A Long Wake -@onlystarisee

[binarythinking]

Coming to this new Earth had been a simple decision for Harrison. Zoom had done far more than wreak havoc on his world. He had killed. Slaughtered countless, turned others for the sake of simply sowing chaos. But it was the murder of his wife that had propelled the hunter through the rift in search of his quarry.

This new Earth was dizzying. Similarities that made him ache and differences that reminded him very soundly of why he was there and who he was out to kill. The hunter moved swiftly and with purpose. Silver, garlic and bladed weapons tucked away along his person, never without weapons, never without a way to defend himself and to kill if need be.

All of those preparations, all of those carefully constructed walls crumbled to pieces the moment he saw her. The moment that Barry led Harrison into the Cortex and he saw her. Blonde hair, quick and sure movements and it was like the entire world dropped away beneath him.

Tess.

The last time he had seen her was shortly after the attack on STAR. The Cortex had been in ruins. Blasts darkened most walls, evidence of her magic. She'd always been more adept with spells than he had. When those had failed she had gone for the sword Harrison had given her. It was still in her pale hand as he dropped to his knees beside her body. Throat ripped open. Eyes open and frozen. The blood had soaked into her hair and he didn't even have it in him to weep. No. Harrison had screamed. Clutching his wife's body to him he had screamed like a madman, swearing with every ounce of strength that he had left that he would one day hunt down Zoom and avenge her.

But on this Earth she was still alive and every time Harrison saw her he saw his lost wife. So he snarled. Growled. Shoved his emotions aside and tried so very hard to do what he set out to - but hurting Tess was something that even now he couldn't bring himself to do.

Alone in the Cortex he shoves his knives aside, scrubbing at his face, dragging his hands up into his hair and clenching his fingers into fists. She isn't his. She isn't his and he shouldn't feel like this.

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[onlystarisee]

There are some nights that Tess’ guilt threatens to consume her. The grief, and anger, and guilt, and bitterness, and shame threaten to swallow her whole. She should have known. Should have known that there was more to the changes she saw in her husband than what was there on the surface.

But she hadn’t known. Had had no way TO know that a master vampire had travelled through time and used blood magic to take Harrison’s place. To steal his face, his soul, his blood. After the accident, her coma... she’d tried so hard to figure out what had happened. Why he’d changed. What was wrong. But for all her magic, all her abilities and instincts as a hunter... she hadn’t been able to discover that.

He’d fooled her. Fooled them all.

Eobard hadn’t anticipated the side effects of the rituals he’d used, the magic he’d wielded. He ended up with more than just Harrison’s face, his memories. He’d taken his feelings as well. And he’d loved her, in just as twisted and horrible a way as he’d loved Barry, Cisco and the others.

Adored her.

So he changed her. Turned her, so he could have her with him always. He’d done it slowly, subtle and unhurried so the changes were harder to notice. She was exhausted, vaguely ill with no real cause. And of course he’d taken care of her, catching her when the dizzy spells sent her stumbling, weakness making her legs collapse.

Until that final night, when he’d sought to complete her transformation, his fangs sinking into her neck. She still bears his mark; she’ll always bear his mark. But his magic and hers had combined in a way he hadn’t anticipated, preventing him from turning her completely. Leaving her a dhampir, instead of the full-blooded vampire he’d desired her to be. And unexpectedly powerful, for one of the half-blooded.

They’d destroyed him, in the end. Her, and Eddie, the combination of their blood connection and her magical one (there was blood there, too, as strong as the magic, with the way he’d turned her), the master vampire had left behind nothing more than dust and the scars they carried.

Time had passed, month after month after month and she’d learned to survive as a dhampir. Master dhampir, Eobard had called her derisively, when he realised what had happened. What had gone wrong. She could still enjoy sunlight, although too much time out in it left her aching and on edge, and she still needed blood. But she could eat regular food as well, keep up appearances of normality. Of humanity. And the blood substitute that Caitlin had created for Barry worked just as well for her.

And then her world was turned upside down all over again.

The moment Harrison Wells from Earth-2 walked through the breach and onto their Earth everything changed. All her guardedness, all her wariness and defences crumbled into dust the moment she saw him. He should remind her of Eobard, but he didn’t. She saw her husband every time she saw him, could pinpoint every difference and every similarity between. And it hurt. He tangles her in knots and breaks her heart and makes her feel... so much.

He’s not hers. He’s not hers and she shouldn’t feel like this but she does anyway. Seeking him out is foolish, so incredibly foolish, but she does that, too. He’s not hers but he’s Harrison Wells and she’s never been able to do anything else when it comes to him. And he needs her help. Needs THEIR help.

She moves more silently, now, instinctively, and it takes conscious effort to do otherwise. Sometimes she forgets. And seeing him, distressed and hurting, it’s too easy to forget, to move to comfort him, her hand settling lightly on his shoulder.

Even though she’s the source, she thinks. And that hurts her more than anything.

[binarythinking]

Tess isn't the sole source of his distress. It's the knowledge that he'd again failed her. Failed to protect her even though she wasn't his to protect. Zoom had murdered his wife in an act of wanton destruction before stealing away their daughter and in this world a man named Thawne had murdered his other self and turned Tess. Turned her into the very creature he'd hunted on his own world.

He couldn't love her. Shouldn't.

But every time she moved, every time she laughed or solved another complex riddle he saw echoes of his own wife. His Tess whom he'd failed so completely.

Harry had sent them all away that morning. Barry to his rest, Cisco and Caitlin to their own lives and directed them to take a night off. To simply be young people while they could, even if they didn't understand the depth of the gift he was offering them because he would give anything to go back, to tell his younger self to skip the late nights now and then and simply enjoy being married.

All too late now. Tess was gone. Murdered and her body burned on a pyre Harry had built himself in his grief.

The soft weight on his shoulder sends his instincts into overdrive and he shoves himself away, knife landing smartly in his palm before he even realizes what he's done. Ever the hunter on his guard until he realizes it was only Tess reaching out to him. Guilt swamps him as he tucks the blade away again, bracing his arms on the table and closing his eyes against the tears that always seem to threaten when he thinks too long about her.

"They're gone. I've sent them away for a day."

His hand curls into a fist. It seems like everything about him is a clenched fist of late. "I'm sorry."

[onlystarisee]

Tess knows he’s sent them away. Well, knows that they’re not THERE; S.T.A.R Labs is practically silent, and the lack of noise, of people is welcome. And almost deafening, sometimes. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’d been the one to do it. To nudge them out the door and send them away for a day.

She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t back away or withdraw when he shoves himself away with a knife landing in his palm; he knows a thousand ways to kill something like her, and he has before, she has no doubt. He’s an immensely talented hunter. But she’s not afraid. She could never be afraid. Not of him. Never of him.

Her heart twists at the expression on his face, the way he braces himself and closes his eyes. Her hand slides gently down his arm, settling lightly over his clenched fist. Her touch is hesitant, she’s aware that this is A Very Bad Idea but unable to stop herself. Because she can’t do anything else when the man she loves is in anguish. Even when he’s from another world. Even when he’s not hers and she shouldn’t love him. Her other hand lifts, fingertips brushing his cheek. She runs cooler, now, since Eobard turned her. Her heart still beats, but she’s just a shade unnaturally colder to the touch than she should be. “You don’t have anything to apologise for,” she tells him gently. “I caught you off guard.” The small almost-smile that flickers across her lips is somewhat self-deprecating. “And I am a creature of the night, now.” The joke falls just the slightest bit flat, as it usually does when she tries to make light of her new state of being.

[binarythinking]

It's an attempt at humor and Harrison's voice catches in a sound that's dangerously broken. "Don't ever say that." Not because he wants to delude himself into believing that she's the woman he couldn't save, but because she's so much more than another vampire. Powerful, brilliant, still risking everything to help other people because they needed it.

Dhampir or no, she was still the love of his life. Reaching up, Harrison smooths her hair back. "You are sunlight. Warmth. You are everything good and right in this world Tess." No matter what Thawne had done to her - she was still Tess.

"You always will be." At least to him. A beacon in his grief and his despair, she will always be the one to lead him home again.

[onlystarisee]

That sound tears at her heart, so much worse because it’s coming from him and all she wants to do is be there for him, to help him, to make things better. Put the pieces back together. Only she’s part of it, she thinks, part of the cause and maybe she’ll only make everything worse. But she has to try.

She loves him too much. More than she should, and more than she thought possible. He’s the love of her life.

He smoothes her hair back and that simple gesture almost breaks her. And so do his words. Her breath catches in her throat and she stares at him, stunned, and anguished, and disbelieving. How can he... after what Eobard did... how can he still believe that about her? There was nothing good in Eobard, nothing, he was every inch the monster, and he’d taken her, he’d turned her... twisted her. He was a part of her, he was in her blood and he always would be and how can that make her anything except a monster?

She’s a monster, and he still says she’s sunlight. Warmth. That she’s everything good and right in this world. Touches her like she’s... important. More than she is. Less monstrous. She lets out a little sound that’s almost a sob. How can she be so much to him? She can’t breathe. Can’t move.

[binarythinking]

They're both broken. Shattered and put together and full of jagged edges. Grief that could never truly be forgotten. Suffering that could only be pushed aside for the sake of others, for the sake of doing what needed to be done.

This wasn't just another vampire or another dhampir. This was Tess. This was his wife and Harry couldn't bear to hear that soft sob from her. He reaches out slowly, hesitating for both her sake and for his, and draws her into his arms. It didn't matter that they were from two different worlds. She was his. She would always be his just as much as Harrison would always belong to her. Worlds didn't matter. Vampires and hunters - none of it mattered.

"Everything that is good and right in this world and any other," he promises, cheek resting in her hair. She is his light. She always will be.

[onlystarisee]

She panics for a moment when he first reaches out, breath catching in her throat, terrified and not trusting herself to be so close to him. Somehow he’s able to reach out to her, to open his arms and draw her to him, even knowing what she is now, what Eobard made her, and she doesn’t, she can’t... She’s absolutely terrified that she’ll hurt him, and that would kill her. It would absolutely destroy her.

But she lets him, she lets him draw her into his arms, into an embrace, tense and terrified to be so close. She trusts him implicitly, will always trust him. It’s herself she doesn’t trust. Can’t trust. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Her hands flutter awkwardly for a moment before one settles lightly on his hip. Her other arm curls gently around him. She’s trembling against him, his cheek warm against her hair and she slowly relaxes in his embrace, the soft broken sound she can’t quite choke back muffled against his shoulder. He’s home. No matter what world he’s from, he’s home. He always will be.

[binarythinking]

He wouldn't fight her if she wanted to pull away. But this is Tess and he trusts her far more than he likely should. So Harry moves slowly. Patiently. Drawing Tess in slowly until he can fold her in his arms and it makes him ache with how much he wants this. With how much he wants her.

Absently he hums to her, some snippet of an old song he used to sing Jesse when she was a baby, on all those nights when he would sit in the worn rocking chair in her nursery and sing to her until she fell asleep.

Tess may be afraid of herself, of what she can do, but Harrison isn't. He trusts her and he holds her close, softly humming until her trembling subsides and she relaxes into his arms.

[onlystarisee]

She shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t want him, as much as she does. She knows it, is perfectly aware of it... and can no more change it than she can change what she is now. She wants him so much she aches, and it’s so much worse in his arms. Better, too, but worse. She hasn’t felt longing like this in a long time.

And he’s humming to her, such a touching, sweet gesture... which just undoes her completely. He is... so much more to her than she could have ever anticipated. If she wasn’t already completely and utterly in love with him she would be absolutely gone. But she already is, so she just... falls further.

She doesn’t know how long they stand there like that, in each other’s arms, she doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to leave his embrace... but she does pull back just far enough to look at up at him. Shifting just a little, she reaches up to caress his face, her hand sliding gently along his jaw.