Titanic

[notsocommon]

Helen always sort of remembered this particular day but this year it was much more keen, exacerbated by the shelf in the Compound giving her book after book on the Titanic sinking. It hadn't occurred to her at first that this was a hundred years since it happened, the century mark, and more than likely anyone who had survived the sinking ship was dead and gone.

It was the one time, aside from when she and Will arrived here on the island, that Helen had been lost at sea. It was meant to be something fun, believe it or not, and she and James had booked passage as James and Helen Carter, not Watson or Magnus, and enjoyed the time of their lives until tragedy struck.

It was stupid, honestly. Who dies on a ship because there's simply not enough life boats? James had gone in one at the first, worried for his exoskeleton, and while Helen thought perhaps he could have done just a little bit more, she didn't fault him terribly. She'd nearly died, fighting her way down to third class to save as many people as she could, and it was only Molly Brown fishing her from the water and wrapping her in blankets that kept her from dying that night in the North Atlantic.

After putting away yet another book on the subject, Helen curled into a chair and tried to hide the fact that she was, in fact, crying.

Comments

[inabmovie]

Will had a rescheduled appointment with a patient (not usual for a Sunday, but he was willing to see patients whenever they needed him) and planned to meet Magnus afterward. The appointment took a little longer than he'd expected, but he knows Magnus would understand. He doesn't expect to find her crying near the bookshelf.

"Hey," he says, kneeling down by her chair. "What's wrong?" He suddenly worries that she might have found something relating to the Sanctuary show, but a quick glance around doesn't turn up any evidence.

[notsocommon]

"It's a bit silly," Helen admitted, wiping her eyes and trying to eliminate the worst of the damage. She hated crying and, worse, hated being caught at it, but at least Will had seen it before and wouldn't judge her. That was always important.

"It's just...today's the anniversary. April 15th, 1912. Titanic? And today makes a century since."

[inabmovie]

He's been so busy looking for evidence of Sanctuary that he hasn't noticed the books on the Titanic everywhere or the fact that the jukebox is playing that godawful Celine Dion song from the Titanic movie. "Oh, man," he says, taking her hands. "I didn't even think about that. I'm sorry."

[notsocommon]

"Nobody would have thought about it. Everyone who was on that ship with me is dead now, either by the sea that night or by old age now. Every last one of them," Helen said, squeezing his hands back.

"Unless, somehow, there's someone else here who might have been on that ship, who came here from the early part of the 20th century...otherwise, well. It's just not...I'm the only one left now."

[inabmovie]

"Nobody that I know of," Will says. Not that he knows everyone, but people from earlier time periods tend to stand out. It's crazy, because to him, the Titanic is something out of a movie. For Magnus, it really happened, adn any time she mentions something like this he can't quite get his mind around it. "I'm sorry. C'mere." He lets go of her hands to slide his arms around her and hug her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

[notsocommon]

"A little," Helen murmured, taking solace in the hug for the moment. There were few places in the world that felt as safe as Will's arms and considering her stress of late, Helen wanted to take advantage of that as much as she could even if all her stress wasn't exactly Titanic related.

"It was just senseless. All those people died because of poor planning, Will. That was all. Poor bloody planning."

[inabmovie]

"I don't really know much about it, except what I saw in movies and stuff," Will admits. "And I bet it ate you up that you couldn't save them all, didn't it?"

Probably even more in her second go-round at life, knowing she couldn't even make sure there were more lifeboats on board or even try to avert the disaster in the first place. It's probably for the best that she doesn't know about that.

[notsocommon]

"You've no idea. Logically, nothing could be done," Helen admitted, curling against him. "But I've never been very logical about things like that."

How could she be, when lives were at stake?

[inabmovie]

"You always want to help everyone," Will says, and strokes her hair. "And it kills you when you can't help as many people as you want to. But you have to remember that even though you've lived a long time, you're still one person, and you've helped more people than most. Think about the people you did save, the ones you did help, that would have been lost without you. I know that's not really enough, but it's something."

[notsocommon]

"Sometimes I wish I was bigger than just one person. It was easier when I had a whole network.

But, even then, that didn't negate the fact that she always felt this way and always felt bad even if there was one person, one Abnormal, that slipped through the cracks.


"But I guess, without me, there were many who wouldn't have been saved that were."

[inabmovie]

"Exactly." Will rubs her shoulders and then tips her chin up so he can meet her eyes. "And you saved me," he adds. "It's not the same, but still. You saved me from an unfulfilling life of crimes I couldn't solve and patients I couldn't understand. You made it all make sense."

[notsocommon]

"I did save you," Helen agreed softly, meeting his eyes with her own. It might not be the same in some ways but in others, it was even more important. In some ways, it had been the best choice of her life.

"Come, let's go home. It's just going to keep torturing me if I don't leave these books alone."