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[Fic] "Bergamot and Honey" (Magnus/Watson; 1/?; G)
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sanctuary_santa
Title: Bergamot and Honey
Author:sheikah
Words: 1,522 for this part.
Pairing: Helen Magnus/James Watson
Characters: Helen Magnus, James Watson, Kate Freelander
Rating: G, for now
Summary: While reminiscing over old photographs, Helen tells Kate about a case she once worked alongside James Watson and the relationship between the two of them.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Sanctuary.
“You slept with Sherlock Holmes?”
Helen looked up from the photo album and laughed, amused at how simplified that made it seem. She’d certainly slept with James more than once and Helen supposed that Doyle had infused his Sherlock with just enough James Watson to qualify Kate’s statement but she’d never actually looked at it quite that way. She was no Irene Adler, that was for certain. Not the way Doyle had written her, at any rate. Helen touched a letter, paper worn and crumbling along the edges. How long it’d been since she’d seen James, touched his face? Far too long.
“I had a relationship with James Watson. Quite a bit different, Kate. Of course, I did help him on a case once.”
Kate’s eyes gleamed and Helen leaned back in her chair, awash in memory as she began to speak about something that had passed so long ago that she couldn’t remember all the details in that strange, crystal clarity that James had in spades and Will seemed to be developing. Even still, she remembered enough.
~~~
“Strangest thing, Dr. Watson. One minute he’s fine and I brought him his cuppa and the next he was writhin’ around on the floor like that and now he’s gone.”
The maid was trembling and shaking, slim shoulders racked with sobs. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, give or take, and Helen couldn’t imagine how upset she must have been. Her master was an earl with holdings somewhere in Kent but this was the house he stayed in most; the earl had an excessive fondness of gambling in the London houses. It was there that James had met him and lightened his pockets considerably after ill-advised advice at the hazard table; James had been smoking opium earlier in the evening and, given his wide-known talents at the gambling houses, his advice had been heedlessly taken.
James knelt beside the body of the late Earl of Kent, fingers brushing against the man’s pale skin and tilting the head back and forth. His tongue was thick and swollen, lolling out of his mouth, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His neck was at an odd angle, no doubt flinging wildly with the convulsions, and there was a half-spilt cup of tea on the side table. Helen could still hear the maid crying and she wet her lips before laying a gloved hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“We’ll look into it, all right? Nobody suspects you.”
Yet, anyway, but it seemed to calm the girl. Helen spoke to her quietly for a few moments and escorted her out of the room after extracting a promise that she wouldn’t flee should Scotland Yard want to question her. Innocent or no, the Yard would lock her away for the crime if she tried to escape their grasp. Helen knew that James needed the time to work before the police started interfering and she hoped vainly that nobody had sent for them just yet. Eventually, yes, but she wanted to gather as much evidence as she could before they started mucking it all up.
“Obviously cause of death is poison,” Helen said, kneeling beside James and peeling off her glove to do the examination herself. She was grateful, for once, for the mourning black she’d had to wear after John had disappeared. Should she get bodily fluids on it from the examination, the sturdy broadcloth likely wouldn’t stain permanently. Much better than the silk gown she’d been wearing the night at the opera when someone had shot the lead tenor with a pistol; that dress had been a complete casualty after the autopsy.
“Obviously,” James said, lips murmuring as he thought. Helen had seen him this way many times before, thoughts running faster than he could put them into proper words. Helen had always been a little envious of James’ intellect and intuition but she supposed she had her own talents that would manifest someday. Perhaps. If not, she was content enough to be James’ dogsbody, of sorts.
“My question is what sort? I suppose it’s the tea, but the heat of it would have degraded a good many poisons. If Mary hadn’t been the poisoner, who else would have access to the Earl’s tea? I can imagine it would have needed to be added while she was creaming and sugaring it, wouldn’t it?”
Helen was thinking out loud and stopped, watching as James reached for the abandoned teacup and sniffed. Many poisons weren’t traceable by scent alone; they wouldn’t be terribly effective as a poison if you could smell it before you ever ingested it, would they? Still, there was always a method to James’ madness and in this, Helen deferred. Perhaps they could get a lead to start the hunt before Scotland Yard started rounding up the servants for questioning.
“We’ll need to examine the tea leaves themselves,” James pronounced after a few long moments of silence. Helen hadn’t thought about that. Her thoughts had run to who might have slipped the poison in while the tea had been prepared but if there was some toxin introduced into the tea itself, it would absolve Mary and send them on a merry chase. Oh, Helen did hate a chase. She much preferred her mysteries to be linear and solved by examination of facts, not deduction.
“To the kitchens then,” Helen said gamely, leading the way through the parlor and down the servants’ stairs to the part of the house that polite company never saw. The kitchens were somber, cooks and maids and scullery boys all eerily quiet in light of the Earl’s death and Mary’s implication in it. Helen understood their upset well enough; the Earl had been a good employer and generous with wages so no matter their personal feelings about the man, his death meant a loss of secure income and a safe household.
“The Earl didn’t drink tea from the stores that the rest of the house did,” James explained, pushing back toward a little storage closet that Helen had some difficulty navigating given the rather large (yet fashionable) bustle on her dress. Perhaps if she was going to make a habit of traipsing around behind James on his capers, she ought to yield to practicality and leave her frippery at home. She managed to press in behind him, her head just over his shoulder, and for a moment Helen was struck by his clean, warm scent and the softness of his dinner jacket. Damn. John was just three months gone and she was already thinking about James? What sort of strumpet did that make her? She pushed it aside.
~~~
“Wait a minute. So he just jumps from the maid to the tea like that? That’s not just freaky eyeballs, that’s freaky.”
Helen laughed a little and nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear and flipping a page in the photo album, fingertips brushing against another photo. This was an old-style daguerreotype from when they’d first come into vogue. In those days, it took so long for the camera to capture the image and set it that most just opted to keep their faces set into stern lines as a smile was too hard to keep. This one, however, Helen must have been smiling at just the right time because there was a hint of a smirk curving her lips. James was stoic, as usual, but he could laugh when it suited. He had a fantastic laugh.
“James used to make deductive leaps that boggled everyone, Kate. It wasn’t uncommon for him to know every detail of a person from the perfume they wore to the wine they favored, right down to the year. It made him a bit of a lonely man, in the end, because not many people can withstand such scrutiny. This particular leap wasn’t so far-fetched. I imagine I would have come to it myself eventually.”
Kate gave her a dubious look and shifted to sit up. She’d been sprawling in the chair opposite Helen’s desk but now, it seemed, the position didn’t suit any longer. She offered a hand and tugged the album from Helen.
“Come on, Doc. Looks like this is gonna be a long story, so we might as well settle in for a while. Couch is gonna be more comfortable than your desk, right?”
Helen sighed, but Kate was right. Any story that involved James tended to run a bit long and this one was no exception. She eschewed Kate’s offered hand and carried album and teacup to the aforementioned couch, settling in on her usual side and laying the album between them.
“Now, where was I, exactly?”
Kate smirked. “You were just about to tell me how Dr. Sherlock made the jump from that obviously-guilty maid to some special tea in a closet. I ever tell you that you take way too long to get from point A to point B? I like to be direct.”
Helen rolled her eyes. “I’m well aware, Kate. Anyway, back to it. James and I were pressed in the closet, looking for the Earl’s tea.”
myfloralbonnet for sanctuary_santaTitle: Bergamot and Honey
Author:
sheikahWords: 1,522 for this part.
Pairing: Helen Magnus/James Watson
Characters: Helen Magnus, James Watson, Kate Freelander
Rating: G, for now
Summary: While reminiscing over old photographs, Helen tells Kate about a case she once worked alongside James Watson and the relationship between the two of them.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Sanctuary.
“You slept with Sherlock Holmes?”
Helen looked up from the photo album and laughed, amused at how simplified that made it seem. She’d certainly slept with James more than once and Helen supposed that Doyle had infused his Sherlock with just enough James Watson to qualify Kate’s statement but she’d never actually looked at it quite that way. She was no Irene Adler, that was for certain. Not the way Doyle had written her, at any rate. Helen touched a letter, paper worn and crumbling along the edges. How long it’d been since she’d seen James, touched his face? Far too long.
“I had a relationship with James Watson. Quite a bit different, Kate. Of course, I did help him on a case once.”
Kate’s eyes gleamed and Helen leaned back in her chair, awash in memory as she began to speak about something that had passed so long ago that she couldn’t remember all the details in that strange, crystal clarity that James had in spades and Will seemed to be developing. Even still, she remembered enough.
~~~
“Strangest thing, Dr. Watson. One minute he’s fine and I brought him his cuppa and the next he was writhin’ around on the floor like that and now he’s gone.”
The maid was trembling and shaking, slim shoulders racked with sobs. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, give or take, and Helen couldn’t imagine how upset she must have been. Her master was an earl with holdings somewhere in Kent but this was the house he stayed in most; the earl had an excessive fondness of gambling in the London houses. It was there that James had met him and lightened his pockets considerably after ill-advised advice at the hazard table; James had been smoking opium earlier in the evening and, given his wide-known talents at the gambling houses, his advice had been heedlessly taken.
James knelt beside the body of the late Earl of Kent, fingers brushing against the man’s pale skin and tilting the head back and forth. His tongue was thick and swollen, lolling out of his mouth, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His neck was at an odd angle, no doubt flinging wildly with the convulsions, and there was a half-spilt cup of tea on the side table. Helen could still hear the maid crying and she wet her lips before laying a gloved hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“We’ll look into it, all right? Nobody suspects you.”
Yet, anyway, but it seemed to calm the girl. Helen spoke to her quietly for a few moments and escorted her out of the room after extracting a promise that she wouldn’t flee should Scotland Yard want to question her. Innocent or no, the Yard would lock her away for the crime if she tried to escape their grasp. Helen knew that James needed the time to work before the police started interfering and she hoped vainly that nobody had sent for them just yet. Eventually, yes, but she wanted to gather as much evidence as she could before they started mucking it all up.
“Obviously cause of death is poison,” Helen said, kneeling beside James and peeling off her glove to do the examination herself. She was grateful, for once, for the mourning black she’d had to wear after John had disappeared. Should she get bodily fluids on it from the examination, the sturdy broadcloth likely wouldn’t stain permanently. Much better than the silk gown she’d been wearing the night at the opera when someone had shot the lead tenor with a pistol; that dress had been a complete casualty after the autopsy.
“Obviously,” James said, lips murmuring as he thought. Helen had seen him this way many times before, thoughts running faster than he could put them into proper words. Helen had always been a little envious of James’ intellect and intuition but she supposed she had her own talents that would manifest someday. Perhaps. If not, she was content enough to be James’ dogsbody, of sorts.
“My question is what sort? I suppose it’s the tea, but the heat of it would have degraded a good many poisons. If Mary hadn’t been the poisoner, who else would have access to the Earl’s tea? I can imagine it would have needed to be added while she was creaming and sugaring it, wouldn’t it?”
Helen was thinking out loud and stopped, watching as James reached for the abandoned teacup and sniffed. Many poisons weren’t traceable by scent alone; they wouldn’t be terribly effective as a poison if you could smell it before you ever ingested it, would they? Still, there was always a method to James’ madness and in this, Helen deferred. Perhaps they could get a lead to start the hunt before Scotland Yard started rounding up the servants for questioning.
“We’ll need to examine the tea leaves themselves,” James pronounced after a few long moments of silence. Helen hadn’t thought about that. Her thoughts had run to who might have slipped the poison in while the tea had been prepared but if there was some toxin introduced into the tea itself, it would absolve Mary and send them on a merry chase. Oh, Helen did hate a chase. She much preferred her mysteries to be linear and solved by examination of facts, not deduction.
“To the kitchens then,” Helen said gamely, leading the way through the parlor and down the servants’ stairs to the part of the house that polite company never saw. The kitchens were somber, cooks and maids and scullery boys all eerily quiet in light of the Earl’s death and Mary’s implication in it. Helen understood their upset well enough; the Earl had been a good employer and generous with wages so no matter their personal feelings about the man, his death meant a loss of secure income and a safe household.
“The Earl didn’t drink tea from the stores that the rest of the house did,” James explained, pushing back toward a little storage closet that Helen had some difficulty navigating given the rather large (yet fashionable) bustle on her dress. Perhaps if she was going to make a habit of traipsing around behind James on his capers, she ought to yield to practicality and leave her frippery at home. She managed to press in behind him, her head just over his shoulder, and for a moment Helen was struck by his clean, warm scent and the softness of his dinner jacket. Damn. John was just three months gone and she was already thinking about James? What sort of strumpet did that make her? She pushed it aside.
~~~
“Wait a minute. So he just jumps from the maid to the tea like that? That’s not just freaky eyeballs, that’s freaky.”
Helen laughed a little and nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear and flipping a page in the photo album, fingertips brushing against another photo. This was an old-style daguerreotype from when they’d first come into vogue. In those days, it took so long for the camera to capture the image and set it that most just opted to keep their faces set into stern lines as a smile was too hard to keep. This one, however, Helen must have been smiling at just the right time because there was a hint of a smirk curving her lips. James was stoic, as usual, but he could laugh when it suited. He had a fantastic laugh.
“James used to make deductive leaps that boggled everyone, Kate. It wasn’t uncommon for him to know every detail of a person from the perfume they wore to the wine they favored, right down to the year. It made him a bit of a lonely man, in the end, because not many people can withstand such scrutiny. This particular leap wasn’t so far-fetched. I imagine I would have come to it myself eventually.”
Kate gave her a dubious look and shifted to sit up. She’d been sprawling in the chair opposite Helen’s desk but now, it seemed, the position didn’t suit any longer. She offered a hand and tugged the album from Helen.
“Come on, Doc. Looks like this is gonna be a long story, so we might as well settle in for a while. Couch is gonna be more comfortable than your desk, right?”
Helen sighed, but Kate was right. Any story that involved James tended to run a bit long and this one was no exception. She eschewed Kate’s offered hand and carried album and teacup to the aforementioned couch, settling in on her usual side and laying the album between them.
“Now, where was I, exactly?”
Kate smirked. “You were just about to tell me how Dr. Sherlock made the jump from that obviously-guilty maid to some special tea in a closet. I ever tell you that you take way too long to get from point A to point B? I like to be direct.”
Helen rolled her eyes. “I’m well aware, Kate. Anyway, back to it. James and I were pressed in the closet, looking for the Earl’s tea.”