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One moment there’s fear, words bubbling out of him as he tries to explain, please, just let him explain, the muzzle of a gun hard against the back of his skull and the pitted asphalt sharp and digging into his knees-- then pain, half sound and half shock-- and the next, the crush of water around him, the chill, pale light above him and water pressing into his ears. His lungs are burning, familiar and terrible, and he suppresses his reflex to breathe in without thinking about it, starts to kick up toward the light.
Every time Henry returns to life, he’s in prime condition; his body flush with new adrenaline; every time he comes back he is ready to fight to live. Every time, he feels the physical desperation anew, not to drown, not to surrender to the waves. A body fights for life even when the soul is weary. He breaks the surface and sucks down chilly winter air, stinking and still sweet.
What if he just gives up, he asks himself, and then feels muck and gravel under his fingers. He's already dragging himself out of the river, and the line between giving up on life and active suicide has been crossed once again.
There’s a shadow on him-- he’s under a shattered bridge, crumbling and neglected in favor of a newer one down river. He recognizes the brickwork, of course, it’s the same one he's sheltered under seven times in the past seven days, more than a dozen times in the last month, under the same laminated placard that reminds him that -- is forbidden -- DUMP --DIES into th- riv--- through a hundred years of mildew and neglect.
He'd gotten so far this time, out of central London, towards the country. He'd thought this time he'd get away, out of reach of the story of... zombies, constructs, new breeds of immortal robo-men, whatever awful thing the paranoid xenophobes have decided he is, but he'd been stopped on the road by a policeman.
The rot has spread back into the police force, he must remember that from here on out.
They don't call themselves Earth United or the Watch anymore, but he knows them for what they are, the backlash of jingoism and fear that creeps in when people are afraid.
It was a gunshot, mercifully, a bullet directly into the back of his head, not the usual steel-toed kicking he's gotten so accustomed to in the last few weeks.
It began with a ridiculous accident-- a fall from a ladder, as he was repairing the roof of the hospital, and how embarrassing to break your neck from a ten foot fall. His rebuilding team had seen him disappear, of course, and when he crept back to his house for his supplies there had been dark figures waiting.
He hadn’t been ready. He’d gotten accustomed to the anonymity of a world without constant televised broadcast, without computerized record systems, had let himself believe he was safe and that everyone had far better things to worry about---
But that’s not true, anymore, is it-- the broadcasts and communication are starting again, and that means that humanity is thriving again but it also means that eighty years of relative peace is over and he’s been trapped for a month in a hellish cycle of death, resurrection, desperate flight, and death.
He hasn't died so often in such a short amount of time since the first invasion. If he just threw himself into the Thames and let it take him somewhere, would he have the strength to crawl out again before he went under and wound up here again? How far must he get from this damned bridge, this damned city, before he stops coming back? He misses New York, misses the Hudson with a terrible nostalgia, the polluted taste of it-- but the American continent is all but impassable, has been for more than a century.
Someone is coming down the gravel path to the river-- sliding and skidding down the sharp pebbles he remembers all too well from his frequent and naked clamber up them.
Perhaps they'll take him for a dead body and leave him be. He's past hoping for help.
"Naked, from the river. Like they said," says his persecutor, in a warm, feminine voice, and he's so desperately tired of dying.
"Please," he croaks. "Please, I'm not what you think. I'm not a roboman, I'm not a Dalek, I'm not an alien, please--"
“Shh,” says the woman, crouching beside him. “I’m not going to hurt you. My name’s Susan Campbell. You’re going to be all right.”
He risks a glance up at her, at that, and is shocked by a wave of memory, all the way back from before the second invasion. The resemblance is-- extraordinary, for a moment he has a mad, desperate idea that this is the fierce, compassionate woman from the television broadcasts, advocating against Earth United and disastrously for reaching out to other worlds.
But that was a century ago, the famous freedom fighter. And this woman is a handsome forty-something.
She couldn’t be an immortal too, could she-? He hasn’t seen another in-- so long. Adam fled during the the first invasion, who knows where, ready to freeze or starve before he let the Daleks get hold of him. He’d known what they were right from the first, from his bitter experience with the Third Reich. He’d invited Henry to go with him, out of some vestigial sense of kindness, perhaps, but Henry was a doctor, he’d had a duty to the survivors of the plague….
He tries to pull his thoughts together as the woman-- Susan-- tucks a blanket around him, a coarse shock blanket but such a welcome contrast to the cold air. With the air of a veteran battlefield medic she takes his vital signs, reassures him and counts his breaths while she checks his responsiveness so smoothly he almost doesn’t notice it. She lifts both wrists to take his pulse, a very strange gesture, and she lingers with a frown as if she’s looking for something. Her hands are cooler than the river, but kind.
Whatever she was looking for in the frightened pounding of his heart, she doesn’t find, letting go of his hands with a faint frown.
“You are human, aren’t you?” Disappointed? Relieved? Henry can’t read her tone of voice, only certain that it wasn’t what she expected.
“Yes.” He’s beginning to shiver-- his skin warming up under the blanket, warm enough now to know how bone cold he really is.
“I’ve brought you some clothes,” she says. “And there’s coffee in the car. I’m going to take you back to my house. You’ll be safe.”
He stammers out a thanks-- she takes his hand, clasping it tightly.
“It will be all right,” she says again.
“There are men looking for me--”
“I know.” She nods. “I know their sort. I’ve spoken to Earth Council-- they’re going to put a stop to this.”
“You’re with--” The freedom fighter Susan Campbell had been with Earth Council as well. Perhaps a family name--? His rescuer is more important than he’d realized, and how will he possibly explain himself to the government?
“Yes.” She nods firmly. “What’s your name?”
“Henry. Morgan,” he admits, because it’s a thing that’s always been difficult to lie about, and he’s too tired and frightened to remember a false name.
“Would you like to tell me about it, Henry?” There’s no accusation in her voice. There’s barely even surprise-- just a sort of ageless compassion, the promise that things really are going to be all right now.
“It’s a very long story.”
She smiles at that, her face sweet and terribly sad. “Well. That’s all right. I have a very long time.”