Chapter Text
It started after the submarine incident, or rather the worst part of it, as they were still on the submarine, Drs. Helen Magnus & Will Zimmerman. She was still lying on the floor with him crouched down beside her, his head on her shoulder as she stroked his hair softly, unable to do anything else to comfort him. Perhaps it should seem that the responsibility was unbalanced in that, after all she was the one who had died and had to be resuscitated. However she had lived long enough to know that while she would win the award for most physical pain suffered today, Will would be taking home the award for emotional pain. There was really no comparison, both of them had suffered today, but she had been through horrible times like today far more than he had. So though others might find it strange, her being the one to comfort him, she didn’t. In fact his warm face on her cold shoulder comforted her just as much, after all she had almost killed him today too. Would have, if he hadn’t killed her first. And though she would’ve had to learn to live with it, it wouldn’t have been easy. Will was special, in general and to her, though she wouldn’t admit it to him, not yet anyway.
“Pick me up Will.” she said with a sigh. She was normally a gentle soul, not one to bark her orders or requests, but she was tired, cold, and didn’t have the strength for softness right now. She expected him to merely help her to sit upright, but he took her request literally and scooped her up in his arms. He didn’t make any attempt to hide that he found her weight burdensome and she couldn’t blame him, he must have been exhausted as well. He may have gone through Quantico, but she didn’t think he kept up his fighting skills. Likely he hadn’t needed them much in the past, but in their line of work she made a mental note to make him schedule some training time with Ashley.
He laid her down in the bottom bunk and she pulled at him, refusing to let him go. She almost killed him, her promising protégé, and in that moment she allowed herself to give into the fear the situation had caused her on that account.
“Magnus.” he protested, not even sure what he was protesting. He is a gentlemen, and sometimes she thinks he would have been better suited to her time than his. She wondered what different turns her life would have taken if she had known him then. Would he still look at her with such wonder, if she didn’t have such stories to tell?
“Lay down with me William.” She says it firmly, too much like a command to her liking, but he didn’t protest and squeezed in beside her on the bunk. She shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be allowing this. It’s unprofessional, but than so little of what she has done recently has been. The bunk is too small for him to scoot down and lay his head back on her shoulder, as he seems to want to do. Instead he settles for laying snuggled up against her side, his face resting against the side of hers. His breath is warm against her cheek and down her neck as it escapes his lungs, and she follows it’s rhythm until she is asleep. He follows her soon after.
Later, when they wake, still damp from the water, she will sit on the edge of the bunk and think thoughts she knows she shouldn’t. She is grooming Will to take over, to be her successor, not her partner; but as she feels Will’s hand rub along her back, turns her head to see the longing in his eyes over her shoulder she will realize that that may not be what Will wants. She will wonder if she will come to care enough about that to change her mind.
She doesn’t think so.