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Lucy awoke to sunlight streaming through the window— the clear golden light of late afternoon. She laid with her eyes half-closed for a few beats, exhausted by a nightmare she couldn't remember. Her head was swimming; the crook of her right arm burned; she thought she tasted blood in her mouth. She blinked at the huge windows, silhouetted with the filament-petaled garlic flowers, and then with a gasp she clutched her hand against her chest, and exhaled more slowly as she felt the crinkle of paper there. She drew it out, staring at the folded letter-paper for a second, and she couldn't think why she felt such a profound relief at seeing it.
Abruptly, she realized she wasn't alone in the room. Dr. van Helsing sat on a chair to her right, and behind him stood Dr. Seward. Both were very pale, and both trying very hard to smile.
She smiled back at them as she tucked the paper back against her breast, relief flooding her with such force that she thought she would burst into tears.
"Good morning, Miss Westenra," Seward said, his voice formal but tense. She glanced around the room, trying to shake the dizziness of sleep from her.
She saw the broken window.
The broken window.
A shudder passed through her, and then in a rush, she remembered. The shattered glass, the wolf head bursting through, her scream, her mother's body falling on her. That awful gurgling, choking sound in her mother's throat, the icy fear that settled on her. The servants rushing in. Her sending them out for wine. She remembered placing the wreath of flowers around her mother's neck. And then… What then? She couldn't remember. She was terrified to.
And her mother was dead. Dear God, her mother was dead.
She hadn't meant to cry out, but she did. It broke from her voice, a wail of woe that could not be silenced. She covered both hands with her face, sobbing so forcefully that it made her even weaker and dizzier.
She felt a warm hand on her back, strong and solid. "There, there, my dear." Van Helsing's voice was soft, though she thought she could hear his tears in it. "Cry as much as you will."
She had always tried to quell her tears before— or at least keep them discreet and pretty— but she had no energy left for such things. She wailed and sobbed and beat her breast, and her face became wet with tears and snot. She had never cried this hard in her life.
At last, she was simply too exhausted to bawl anymore, and she sank back onto her pillows, letting Van Helsing's hand slide to her forehead, pushing her hair back from her face, as Seward dabbed awkwardly at her face with a handkerchief.
Both doctors looked at her with such open compassion that she calmed a bit, but as she looked up into Van Helsing's eyes, she thought she saw resignation there. Grief. Despair, even.
She was dying, she realized. She was dying, and there was nothing she or these good doctors could do about it.
She leaned further back in the pillows, her tears still flowing. Van Helsing lifted his hand from her head and took her hand, squeezing it gently. "I will get you some water, young miss," he said, his voice brighter than the sadness in his eyes. He looked over his shoulder and motioned toward Seward with his head. Seward looked confused for a moment before stepping over and taking his place in the chair. Van Helsing gave Lucy's hand to his and left the room.
Now Lucy was lying there, Seward holding her hand with a bit of color creeping into his cheeks. She could see the wavering in his face— he had tried so hard to be professional around her at all times, but he looked so tired, and she could see his calm exterior cracking.
"I'm sorry," Lucy said, just to have something to say.
"Don't be!" Seward blurted out. He squeezed her hand and patted it clumsily, like a child learning to pet a dog gently. "The death of a parent is an awful blow."
Lucy couldn't help it; she started to weep again. Van Helsing walked back into the room and offered her the water, but she was too weak to take it, and so accepted some sips from the glass as he held it. Seward continued holding her hand and patting it, rhythmical as a clock.
Van Helsing pulled the glass away and began to pace the room, slowly, as if deep in thought. Seward's patting hand came to rest on hers, and he just stared at it, his face like stone. After a long time, he spoke in a husky voice. "Miss Westenra, I am sorry I was not here last night."
Lucy gulped hard, tears still slipping down her cheeks. At the very thought of the night before, she felt like her lungs were filling up with cold water. She was going to drown.
"I— I did not receive Van Helsing's telegram until this morning," he continued in a trembling voice. "If I had known, if I had gotten it—" His voice cut off with a choking sound.
Lucy wanted to tell him that it was all right, that he had done what he could. But the thought that someone might have there last night— to leap up when the window broke, to fight off the nightmare, to protect her— made the woe fall on her doubly. She let go of his hand and began to sob again, pressing her hands to the letter at her breast and feeling terrified of why she felt so protective of it.
She felt the bed move as Seward sat on the edge of the bed beside her, leaning over to touch her shoulder gingerly, as if she might shatter. "I am sorry," he said again, his voice shaking. "Lucy, I am so, so sorry—"
Somehow, she rallied enough strength to sit up and throw her arms around him. He made a soft surprised noise, but when she squeezed him as tightly as her weakness allowed and began to sob against his chest, he wrapped his wiry arms around her back, like someone learning to hug for the first time. She didn't care that he was her doctor, her rejected suitor, that this was entirely improper— dear God, she just needed someone to hug her.
His arms held her against him with a bit more assurance now, and she pressed her face against his lapel, sobbing into his shoulder. After a moment she felt Van Helsing's hand on her head, gently stroking her hair as if she were a child woken up from a nightmare. Neither of them shushed her. They let her cry.
"We won't leave you again." Seward's voice was barely more than a whisper, but amplified by her ear pressed to his chest. "One or both of us shall be with you constantly, night and day, from now on."
Lucy wept a little harder, the relief washing over her. She could not be brave any longer. "P-promise?" she managed to whimper.
"I swear to it," Seward said, his arms even tighter around her.
Seward held her for a long time, until finally, soothed by the warmth of his embrace and the gentle rhythm of Van Helsing's hand on her head, she felt that she could cry no more. She pulled back, and Seward released her, gently laying her down on her pillows. She stared up at him through tear-blurred eyes, and she thought that she saw tears in his own eyes, held there without falling. She had a sudden wish to comfort him, to take him in her arms in turn and hold him tight, but of course she could not.
Sleep was pulling at her limbs, settling over her like a thick blanket as the light grew redder with the dusk. Fear crept in and she began to shiver. She reached out her hand, and Seward took it.
"Y-you won't leave?" Lucy asked.
"No," Seward said. "One or both of us will be here every moment. Sleep now, and have no care."
Lucy looked to Van Helsing, who was standing by Seward's side. Again, that grief in his eyes, the resignation. But he smiled at her too, and nodded.
Lucy gulped, her eyelids feeling heavy. She was terrified of sleep, but within a few minutes she lost the battle and she sunk into it, like a drowning man into deep water.
She still felt Seward's hand holding hers, a lifeline that she could only pray would bring her back to the surface once more.