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Chapter Text

Eternity and a Day

1

The young doctor crosses the square in front of Grandage Place at even speed. It is already later in the day than he had planned to come, but Dr. Jekyll had known how to keep him at Bedlam.

Upon entering he ignores the newspaper flung through the lid by a careless mailman and now somewhere on the old floor.

“Doctor, you’re here at last.”

Sir Malcolm stands before him before Victor has seen him coming. There is a sense of urgency to his demeanour that is different to what Victor is used to in this household, causing him to furrow his brows in slight puzzlement.

“Please examine Miss Ives first. She should be awake. We shall wait in the Map Room. Once you join us and everyone has arrived, we shall proceed”, Sir Malcolm replies to Victor’s unspoken questions and he realises asking any more is not going to get him any more precise answers.

So the doctor hangs his coat up and proceeds to walk down the hall towards the former guest room.

Thin rails of smoke drift up into the brisk, clear air as she exhales deeply.

Her left arm wrapped tightly around her waist as if to steady herself, she stands out on the deserted terrace, smoking silently without feeling any relief of the tension coursing through her frame.

She has barely slept, even when so close to his warmth and his scent which have always eased her mind even at its worst states and his inherent way of being so very alive.

She had listened to his heartbeat all night, even after she had not been able to keep her eyes open any longer and sleep threatened to overwhelm her once more.

Thoughts had lit wildfires in her mind. In her heart.

She loves him. For all he is. And she will protect him the way he has protected her, with all she has. Whatever the cost. She will keep him safe.

She wants his heartbeat. With her. Always. There is nothing she will not do.

In the early hours of morning, she had been wide awake already, her eyes burning from her crying and her entire body exhausted.

Her lips and throat still feel dry.

The gash her own teeth had bitten into her lower lip looks, makes it seem like she had been violated in sleep the night before; like someone had violated her, which is precisely what it has felt like to her.

For now, she refrains from looking at anyone too closely; they need not see her like this, after all. All their efforts, all the time they have given, all their patience, all their endurance – would it all be for naught in the end still?

Victor had done a quick examination on her without pestering her with questions.

He is learning to be sensitive, she has remarked. Learning to be – empathetic. So he has told her what she already knows – the lip, the slightly upset pulse. As if that is something either of them worries about on this very morning.

So the examination is over in minutes and she dresses fully, looking out at a colourless autumn sky.

She has always felt strongly about trusting her first intuition, her gut feeling, above every reason.

And every single cell within her advised her not to tell Ethan. At least not now and most certainly not every part of what she had seen.

It weighs on her and when she closes her eyes, even for a second, the image of him lying before her, drained of blood and life and all that makes him into who he is to her, appears again and clings to her heart with sharpened claws and she has to strain herself to make it leave.

She knows what has to happen. What they have to do. What she has to do.

They will not let her. He will not let her. Ethan has stopped her once and he will not see her run towards the same outcome once more.

A wish tugs at her again, an old one. Escaping. With him. Anywhere safe.

But what place is truly safe when her worst fear has ceased to exist only in her mind? If what she fears most is – an event of their future?

“Join us, will you?”

She flinches involuntarily at his strident voice, but does not turn around.

“Vanessa!”

She turns slightly towards him, never changing her posture.

Sir Malcolm comes to stand next to her. From the corner of her eye, she remarks that his demeanour has softened, ever so slightly.

“I wish you would tell me.”

She lets the last tendril of smoke escape her lips and then extinguishes the cigarette in the tiny old porcelain ashtray before her.

When he is still waiting and she still has not answered after what seems years to her, she feels his fingers touch her right shoulder, very lightly and looks up at him.

“You are the only child left to me, Vanessa. You know what you mean to me. I will ask you once more – what did you see?”

She looks into his light grey eyes and swallows, keeping her expression calm and composed.

“Horrible images”, she answers at last, her voice too brittle for her own liking, “Famous, familiar fears manifested, Malcolm. Desertion, darkness, blood…and the like.”

She hears him stifle a sound, one of exasperation. And barely suppressed, worried anger. His grasp on her shoulder intensifies as he looks into her eyes as if trying to find the answer he demands somewhere in there.

There is an edge of desperation in his gaze that does not fail to hit her.

“I have not heard you cry like that since you were a little girl, Vanessa. Do not try to mock me.”

And indeed he had heard her, waiting with his back leaned against the wall in front of the door to what used to be Ethan Chandler’s guest room.

He had wanted him to be the first one to enter the room and go to her, and that alone.

And there had been silence beyond that door for a long time.

Malcolm had taken a deep breath of relief. It could not be the illness, then. She would be safe.

It was at that moment this thought of comfort began to sink in with him, that he heard her.

He had seen her cry so often over the course of the last few years that he had come to think of it as something fairly natural, her being a woman of extraordinarily sensitive perception and also, as Malcolm thought, of fragile hormonal state.

It had always rather made sense to him when she cried and he had neither questioned it nor thought of it as more than it was – a physical reaction to an emotion.

It was then, the previous night, when he had sat on the floor in front of the door, basking in the warmth of relief that she had been spared another detrimental and potentially self-destructive-fit, that his heart has been pierced, and almost torn to shreds, by actually, loudly, hearing her cry.

It had taken all restraint there could be found in him not to bolt into the room himself and pull her into his own arms and hold her until she stopped.

He had known Ethan to be the best company for her to be with at that moment though and had held himself back.

Admittedly, the last few weeks have made him sensitive – weakness it would seem to a lesser man – and he had come to worry easily with her.

But this has been something entirely different.

He had known it at the very moment he had listened to her cry in utter distress. Something is different. This is something else.

When she had told him to gather every member available of their group at Grandage Place, he had tried to get it out of her. But she had only spoken of a vision, nothing more.

But he sees her strained, in silent, calm pain as though she is constantly pressing her hands onto a wound that does not cease leaking blood.

He knows her long enough.

So when he looks at her now, gazing deeply into her eyes, he expects an answer.

She blinks, only once, but he sees it.

“It was a dark manifestation of fearsome things”, she replies, never breaking eye contact with him, “A nightmare, brought forward as a vision. Nothing more.”

That is the moment in which Sir Malcolm’s labouriously maintained calm resolve collapses and his grip on her shoulder is tight and his voice louder than he wanted it to be.

“Enough!”

They stare into each other’s eyes and she opens her mouth, forming sentences in her head, attempting to figure out what she could say, when a different voice enters their situation.

“What’s goin’ on here?”

Warmth floods through her at the sound of his voice and she swallows hard, casting her glance down.

Sir Malcolm lets go off her shoulder and seems to shake himself out of a trance, before he can turn around to look at the man who has spoken.

“It’s quite alright”, she interjects tersely, before he can utter any reply towards Ethan which she knows would be rough at best.

“Don’t you think we ought to know what exactly Vanessa has seen, Mister Chandler?” asks Sir Malcolm then, having regained his composure, facing Ethan.

“What we oughta do, Sir Malcolm”, Ethan answers, looking the older man straight in the eye, “is take a breath. We’ve got our people here, we’ll figure things out. But we’ll not pressure each other”, his voice gets a little louder, involuntarily perhaps, “with anything!”

The two men spend another moment looking into each other’s eyes, a silent conversation, before Ethan turns to look at her and his gaze softens slightly.

“They’re waitin’. Are you ready to come along?”

She nods and suppresses the urge to take his hand as they leave the terrace.

“So, I understand Miss Hartdegen is still unable to join us?” Sir Malcolm asks rather resignedly.

“Romania is far away a place”, Victor murmurs whimsically, turning his small leather-bound notebook over in his pale fingers.

Sir Malcolm shoots him a look and it takes the doctor a while until he appears to feel the explorer’s stern gaze upon his face. He drops the notebook in his lap then, resting his hands on his knees.

“Is there anything else worthy of note that you could enlighten us with, doctor Frankenstein?”

The young doctor seems to avoid scowling at the older man, so instead he straightens his posture in the leather seat he has grown accustomed to over the time.

“As you might know, I have examined Miss Ives this morning. The vitals are good, by her standards, that is. There were no signs of violence that did not originate…” he pauses, “from herself.”

She looks over at him, searching his averted gaze and when she finally finds it, she holds it for a moment until he looks less bashful.

“It was a vision, not an attack”, she says then, glancing over to the other members of their gathering. Her voice is clear; a new determination seeks to grow steady roots within her heart now – she wants to stop this, all of it. And she needs to be up to it.

“How he got to me…how he invaded my mind I cannot explain.”

Sir Malcolm coughs lowly.

“In his case, invading you seems to come naturally.”

Before any of them truly understands what is happening, Sir Malcolm is pressed against the nearest wall, with Ethan’s hands on his collar.

Everyone is speechless, even Sir Malcolm himself.

The tension in the atmosphere of the room is thick; it might be cut with a knife if any of them wanted it.

But they are all frozen into place right now and the whole wide room is silent except for Sir Malcolm’s strained breathing and Ethan’s own, agitated as well, yet calmer.

Two hunters. Yet one of them is more than a man.

Ethan finally speaks first and that in and of itself is a novelty to all of them.

“You will…”, he drags the words out in a low voice close to an actual growl, still facing Sir Malcolm, “…apologise.”

It takes the older man a moment’s duration to consider his options at this very second. Then, he looks sternly into Ethan’s eyes, not even offering up resistance to the other man’s grasp.

“Mister Chandler, I apologise.”

“Not to me!” Ethan answers hoarsely and it seems to her he has even tightened his grasp on Sir Malcolm’s collar and she swallows hard at the sight of it all.

Still, none of the other men in the room seem able to intervene, if even just verbally. Or maybe, and she seriously considers that idea, they themselves do not want to.

Sir Malcolm nods and as his eyes land on hers, he utters “I apologise to you, Vanessa. I did not mean it the way it…sounded.”

She can only look at them and nod.

“Do you accept his apology?” Ethan asks back, question directed at her, but voice still low and angry enough for Malcolm.

And when all of the men are glancing in her direction and she feels all their eyes on her, she has her gaze fixed on only one of them.

She nods once more and then she puts it all together.

She utters his name out loud, once, but he does not seem to realise she is speaking with him, still completely enwrapped in his anger directed at Sir Malcolm who does not add anything to his apology. What should he say?

She swallows hard as an image appears in her mind, something she had seen a while ago, months ago, so long ago.

Him, in the witches’ castle. Teeth and hair and blood and the heat of rage inhibited, lived out.

And when she had reached out and touched him, the only thing of all that had come close to breaking her heart, before he had gone – the look in his eyes.

His face. The beloved, warm brown eyes, terribly filled to completion with intrinsic, visceral sadness, sadness that had her heart tied in a knot.

This very moment is now present in her again, flooding through her being, pulsing through her veins and the same feeling has her slowly stride across, her long dress swaying slightly as she goes.

And after a mere second’s hesitation she touches him on the upper arm near his shoulder, the touch of a crumpled, wrinkled, withered feather drenched in dried tears.

Something seems to pass over, to radiate from her skin to his and she feels him begin to take calm, steady breaths underneath her touch, not yet back, but no longer gone.

“Vanessa”, he mutters, his voice no more than a soft silhouette of its usual sound and utterly incomparable to the low, threatening tone they all have heard moments ago.

“Let him go”, she whispers. “It is all good. For now, it is all good.”

She waits with baited breath for his reaction and the silence that has filled the room is filling her ears now, drowning out the quick beating of her heart.

She is acutely aware of the silence now, as aware as she is of all the eyes on them, her and him, in this very moment. She knows instinctively what they all see.

In one quick movement that seems visceral, Ethan’s hands lose their grip on Sir Malcolm’s collar and as though he had forgotten about all that had happened between the two men, he turns toward Vanessa, facing her entirely, his gaze immediately finding hers.

Behind him, Sir Malcolm steps away from the wall, audibly clearing his throat and adjusting his collar on the way to where he had been seated before.

She has no eye for whatever it is the others do. She catches her breath in her throat.

He has listened to her. And she knows in that instant that the animal within him has.

They both seem quietly overwhelmed as they look at each other for another silent moment.

“Yes, for now it’s good. But I don’t suppose that’s why we were all summoned here, is it.”

Victor has spoken into the vacuum and she swallows and regains all of her composure in a second.

“No”, she responds in a hoarse voice, breaking her eye-contact with Ethan and glancing back into the direction of the other members of their group.

She feels his eyes on him as she does so, but she withstands the impulse to turn back. They have both been exposed enough. She wants to talk about it with him, but not now. There is still so much they need to…

“I am not entirely d’accord with your tone, dear doctor. I presume we all know Miss Ives would not call upon our help and joined forces to take care of her knitwear”, says Mister Lyle in that very moment, reprimanding Victor for his rather harsh interjection, albeit with his usual amount of charm and a lopsided little smile at the end of his sentence.

He then looks at her as though encouraging her to continue.

She nods and lets her gaze wander over each of the men before her.

She feels him move. It seems to her they both are still as deeply connected as though they were still touching or at least still looking into each other’s eyes.

She feels him move as he walks over to the leather armchair, sitting down, though on the edge.

“I wish…” she begins, her voice low, “…I would like to keep you out of this. You have seen enough of the dark world beyond our own to deserve no further experience of it.”

She does not look at any of them now; she knows she would have looked at him.

“But it is only because of you that I am still alive. So I think you need to know about the vision I had last night.”

“Are you sure it was not a nightmare, Miss Ives?” asks Victor. “Nightmares would seem more than probable after all you have experienced in the past few weeks.”

“It wasn’t.”

Ethan’s interjection is so lowly spoken that she feels his words rather than hears them.

His voice is once again so close to her as though he has touched her and she resists the urge to close her eyes and ask him to continue, to utter something more, anything. Anything soothing, anything warm.

“If the dark one indeed advanced further into your mind, Miss Ives, I do presume it is a consequence of his taking your blood when you were unguarded.”

Mister Lyle’s considerations sound serious and thoughtful as he looks over at her, his eyes free of the slightly bashful pity they had held before. He is the professor now, pragmatic and analytical.

She meets his eyes with an apprehensive nod, though still withdrawn, her arms crossed before her chest.

“It is common belief in ancient mythology that through the transition of blood from one being to the other, it is more than simply blood cells that are transferred. A deeper, more intimate connection to the mind of the other; some cultures believe that even memories, emotions, the most personal of thoughts get from one bloodstream into the other in this particular way. A linkage of minds, so to say.”

She bites her lip, her eyes trailing aimlessly across the floor as she considers Lyle’s words – with dread. After all this time, she is still not let go.

How could she have thought he had let her get away? Had something clouded her mind, the pain, the medication? It would have been so simple, slipping from his grip like this. Too simple.

Sir Malcolm is the first to react to Mister Lyle’s words.

“If your deliberations indeed explain what has happened to Vanessa, if this is true – why now?”

Victor furrows his brows as he gazes at the older man from the side.

“What do you mean?”

Sir Malcolm looks increasingly agitated as he responds.

“It has been more than three weeks now that Vanessa is out of his grasp. And even longer I assume, since he has bitten her. More than three weeks that he could have used to pervade her mind at his volition. Weeks in which she was weak. Accessible, one would think. Then why now?”

Everyone in the room is looking at Ferdinand Lyle now as though he had a sort of communication with the dark one himself.

Everyone except her.

“Because he has waited for this moment.”

Her voice is devoid of its previous fragility. She states her thoughts, providing her accomplices in this with her own reflections, firmly.

“He has been waiting, all these weeks, for this. Neither my body nor my mind were of use to him, ailing and unconscious. So he has waited while I was recuperating, he has made you think he had let me go, when in truth he needs me in the state I am in now. Conscious. Capable. Considering myself safe…”

Her glance meets Ethan’s and she cannot help that her voice is softer now.

“Protected.”

His gaze is deep, pensive and inquisitive, he wants to now, he wants to feel what it is she feels and she knows it and does not allow him to. She needs him safe.

And for now, he cannot know that he is the one the dark one seeks to take from her. She knows what he would do. And she will – she cannot – let him.

“But”, Victor raises his voice, sounding confused despite himself, “protected, would that not be a disadvantage rather than…”

“He needs to be vanquished”, she interjects, uncrossing her arms and letting her glance wander slowly over all their faces.

“He needs to cease existing. For once and for all.”

Her voice is hardly more than a grim whisper by the end of it, one would name it softness, tenderness with which she has spoken, had it been a matter of love.

But it is cold, searing contempt. And an unwanted undercurrent of suppressed fear. It is a matter of death.

“An eternity is not enough, Miss Ives?” asks Victor and she knows he tries to joke and his tone is gentle, but there is more and she sees it as she looks at him.

“No”, she replies. “No amount of time is enough. His presence has been everlasting. But it will not be so for much longer.”

Her gaze trails once more across all their familiar faces.

And once again, it sinks into her heart that they are with her again. That she is no longer alone. But she needs to know.

“I cannot demand anything of you. I will not hold it against you if you decide to leave. There would be nothing to forgive. I cannot promise that this battle will be the last. So tell me honestly. Are you with me?”

She looks at them and one after the other, they look back into her eyes.

“Yes”, says Sir Malcolm, followed by Victor and Mister Lyle with the same answer.

Lastly, she looks at Ethan. Something is gleaming deep in the warm brown of his eyes, he seems to restrain himself from getting up from his seat and walking over to her, crossing the small distance and…?

“Always, Vanessa.”

She swallows and nods and she does not quite dare to smile as she sees the silent agreement, the familiar small signs of companionship.

If this ends well for her or not – this time, she is not alone.

The blood comes quickly as she cuts her finger.

She traces the tips of her index and her middle finger across the old wooden floors, in the corridor, in the former guest room and upon Sir Malcolm’s explicit request, even in the Map Room.

Each scorpion is a being of its own.

Chapter Text

Dear People, dear everyone who has read part 1 and/or 2 of this Story,

I think it's about time I adress this - I owe each and every Reader and commenter on this an apology.
Sorry for not posting and sorry for not letting you know how it continues until now. I can only thank you from my heart for the time you took to read what I had written and to give kudos or even comment. I can hardly express how much I appreciate it, especially since it was my first time writing anything in English and the first 'real' fanfiction for me as well. It meant a lot to me to read that most of you enjoyed my take on the show and its characters and your kind words have been a blessing.

Now I'd like to let you know that there will be no further chapters coming unless something within me decides otherwise in the future. I sincerely never meant for it to be this way, since I had all parts of the story planned out and thought through and it's due to personal experiences over the past year (it seems 2017 didn't do good on anyone). Metaphorically speaking (and in line with the show), the one who I thought for years to be my Ethan has turned out to be my Dr. Sweet. Therefore writing about anything romantic in a very hopeful, light-filled manner as this story requires escapes me for the time being. I don't know when this will change, but for now I can say I can't continue this.
I will not completely stop writing fanfiction as writing is my great passion, but this story ends here so far.

Sorry everyone and thanks again for all the love you had for this story and all the best to you out there!

Chapter Text

2

For now, they scatter.

Mister Lyle hurries off to the Museum which has apparently reinstalled him as their head of the department of Egyptology. He promises to do as much research as he manages to.

She thanks him with a light embrace and a smile. There is only so much they can do, but she wants him to know how much she appreciates his support.

Sir Malcolm has a meeting with the Explorer’s Club which apparently he does not want to delay. She is more than fine with his leaving. He deserves distraction as much as any other member of their group.

He will be back sooner than usual, he says, before giving her a peck on the cheek and exiting Grandage Place, cane in hand.

Victor lingers. She finds him in the Map Room with Ethan still, sketching, his notebook spread open across his knees.

As though sensing her soundless entrance, Ethan looks up and directly into her eyes.

His expression is as honest as ever. He bares himself to her, she feels.

There are answers found in his gaze, answers she needs. Yet there is also a question, a question she wants to answer.

When have they ceased requiring words to speak?

It is a peripheral thought, a useless one perhaps, but it is instances like this when she believes strongest that mankind has not invented language for connections such as theirs.

Do they even exist? Connections such as theirs?

There are moments when she looks at him and longs to forsake speaking entirely.

The warmth she has felt all day every single time their gazes meet elopes into a more stringent version of itself. Heat, intrinsic.

She sees that he motions to get up from where he is sitting and she wordlessly, softly shakes her head, then giving him a small smile.

She is not refusing him, she is refusing herself in this particular moment; she feels herself yearning for his nearness, his touch.

Her longing for him is sharp and clear right now, pronounced, an ocean evenly streaming towards the sand and she knows she will only be able to step back for so long before it covers her skin.

There is a gentleness in his glance now that very nearly makes it worse for her.

In this instant, it takes effort not to cross their distance.

Effort not to claw at and cling to his warm, familiar skin while feeling the source of all her vices run dry.

Effort not to drown in her love for him, drunk with his scent and undone by his kindness.

“Are you feeling better, Miss Ives?”

The doctor does not even look up from his sketchbook.

“Different”, she answers, distractedly, before she breaks eye-contact with Ethan and her eyes trail across the room instead.

“For lack of a better word” she adds, still unfocused.

“I should like to examine you again.”

“You do not have to”, she protests, if halfheartedly.

“Maybe you should let him. He’ll never give it a rest”, Ethan says, light amusement in his voice. But he senses the state she is in, does he not?

Victor scowls at him and she nods and lets him follow her to the former guest room.

The same faded grey light that has been ever-present for the past days continues to stream inside the room when sits opposite him on the edge of the bed.

“What is the question?” she asks while readjusting her dress with nimble fingers. She does not need to look at his astonished face to know she has surprised him.

“Miss Ives”, he begins, but she cuts him off.

“What is it you want to speak with me about?” she asks, her hands still. His gaze leaves her eyes, facing her shoes or her knees instead.

“Your vision”, he answers, his voice low, “I did not want to pressure you to talk openly about what it is that appeared to you in an altered state. But, you see…”

With that his glance meets hers again and he sounds more confident.

“You are a patient of mine. And a - friend. Not long ago you were very close to death. Restoring your health was at the same time the most complicated and the most gratifying task I’ve been given. I feel responsible for your welfare. And whatever it was that you have seen, it worries me. For I think it has frightened you deeply. Is that not so?”

She gazes into his clear, light blue eyes and remembers the moment she had told him, so long ago, that he is a beautiful monster.

She looks down to where his hands rest on his knees and takes one of them into her own, a light touch. She keeps her eyes on their hands as she speaks, her voice hardly above her whisper.

“There is a cross branded into the skin on my back.”

She looks back into his eyes.

“You have seen it, have you not? You must have.”

He nods, the expression in his gaze is grave.

“A terrible thing”, he answers.

“Would you believe me if I told you that were it not there, I would miss it?”

He furrows his brows ever so slightly. The scientist and something he does not understand.

“Sure enough, a time will come that I will loathe it again. Hopefully.”

She does not dare to think of what she is thinking about and cuts her own thought short, continuing quickly.

“But it has taught me something, doctor.”

“What would that be?”

She looks back down on his hand lightly in hers.

“Someone protected me. And paid with her life. The cross was my amount of pain to endure.”

Her gaze meets his and she realises he has looked at her the entire time.

“And I shall gladly accept my amount of pain this time. Only this time, I need to protect.”

Victor searches her face now. She can see realisation flash across the liquid clear blue of his eyes and it takes several seconds before he speaks again.

“It is about Ethan, is it not? The vision? What is it between you and him?”

She swallows, does not break their gaze. Her voice is low, but clear.

“Everything. Which is why I need to protect it. Him.”

He moves his fingers in her hand so that he is touching her skin as much as she his.

“I thought he was supposed to protect you.”

She smiles, faintly.

“With him, it is an instinct. It was given to him by powers above our earthly realm. Ingrained. A being within his own. With me, it is different.”

A first tear in her left eye.

“I have been sent towards destruction more than once. I have been captured by darkness for most of my life. Now, light has found me. I have made the choice to protect it.”

She watches him study her face and she knows some of that which moves her, some of that which she is too afraid to let show just now, just yet, is visible to him.

Doctors see what is not shown to them.

So it does not astonish her when he speaks next, in his familiar low tone.

“Whom you love, you protect.”

His smile is brighter than hers.

Darkness sets upon the formidable houses of Grandage place as she looks outside.

All afternoon she has managed not to dwell on the images the vision has planted all too firmly into her mind and thoughts, the blood, her screaming, the dark one, the terrible spectre she has hoped to never set eyes on again, and – him. In her arms.

She has not spoken a word to Ethan all afternoon apart from necessary remarks.

She has not been able to look at him, much less touch him, be near to him in any way for she has felt so very weak, raw that with every look of his she would have met she might have lost all self-control and dissolved into tears she does not want to cry.

She has distracted herself with odd tasks that held no necessity whatsoever – sorting through old tablecloths, rearranging curtains, polishing their silverware.

Tasks of the woman at home. She does not intend to actually practice them nor does she believe herself to ever become part of that very situation, to ever be the woman at home.

All the light that has returned to her life seems fragile now, vulnerable.

She feels an old kind of cynism creep back into her thoughts, a way of thinking she thought did not belong to her life anymore.

There will hardly ever be a reality which will have her be any woman to anyone in any house.

For a second her throat feels tight and dry and it is suffocating.

She clutches her fingers together in an almost painful motion so that she keeps herself from taking that very last step forward and cracking and smashing the glass of that window.
It is only when the outline of a dark coach becomes visible against the darkening sky and she watches it hobble across the cobblestones towards the house that something within her loosens ever so slightly. Malcolm.

There needs to be a plan. He, the dark one, needs to be stopped. He needs to vanish from her thoughts, vanish from all their lives.

“Vanessa?”

She has been so caught up, so captured by her fear and its sinister reckonings that she has not even sensed him approaching.

There is an edge to his voice. He knows there is something, something she is withholding and he gets to witness the effect it has on her.

“I will be right there”, she utters without changing her posture and her voice sounds strange, empty and tense even in her own ears.

She can hear him breathe. She longs to feel him breathe. It makes it harder, in this very moment.

“Van.”

“I will be right there, Ethan.”

Her voice falters ever so slightly on his name.

It takes a few seconds. She waits. She feels him hesitate.

He is too kind.

It is when she hears him turn around and his steps leading away, back down the staircase that she truly wants to break that glass in front of her.

Chapter Text

3

Soon, the fire casts its shadows across the Map Room.

Victor has returned; he had mentioned something about being back at sundown.

The tea Ethan has made sits in cups on the small table in front of them, untouched.

They watch as Sir Malcolm unpacks the contents of his leather case onto one of the great tables.

The familiar sound of sheets rustling mixed with that faint smell of leather, barely dried ink and parchment touches her; it makes her remember moments from her youth, only for an instant.

It is only when he walks across the room to take a seat in one of the armchairs that there is a heavy silence, broken only by the eventual cracking of the dried wood in the fire.

“I”, begins Sir Malcolm then and his low voice seems to rumble through the long room even though he does not speak very loudly.

“Have made use of my evening activity to inquire whether there is any knowledge, any awareness of the current circumstances of a scientist, a doctor going by any name similar to Alexander Sweet.”

She swallows, looks at Sir Malcolm to find that all glances are fixed on him. His face does not give anything away.

“It was only a small circle of gentlemen to whose attention I brought my question, obviously.”

“And?” asks Victor, seemingly impatient.

“Nothing. They will keep their eyes open for my sake. I could not quite bring myself to mention it could not hurt to do the same for their very own sakes either.”

“But he’s after Vanessa, not everybody else and surely not some gold-ringed decorated professors”, says Ethan and she suppresses the impulse to wince at his words, the fingers of her left hand gripping her right arm.

“Noted, Mister Chandler. However, should anything come to their awareness, there shall be information passed forward to this house.”

“Alright” murmurs Ethan then, looking down at his hands as though he were thinking of a way to use them to bolt doors to keep out what they were once again threatened by.

“Has there been word from Mister Lyle yet?” asks Sir Malcolm without addressing anyone directly.

She finds enough of her voice to reply.

“No.”

The silence that follows is not comfortable.

They all remain exactly where they are as though waiting.

The ticking of the old clock seems to reverberate in her chest. She has reached to take the tea cup, if only to hold onto something.

“We are doing this wrong.”

Victor has spoken into their silence with a low tone.

“What d’you mean?” She watches Ethan look over at Victor who, in turn, seems to gain confidence in his words as he continues, meeting Ethan’s eyes.

“If I may utter doubts about this endeavour – we are never going to find him like this.”

Ethan remains silent, waiting with the others for the doctor to continue which he does.

“We are searching for him like we were searching for a man, a human being, a doctor, a scientist, a noble member of society. When in fact we are all aware it is none of those that we are searching.”

Her hands tighten around the tea cup.

“So what is it we are to do then?” asks Sir Malcolm.

“I have turned this over and over in my mind as it is by no means a matter becoming of rash decisions, but – what if we were to find him in a different way, in a way that has much more to do with the abilities of Miss Ives?”

“Proceed, doctor.”

Victor looks from Sir Malcolm to her now, his voice slightly softer.

“The vision you have had – judging by your impression it must have been of an intensity that suggests that you have unconsciously entered a different realm through that link Mister Lyle has told us about.”

“I don’t think I like where this is going.”

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Ethan sit on the edge of his armchair now, looking straight at Victor, his tone low.

Victor keeps his glance fixed in hers.

“What if you were to use this connection again, enter that very realm and find him there?”

She looks at Victor and answers nothing. She is not even sure if she feels anything. A sudden emptiness has taken hold of her, a numbness.

Precisely. I will have to go back. Back where I have been. Back to darkness. Back to –

“No.”

A single word marks Ethan’s response. She bites her lip and casts her eyes down onto her hands as to not look straight at him instead.

“Could we at least think of it as a possibility?” asks Victor with a very slight sharpness to his voice.

“You’re insane.”

Foregoing all restraint she finds her glancing over at him.

His whole body seems to be trembling with suppressed tension and his eyes fix Victor’s as though he has declared war on all that is fair. She swallows and her mind goes back to that fateful night in the witches’ castle.

Victor’s tone has returned to that of sober professionalism she has heard so many times over the last few weeks especially.

“I have been called many things, Ethan and if calling me thus makes it any easier for you by all means do so.”

“We’re not sending her back there!”

She watches Ethan’s glance turn towards Sir Malcolm as though seeking assistance, whose expression in turn has not changed in its sternness.

“I said nothing about sending Miss Ives back there…” Victor’s voice sounds but slightly softer.

“But that’s what it is!” answers Ethan roughly, standing up in one movement – a swiftness about him that –

She very nearly gives in to the urge to cross their distance and wrap her fingers tightly around his wrists as to keep him in some kind of tender captivity, the most heartfelt one – the one that seeks to keep him from becoming what she knows he is not.

Yet, she knows something about the doctor’s words mirrors her reckonings of that very afternoon and the night before even. Precisely.

She cannot and will not deny that his line of reasoning treads the very same path of hers. That he is, with all they know, with all she knows, right.

It pains her. It stings, pierces sharply into her being, already having felt like not much more than a silhouette since the vision, a gathering of raw nerves and sensitivities, once more so easily vulnerable and weak.

It pains her, seeing both men she knows she owes her life to fight over what to do to once more save it all. Her.

Firelight flickers across their faces charged with the most different emotions. It glows vividly inside the eyes of the man who is everything to her.

The wildness she sees there; it is unrestrained already. So very alive.

It returns, the feeling that seems so close to her every step since the dark one has invaded her mind and showed her what he plans for her future.

For Ethan’s.

For theirs.

Suffocation. Her breath comes short and sharp in her throat, her heartbeat gets the best of her.

If until now she might have interjected anything; by now, she has gone mute.

She keeps her eyes trained on Ethan as she hears Victor urging on with his reasoning.

“Only so much so that we know where to go? Where to go to destroy him?”

“Enough of this!”

Sir Malcolm’s voice rumbles through the Map Room and straight through her chest as well, shocking her in its suddenness.

The stern expression on his features has turned to anger.

As he stands upright from his chair, for an instant she is that little girl again, that little girl who once upon a time in all her innocence had been afraid of him.

The little girl that she had thought lost onto all her later darkness.

“This house”, he continues, not a bit softer, “has seen far worse, but I will not allow a display of this kind in these quarters!”

“May I go?”

The words have left her lips before she is fully aware she has found her voice again. For a moment, she is unsure if it is the little girl she has been or indeed her asking.

Ethan is the first to look in her direction, but she evades his gaze. Upon a nod of Sir Malcolm’s, she excuses herself and gets up to leave.

“And you gentlemen”, Sir Malcolm turns toward them once more, “will take this argument outside.”

Victor is the first to regain his composure.

“I shall see to it.”

The terrace is bathed in nightly darkness as they stand out there, side by side, not facing each other.

“Schoolboys”, begins the doctor suddenly after a short, but laden silence.

“Is that not what this is reminiscent of? Sent out in the yard to cool their senses?”

Ethan’s breath is audible.

“Of us both, you’re the cool fucker”, he answers in a tone low enough not to be overheard through any open window.

He feels the doctor’s gaze upon him and straightens ever so slightly, burying the hands in the pockets of his coat. He has only put it on to avoid drawing attention to the matter that the heat in his body seems to rise from day to day. Only a couple of –

“I do not believe you are in truth that blind to my reasoning, Ethan”, says Victor then, mildly.

“I cannot believe it has not occurred to you.”

Ethan turns around to face him. He tries to maintain his calm.

“And I can’t believe you want to put her through this again. How can you possibly support that? You, of all people?”

There goes his calm.

“You, of all people, you who nursed her back to…?”

He does not say the word.

Victor’s gaze is unflinching.

“I told you it was more you than me who has done that, Ethan.”

Ethan’s glance wanders over the doctor’s face as if searching for some kind of assurance.

“I thought I’d made clear that I’m never going to let anything happen to her again.”

“The wording seems familiar, yes.”

The heat that has begun to rage over the last few days does not go well with anger, and much less with fear.

He balls his fingers, gripping tight into the skin of his palms while looking at the ever pale man next to him.

“What if we lose her there? What if it’s like back when –“

The memories of these weeks up to the exorcism flood his mind with images he dare not put into words.

Something about the doctor’s demeanour has softened ever so slightly.

“What if we follow through with what she wants for once?”

Ethan cannot but stare at him, a part of his mind – the part of the other - already going over the motions to wrap his hands around the pale boy’s neck and push his small, cold back against the next –

“Mister Chandler. Do you truly not see it?”

“You’ve got a couple seconds to tell me.”

He sees the doctor swallow before he continues, so Ethan loosens his posture, though only so slightly.

“She wants to protect you. More than she wants anything else. Whatever she has seen – whether it was the manifestation of a fear or indeed an insight into what this monster plans for her future – she wants to keep it from happening. And you and I both know Miss Ives well enough to know she will do whatever she needs to. Whether you approve of it or not.”

‘And you, Mister Chandler, know exactly what I am capable of.’

Ethan lets out a breath, audibly rough, shaky.

“What if I can’t be where she needs me?”

Light blue, ever bloodshot eyes meet his and there is a moment of silence, before Victor offers another sentence.

“Do you not own a certain Latin title Mister Lyle seems over proportionally fond of?”

Ethan averts his glance and huffs lowly.

“Which brings me to question”, continues the doctor then, “whether it is only a hunch of mine that your temper seems even more pronounced than usual these past few days?”

When he turns to look at the pale young man again, Ethan’s expression is more guarded than before, his voice soft, yet not without that certain edge.

“Not only cool, but smart as well, are we, Dr. Frankenstein?”

He sees Victor gulp, before he meets his eyes again.

“I shall promise to keep this observation to myself should you want me to.”

“You don’t have to promise me anything, Dr. F. What you’ve done for Van – for Vanessa has won you all the trust I can offer.”

When they turn back towards the door and leave the dark terrace, none of them feels any more reassured than before.

The water flows into the tub and the noise wraps itself around her ears and drowns out everything else.

She removes all of her clothing and cautiously sits down in the tub, huddled closely together, her arms around her knees.

She closes her eyes, willing away all remnants of this evening’s exchanges, willing away everything that has to do with what connection there might be, willing away the mere thought of a connection of that kind with the dark one.

The sound of the water fills her ears and the darkness behind her eyes welcomes her with a calm she has missed.

Her muscles relax as tension leaves her body minute by minute. She floats.

She does not remember how it has started when she realises the images in her head are not conjured up by her own doing.

It is a forest this time, she knows it before the moist, damp smell of the earth and moss and that of the cedars and other ancient trees enters her senses.

She moves along a small path, treading in even steps past bushes and wild grass.

Something about her feels different, but she cannot find the source of that feeling; there is a certain unfamiliar serenity about the way she feels and carries herself, a calm she has long thought forgotten and lost, that maybe of the young girl she had been all these years ago, walking, strolling about the gardens, long before any terror had taken place.

Or perhaps she has never been this serene, never that calm.

The paths ends as the first trees loom above her; looking up momentarily she sees the last of the grey autumn sky hidden, overcast with those leaves and branches, blocking out the last remainders of daylight.

She stills in her movement for an instant, only to continue her steps towards the heart of the forest, its half-darkness wrapping itself around her painlessly, effortlessly enfolding her.

The only thing that troubles her, the only thing that causes her unease in all her serenity is the absolute, seemingly impenetrable – silence.

No birdsong, no rustling of leaves, no forest animals seeking refuge. Is it the moss? The dampened leaves on the moist forest floor?

But the birds, there ought to be –

The silhouette appears in front of her, perhaps two metres away.

She stills once more, her glance fixed upon the appearance of which she sees nothing but blackness. A spectre? A thing of her imagination?

She concentrates, numbly, willing to make out any detail she can see.

It approaches, so very slowly that she does not move. She waits.

There are features that become visible to her then. They become familiar.

It is him who keeps a distance, coming to stand perhaps half a metre away from her, directly opposite.

It is unclear to her whether he seeks to meet her gaze. He seems not to stand, but to hover just above the forest floor instead. Yet he appears so very present.

She takes in his appearance without feeling.

The absence of all sound mirrors the absence of all fear inside her.

Of him, she is no longer afraid.

She does not seek flight.

She does not contemplate, she does not seek for explanations. They will come to her in time, she knows.

She looks over across the distance and as though he has read her thoughts – he does, she knows it instinctively, without knowing how – he is the first to speak.

“She is here.”

His voice is familiar enough. And yet, no memories of the short, but fatal amount of time passed alongside him appear.

“She has come. All alone. No one with her.”

An image of Ethan flashes through her mind, vividly, only for a fragment of a second.

She knows him to be far from here. Safe.

He does not know she is here. She has not told him. She does feel regret or remorse about it. Not yet.

He will be angry. Oh, more than that. But she cannot endanger him. She cannot let him confront the dark one. The beast inside him will do nothing but endanger him, let his emotions show and thus make him vulnerable, a target.

She must do so on her own.

She continues to face him, still devoid of feeling.

“Do you not worry, Vanessa? Darkling, my darkling, do you not worry?”

His words are a slur, droning across the distance, surrounding her. Clear enough for her ears, scratching at her skin with their unwanted nearness.

She remains still, unmoving and silent, watching him.

He seems to draw his own conclusion upon observing her.

“You are not afraid, Vanessa. Why are you not afraid?”

He leans closer toward her, as though aiming to get closer to her skin, her heartbeat, steady as it is.

“You are not touched by what happens here. Do you not care? Do you not care about what will happen? With you? With it?”

He looks into her eyes and instinctively she knows he means the child.

As though reminding her, she feels a certain kind of movement, ever so small, near her hipbone. It is still so early, only a heartbeat and the smallest of bones.

She watches his eyes as they seem set agleam.

“You are alone here, in this state.”

Her gaze meets his without fear. Her voice is equally devoid of feeling as she speaks.

“Everyone is alone. With everything.”

“You do not believe these words, Vanessa. Not anymore. I can see that in you, inside you, have you forgot that I see it all?”

His interest seems to pick up even more as his dark eyes observe her.

“You did not bring him with you. Yet it is indeed his, is it not?”

Her voice remains devoid of any emotion.

“It is no ones. It is its own being.”

The gleaming in his eyes ceases and only blackness remains.

“Are you not scared? The thing of a beast. Are you not afraid it will become a beastly creature itself?”

She bites her lips, biting back the impulse to spit out her disgust at him, the darkest of all.

“We are not like you. I am not like you. I will love who it becomes.”

His teeth show when he smiles, menacingly.

“You are here, but your heart is with him. You are here, not with them.”

“Them?”

His black eyes spark up.

“Them. Those who converse in old rooms. About you, Vanessa, about the child. Mostly about you.”

She breaks away from his gaze. She swallows. A feeling begins to creep up on her, seeps into her being.

“You call yourself alone. Only because it is the only thing you are worthy of being since you defied me.”

She looks back at the blackness, swallowing.

“He is strong, but you will not let him be. He will come and I will see to his perishing.”

Her breath comes short.

“You will not remain, Vanessa. Nothing of you will. Not since you defied me.”

She is unable to breathe. She is back in the water, fighting to come up for air.

His voice tears through her now, screeching.

“Do you prefer this version of events? Is this what you prefer, Vanessa? Tell me! Do you prefer this, Vanessa? Is this what you would like? Do you prefer this, darkling?”

Gasping for air, for air to breathe, she breaks through the water’s surface and the vision all the same. Her breathing sounds more like dry, violent sobbing to her.

Her fingers claw at the bathtub, as she exits it with one movement.

Enough.

Chapter Text

4

He is in his former room which has become theirs. She wants to knock on the door, but her hand stops in her movement as she overhears his voice.

A steady rhythm, a constant flow of words in his low voice, rough with nighttime and emotion.

She closes her eyes for an instant, listening to him pray. Naturally it reminds her of that time she has come storming into his – this very room, distraught and fearful.

How he had taken her into his arms back then.

In line with the visions, this memory brings an ache to her chest, but another feeling is more prominent. She wants this, again, always.

When she no longer hears his words, her hand reaches the door and she opens it and enters quietly.

“Van!” he says, coming to stand in front of her with a distance of decency and she cannot fathom why he would seem so relieved, does he really still think she would leave him, forsake him, ever?

“I thought I’d wait for you here, listen, I’m sorry –“

She shakes her head and swiftly holds her right hand up, towards him, causing him to fall silent for a moment.

His brown eyes seem to sparkle in that very moment, or to gleam with an emotion she begins to understand.

“Vanessa”, he starts again, his voice hardly above a rough whisper.

“There’s something you need to know, and it’s got to be now.”

“Sh”, is the only thing she answers, moving her fingers to lay them against his lips as if to silence him.

His eyes close momentarily and she can feel the tension radiating from his body, from his entire frame toward hers. What he was about to say she can read all on his features, his body, his posture.

His gaze seeks hers then and she looks directly into his eyes.

“Ethan. I know.”

She can see it on him, she can feel it.

She cannot bear the mix of confusion, pain and regret in his gaze, she wants it to stop, all his self-loathing, his loathing of a part of himself. She wants them to stop being this fearful, both of them.

She reaches out to him and moves so that her hands frame his face.

She watches his eyes as they seem to gleam, spark up with an emotion she feels pulsating through his warm skin.

I promise you we’ll be less afraid.

She had been so unbearably soft, so raw, so easy to bruise during those last hours, leading from the witches’ castles to his departure.

She had come to wonder why she thinks of forever every time. She always thinks of an eternity, each time. With everything.

She spent an eternity hunted.

She spent an eternity violated.

She spent an eternity locked away.

She spent an eternity afraid of her own thoughts, afraid of that creature in her mind.

So naturally, she had thought herself to be convicted to spend an eternity without him.

She believes she can still taste her tears on her lips, those tears, the tears Lucifer had brought her.

Good morning, Van.

The tears she had shed when he had made her see her dream.

I thought you wanted a whole brood of kids.

She tears she had shed when she had had to say no.

Her memory, the dream and reality blend together. It is mirrored, all of it. It comes full circle.

“Vanessa?”

His gaze in hers, warm, familiar and – achingly tender. His arms brush her shoulders now, as if to bring her back.

She has never been more aware.

She believes to see the questions in his eyes, fully phrased.

What is it? What was this vision about? What have you seen?

And a silent request, almost hidden, almost.

Please tell me.

Her touch on his skin loosens, ever so slightly and her hands come to lie against his neck, lightly, his pulse steady against her fingers.

Slowly, softly she leans forward and brushes her lips against his.

After mere fragments of seconds of hesitation, caution she knows, she finds his lips parted underneath hers and deepens the kiss herself, seeking the utter absence of distance.

The sweetest abandonment.

Her heart seems to leap up from its place inside her chest, her skin, cold still with the autumn evening and she shivers with both this sensation and pronounced, vivid, vehement pleasure.

She feels him touch her shoulders, her back instinctively, as if to steady her, but something about his touch feels different; she feels enfolded by his warmth, his smell.

His hands, merely tracing her back at first, trail lower and reach her waist, gripping tighter, possessively.

And he is so very warm, his pulse speeding up beneath her touch.

The cold she has felt has vanished completely; she feels first sweat in her neck and she knows he will notice it; she knows he will smell it.

She moves her hands down his shoulders to stroke his back, tracing circles. Something disconcerts him, something is –

She cannot help but sigh against his mouth and as his hands move back to grip her upper arms, she feels it.

He has drawn blood.

“Ethan.”

His low moan at that causes her to close her eyes momentarily, dragging at her feelings, urging her pleasure back where she can rather harness it.

As her eyes snap back open, he stands opposite her, the remnants of desire in his eyes overcast with shock.

“Christ!”

His voice is rough with emotion.

The loss of his touch has her basked back into utter cold, watching the horror on his face.

She does not sober up quite as quickly as him; she cannot but stare at him, holding onto all her self-restraint not to cross the distance yet again.

But the horror in his eyes makes her shiver.

She looks down her arms. The fabric of the soft cotton nightdress is torn in some places, making it hang unceremoniously down her arms.

She touches her lower arms, turning them to have a closer look at her skin.

The left arm first, the upper part where her bullet wound has been; nothing. As though he had – the animal had – instinctively spared the place.

It must smell different, her newer flesh there, then.

She feels his gaze on her as she inspects the right one next.

There are two gashes, clean, straight lines with small amounts of blood tickling down and onto the light cotton. Claw marks.

She feels no pain and as she looks back up at Ethan, she knows nothing he will ever do will possibly cause her as much pain as looking into his eyes in this instant, seeing the shock there.

“Vanessa.”

She takes a step in his direction and watches him back away immediately.

Her breathing grows loud in her ears.

“I am sorry, Ethan, I should not have – it was me, I ought to have stopped myself before, knowing –“

His voice is as hoarse as hers.

“No. No.”

There is a vehemence in his tone that belongs to the animal.

“You won’t even think of takin’ this on you.”

She makes another attempt at approaching him and he stills in his movements.

“I need to leave. Now.”

“No.”

It is her tone that is vehement now. Her heart beats up to her throat.

“I will not let you leave me again. Not because of this. Not because of nothing.”

“This isn’t nothing, Vanessa!”

All her raw, pent-up emotions dissolve into anger as she answers him, her arms across her chest, trembling.

“Yes, it is. That is precisely what it is!”

His gaze meets hers.

She waits, concentrating on nothing but his eyes and her breathing, too quick still.

When he remains silent, the shock on his face giving way to something akin to regret, she says, in a voice so low he might not hear, but the animal will.

“I said I accept you. This. All of it.”

She feels him watching her, as if waiting for a change of mind. She stands there, still, irreverent.

Finally, he swallows visibly, looking straight into her eyes again.

“Just down in the cellar” he utters. “I’ve been there before when it happened.”

Her heart stops its erratic beating only slowly.

“Yes”, she answers softly.

He lowers his glance as he speaks next.

“I’ll see if Sir Malcolm’s still awake, he’ll chain me.”

She remains silent this time until his gaze meets hers again. All anger and all shock have disappeared; he looks battered now, tired.

She shakes her head, slowly, lightly, looking into his eyes.

His protest is immediate.

“It can’t be you.”

She keeps her eyes on his until he forgoes all resistance.

“It ought to be me, Ethan.”