Chapter Text
“you may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us” — sappho
hospitals are cold and smell of death, and mina would rather be anywhere else. but jay is pacing up and down the waiting room like a caged tiger, anxiety evident from the weight of his footfalls to the frequency of his breath — and the not-so-faint smell of whisky upon it. they were in the stacks when he got the call, halfway through crafting a new identity for a selkie on the run.
(she won't use the numbers and categories, not yet)
young rosemary galvin sits beside her, breath catching, bouncing her leg. mina wonders, not for the first time, what the girl is thinking. the american is extraordinarily hard to read, despite the years they've worked together.
it's funny, this existence. mina supposes she's a helper, a tool to be used for the furthering of old abraham's grand plan. she knows, just as she's always known, that however skilled she may be her survival counts on the benevolence of a succession of entitled teenage boys. the van helsing line was always insular, the genes for heightened reflexes and the ability to see through the veil overshadowed by the genes that, presumably, marked young children with a penchant for pigheadedness.
(she counts her days with steps, and musical refrains, and cups of tea, and moments when all she can hear is the blood pumping through someone's neck)
the sounds of the hospital and the people around them grow distant in mina's ears, a fizz of something electric at the edges of her consciousness. she sees a child, hair in ribbons, dancing in candlelight. but something's wrong --
(something's always wrong - these premonitions are never just nice.)
she smells smoke and burnt rubber and the red rust of blood, hears a mewling cry and a crunch of metal, feels something wrench at her heart as she sees grasping rotten hands clutch at a frightened infant and pull it apart.
she must have gasped, or made some movement, because she's brought back to the world by galvin's cool hand gripping her upper arm, her voice urgent.
"mina, are you alright, what did you see?" the american's voice is hesitant, as though she knows something's wrong. but mina positions her sightless gaze past her to the man on the other side of the room.
she feels jay's gaze on her, burning, and hears his heart race - though with excitement or worry or something else she cannot be sure. she pushes down her suspicions, heaves a shaky breath.
"congratulations," she murmurs, keeping her tone light, "you have a daughter."