City Sanctuary burn.

He'd known near loss. In a cave in Columbia, when the old Cabal lab had been blown to dust with Tesla inside. He'd felt in that moment he had surely lost a mentor, a rival and, in some twisted way, a friend.  For things with Nikola were rarely black and white.

Many times, he had nearly lost Magnus. They had believed her gone and he'd felt the grief of losing the only mother he'd ever known. After Praxis was destroyed. When the Old City Sanctuary exploded in front of his and Nikola's eyes.  

They'd believed Biggie dead. His body had been found and was in the morgue. Til they later learned it was a rouse by Biggie and Magnus to corner Emma into revealing her own under-handed dealings.

None of it could have ever prepared him for this.

Magnus had done all she could. He knew that. Tess too. When medicine had failed, Tess had stepped in with blood and chi and none of it had been enough to heal the damage.  A mission gone terribly awry, and somehow in the midst of the chaos, everything had gotten quickly out of control. He'd lost sight of her for a moment, and she was just... gone.

All he could do was hold her, tell her it was going to be all right.  He could see that it wasn't, but he didn't want her to give up hope, to stop fighting. She was a vampire for gods sake! She could heal!!

But she'd never been all that good at the whole self-healing thing, had she?

He'd seen the depths of sorrow in Nikola's eyes, the tears that streamed down Tess' cheeks as she channeled every spare drop of chi into her best friend.. don't you bloody die on us, he could hear her say it like a tunnel far away. Magnus was injecting something into her.. first Epi, then she had taken a gamble and injected her own blood directly into Anni.

But it was too late.

And for all that Magnus and Tess had done, he had nothing to offer. No Source, no magic, no medical training. Only his arms around her and the whispered words of love and hope he kept uttering to her long after her eyes closed and her final breath was exhaled.

It felt like an eternity, but finally Magnus' hand was on his arm.

"Henry..." there were tears in Helen's dark blue eyes as she inched closer to her eldest.

"I'm so sorry sweetheart.. she's gone.."

His shook his head, "no... she can't.. Doc.."

"Henry..." She spoke his name softly, but her tone was decisive.  When he glanced up, Tess and Nikola were gone a bit down the tunnel, leaving them alone here for the moment.

"... Mom... " He rarely called her that anymore. Not since he was a boy.. but now it was a muffled sob as Helen's arms encircled her son, drawing him into a tight hug.

itsnotsupposedtodothat