Work Text:
c.1889
“Your life, my darling--although it may have only been half-lived, is dear to me, and I will defend it*” he whispered, tracing the curve of her collarbone with the tip of his index finger. Beyond the walls of their secluded home, thunder rolled through the skies and endless rain fell from the angry clouds.
Her flesh had always been soft...supple, a porcelain more pure than any fine ceramic could ever hope to be. It had been one of the first things that he had noticed about her, apart from her deep auburn hair and the elegant way she carried herself in the impressive library in Wintertown. She was a beauty that no man could hope to possess, you could only aspire to bask in her light for however long she permitted it. She was a beacon of peace, and to a man like Doctor Roose Bolton who had never experienced true peace, she was everything.
From their first conversation he knew that he could very easily fall in love with her. He, a man who had never been tempted by the female species in his life, felt more for her in a moment than he had in the decades previous. Her easy charm and wit were secondary to the fantastic intellectual mind that lay hidden behind her crystalline eyes. Miss. Sansa Stark was a woman with a mind for poetry and prose, and he could have listened to her reading them aloud until the very Gods themselves took him from this earth.
Instead, the Gods have forsaken him entirely.
“There is love in me the likes of which only you have ever seen” he whispered, his voice strong and steady--something it had not been for many hours. “There is also a rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other*” he promised. “The Gods you so adored have abandoned me in this hour of need, my darling, so I shall remake this world in my image.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the laboratory briefly, the light dancing across her hair like the brightest of flames. While the sickness that had swept through the North had ravaged her body, she was no less lovely than the day he married her all many years ago.
“I can hardly believe this is real,” Sansa whispered, her hand settling over his cravat pin, absently twirling the golden metal. It had been a Christmas gift from his darling Sansa, the detailed metal consisting of their entwined initials that he could wear near his heart. “You are now, by the easy stroke of a pen and a few spoken words, my lawfully wedded husband.”
“I am,” he kissed her forehead as he wrapped his arms around her. “And you are at last mine.”
“I am” she smiled, nestling into his embrace. “For the rest of our days.”
“You are singularly lovely, Mrs. Bolton,” he told her, tracing the laces at the back of her gown. He had not been prepared for how beautiful she would look in her wedding gown, the soft ivory material creating the illusion that she was an angel that had traveled to the mortal plane.
“It is because I am in love” she replied, both of her hands now settled on his chest. “Because I am so loved in return.”
“It still amazes me that a woman such as you would choose to spend her life at my side” he paused. “The moment we first spoke in the library, everything changed. It is overwhelming to have found such profound happiness.”
“I’d have none but you” she promised. “My father remains unconvinced” she laughed softly, nodding to where her parents Eddard and Catelyn stood at the edge of the room, observing the other wedding guests with carefully measured indifference.
“I suppose they wanted a younger--and perhaps richer man for you. I am a man of science, not great fortune” he reasoned and she shook her head.
“I would have only you,” she repeated as she traced the well-trimmed length of his beard before smoothing the grey hair at his temples. The once pure dark brown of his hair had become liberally threaded with silver in recent years, a reminder that his days of wild youth were long gone. “My brilliant Doctor Bolton.”
“Brilliant?” he teased, his lips twitching in amusement.
“Brilliant and handsome, you’re going to change the world” she countered. “I cannot wait to look on as you do.”
“I shall do my very best” he promised.
Once they had wed, they settled into their new life together with ease. Sansa understood and encouraged his work--his experiments. Not only that, but she stood by his work--though some considered it madness, and with her understanding soul at his side, he knew that he could change the world.
She knew that he had experienced absolute horrors during the war, she knew that he had seen things--done things that no man should ever do. Field surgeries, amputations, mercy deaths, and everything in between haunted his mind at all hours. Only with Sansa were the ghosts of his past silenced into peace.
With her death they had returned with a vengeance.
He worked quickly and efficiently, knowing that this timely storm was his best chance for this to work--for this to be more than imagined madness and pain. Constantly referencing his notes and conjectures, he had to look away as he cut the pale skin of her shoulder to insert the necessary wires--the ones that would conduct electricity into her heart in an effort to startle the muscles into waking from their semi-permanent slumber.
No blood fell from the small incision and he swallowed back a wave of emotion at the horrid reminder that his bride’s body no longer lived. Wires in place, he turned away to grab the tonic that he had designed specifically for this experiment.
In years past, he had used a wide variety of tonics and tinctures to aid the injured and soothe the dying--this was his first to reverse death. Galvanism. What had been an idea--a vague notion in the moons previous, became a full-fledged obsession the moment he realized that his beloved bride would fall victim to the sickness that had already killed so many.
Removing the cork from the vial, he carefully parted her lips and poured the foul-smelling liquid into her mouth. Massaging her throat he worked to ensure that the tonic permeated as much of her as he could. He did the same with the veins at the bends of her elbows and tops of her feet, using careful injections until he was satisfied he had given her enough.
Roose had always been a fighter--the over eager bloodlust of his youth was tamed by the horrors of war, shaped and molded until he stood as a man determined to save every life that he could. Now, an older man with decades as a physician under his belt, he found new determination and purpose.
Ressurection.
He refused to accept her condition as being irreversible. What he could not cure in life, he would cure in her death, and return her to the vibrancy in which she had once lived. He was a man of medicine and a man of science, while he could not explain the chemicals and emotions that had given him a love so strong and insurmountable, he could explain the science of life.
And now he would put those skills to practical application.
“You must eat, my darling” Sansa’s arms wrapped around his shoulders a moment before she slid onto his lap. She placed a plate of sliced bread, meat, and cheese on his desk, covering the medical drawings that he had spread across the surface. “It's been hours.”
“My beautiful little nag” he teased, holding her close as she feigned outrage.
“Yes, I must nag you into taking care of yourself. I am a terrible wife,” she countered with a roll of her eyes. “Forgive me for wishing that my husband would not work himself to exhaustion.”
“Ah, yes. Exhaustion is simply not acceptable, for my wife is very demanding of my nightly hours” his hand traced up her back, pulling her close enough to steal a kiss. They had been married nearly two years now, each moon more blissful than the last. He had never experienced such happiness in the years before he met his beautiful bride, his life had been that of solitary bleakness. Some days when he opened his eyes he would watch her across the pillows, hardly able to believe that she had chosen him.
“I am” she nodded, a large smile gracing her lips. “Because in the daylight hours, you are hidden away here” she glanced around the laboratory. “Saving the world.”
“It is not the world I wish to save,” he reasoned. “I seek only to leave it a better place than when I lived in it.”
“Roose” she cupped his cheek. “The world does not deserve your brilliance.”
“My brilliance is nothing compared to the kindness of your heart” he lay his head to rest against her decolletage, the place where all his rampant thoughts drifted into nothingness. The beating of her heart thundered against his ear, spelling out the love between them. A ragged sigh spilled from his throat as her arms tightened around him and her chin settled atop his head.
Here was peace. Here was everything. Within Sansa’s embrace he was a man made whole.
The soft melody of her humming filled the laboratory, soothing his frayed nerves and lulling them both into a world of their own.
By the time that all preparations had been made, the lightning storm had grown to one of the largest he’d ever witnessed.
“Perfect” he spoke to himself, rushing around the laboratory. He was winded--heart racing with anticipation and excitement, his breath dancing on the cold air that had entered through the opened skylight above them.
Throwing a wooden toggle, the glass panes of the ceiling separated further and something akin to madness--no, desperation simmered in his veins.
“This will work,” he laughed. “This has to work!” Freezing rain pelted his face and soaked into his coat, but he paid the droplets no mind as he turned to the chains and unlocked their length. Hand over hand, pull over pull, he worked. With each rotation of the pulley, the metal coils rose higher and higher. Two gleaming towers of copper, specifically chosen to conduct the electricity that was so vital to his cause.
A rumble of thunder sounded in the same instant another flash of lightning danced through the room, this time the bolt gleaning off of the chains that carried the towers skyward.
“Yes” he encouraged nature’s fury, not stopping his work until the tower’s tips sat above the gilded roofline. Shoving a wooden wedge into the hoist frame, he locked the chains into place and held the towers suspended above their heads. “Yes” he repeated over and over as the storm raged on, soaking both him and his unmoving bride.
Unmoving…
Silently he prayed, connecting the last of the grounding wires and bringing the machine to life with a massive roar. Just one bolt--one that struck true and everything would be set into motion. The electricity, the tonic, they would work.
They had to work.
“Yes!” Roose called out as the thunder announced the arrival of another bolt, this one striking the towers dead on. He threw the toggle switch, sparks dancing across the bends of the metal as the circuit was whole; he had at last harnessed nature’s most dangerous fury. He watched with wide eyes as the electricity was harnessed, dancing between the towers in a frantic movement before racing down the copper wires.
He stepped back from his bride as the transference was completed, her entire body arching off of the table as her muscles tensed and locked in rapid succession. For a brief moment he thought he witnessed her fingers moving of their own volition and his hopes soared higher than the storm that claimed the skies.
But then…nothing.
Her body fell back to the table’s unforgiving surface. An eerie and sudden silence consumed the laboratory as he watched her, begging silently for some sign--any sign. The world was still now, even the rain had slowed to a foggy sort of mist that hung on the air around them. Haunting them.
“Sansa?” he whispered, stepping closer. “Sansa please…” he lifted her limp hand and a ragged sob broke free from his chest. “Please…”
Nothing.
Overwrought, he searched her for a pulse, his fingers skating passed the now-warm copper wires in the hopes of finding the faintest of heartbeats.
Nothing.
“No” he shook his head. “No, please, you have to be alive...you must be” he used the sheet to dry the rain that had fallen on her face, ignoring the fact that the sheet was just as soaked as everything else was. “Please, Sansa--open your eyes, I beg of you” he swallowed thickly.
Nothing. No movement. No breath.
“You cannot leave me” he begged, cupping her cheeks. “Please!”
Nothing.
“If there are any Gods in this world, I beg of them to grant me this!” he bellowed into the silent room. “I have lived through horrors! I have done all that I could to preserve the lives of my fellow man! I lived a sparse and humble life, the only thing I have ever wanted in this pitiful existence, the only thing I have ever loved…is her” he leaned heavily against the table. “And yet you take her from me…” his forehead fell to her sternum, cradled between her breasts as he had so often done in life. “Why?”
A rumble of thunder echoed in the distance as the storm retreated across the horizon.
“Why?! Gods be damned, why!?” his voice broke on a harsh burst of emotion. His pleas fell upon deaf ears. Why.
Sansa was his haven, his lighthouse and shelter in the maelstrom that the war had left in his brain. Like a true lighthouse, he had not realized how important she was until he had found her in the eye of his storm. Until she had rescued him from himself.
“Please” he choked out the broken word and was once again met with only silence. No man, no God would help him. And now he could not help her….
He had failed.
Pulling the sheet over her porcelain features, his body sagged as a sob broke free.
Gone.
She was truly gone.
”Roose” she whispered, her voice softer now than it had ever been before. “Roose, please…”
“I’m so sorry” he pleaded, sitting at the edge of her bed. “I have done everything that I could think of. There is nothing--”
“No” she protested, raising a weak hand to take his. “Please, you cannot blame yourself for this.”
“Sansa, I am a doctor--a surgeon, I should be able to fix this,” he replied. “But I cannot find the answer, cannot discern the miracle that I so desperately need.”
“I am dying, Roose” she coughed, rolling to her side as her body shook with the violence of her convulsions. She covered her mouth, blood escaping between her fingers to trail down her wrist and forearm--the rich burgundy a harsh contrast to her pale skin. Roose’s heart ached with white-hot pain, knowing that he could do nothing to stop the wheels of fate that had been set in motion.
“Here” he dipped a clean rag into the warm water, cleaning away the blood as she settled back into the pillows. Once situated, he helped her to take a drink of the tea he’d brewed to soothe her cough. “Better?”
“I am dying, my love” she whispered, taking his hand into hers. “And you cannot blame yourself.”
“I will make no such promise” he argued.
“You must, ‘fore I know it will not be long now” she took several broken breaths. “I can hardly feel my body…”
“Please” he pleaded. “Keep fighting.”
“There is no fight left in me, I am so sorry” she smiled, though it did not reach her eyes. “Perhaps I will see the Gods and they will tell me why I must be parted from you...” she sighed, her eyes fluttering shut in exhaustion.
It took every ounce of Roose’s strength to stop himself from crying out, from screaming and begging that she be spared. He wanted to rage, rant and rave against the so-called ‘will’ of the Gods and the state that Sansa was currently in. She was everything good in his world, everything pure and wonderful and without her in it, surely all of the color would bleed from this world and it would dim to grayscale.
“They would be fools to not be there to greet you” he whispered instead, swallowing a sob and raising her hand to his lips. Her skin was cold now, damp from the fever that had wracked her slender frame.
A weak smile formed on her lips though her eyes did not open. She was still now, breaths shallow and spirit calm. The physician in his soul knew that the end was close, but the husband in him still prayed for a miracle.
A sudden noise startled him awake. He could not tell which noise it was exactly, only that the air in the house had changed...had electrified. He looked around the room, finding nothing out of place.
Hours ago he had stumbled through the corridor blinded by grief and the heavy weight of his failure, collapsing in the sitting room to succumb to his devastation. He must have fallen asleep, as the hour was obviously in the early morning light. A glance at the window told him the storm of last night had passed, leaving behind clear skies and the soft chorus of waking of songbirds.
A world at peace…
Another noise--this one softer, reached his ears and it spurred his body into motion.
“Sansa” he exclaimed and pushed from his wingback chair beside the fire, racing to the laboratory only to draw up short. Along the floor was a trail of shattered glass and droplets of blood. It looked like a crime scene, vacant and chilling. Near the door to the library was a pile of wires that had been discarded…wires that had failed to serve their purpose.
Or so he thought.
Because in this moment the table, the chipped enamel and metal medical table that had previously held his entire world was empty.
Had she been taken? No! No one would dare!! No one knew...
Then where...?
Walking through the glass, he did not allow his eyes to linger on the wires or the blood, he had more important things to seek. His heart began to race, beating loud enough that he felt it in his ears, blood rushing to convey a tiny thread of hope that had burst into life.
All but stumbling through the doorway, a pained whimper was pulled from his throat at the sight that awaited him. There beside the fireplace, stood his very heart.
Surely this was a dream--no, he could smell the wood as it burned, he could smell the lavender of her soap. This was real...
She was glorious! Absolutely glorious. Her hair hung in damp waves to the small of her back and her body was wrapped in the plain cotton sheet that he had covered her with not hours ago in the moment of his perceived failure.
At the sound of his raucous arrival, she slowly turned on unsteady legs to face him. She extended a hand to steady herself against the mantle, shuffling her feet carefully before lifting her eyes to meet his. Her eyes were the same, bright and clear as a winter’s morning, the cupid’s bow of her lips--lips he had memorized over their time together, curved into a soft smile.
She was...alive.
Alive!
He rushed to close the distance between them, unable to control his eagerness to hold her once more. As he reached her, his eyes fell to note the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed and the vibrancy of her pallour, his own heart bursting with happiness at the sight. He noticed then that the incision at her shoulder, the one that had once served to remind him of her still heart, now seeped with a small trickle of her life’s blood.
“My darling” he cupped her cheeks, smoothing his thumbs over the flush that lingered there, yet another reminder that his beloved’s heart beat once more. “Oh my beautiful, lovely darling” he swallowed back a sob and instead pressed his forehead to hers, sharing the very air around them with her. “You’re alive…”
He had--against all odds, succeeded! An unexpected and miraculous success that had brought her back from the realms beyond. Back to his embrace. He was a mere mortal man, but in this he had swayed the Gods to his cause, he had defeated their will. He couldn’t stop himself, he covered her face in dozens of kisses, grateful that she was standing before him.
“Roose…” her voice was ragged, broken from lack of use. “Husband.”
“My lovely bride” he wrapped his arms around her, uncaring that her body was slow to react, her arms coming around him a moment later as her weight sagged against him in a flash of weakness. She shifted and he smiled when her hand came to rest over his cravat pin, fingers idly toying with it as they always did.
“I saw them” she whispered quietly against his neck, her warm lips brushing against the column of his throat. “I saw them all…”
“Who?” he moved back enough to meet her gaze. Tears had welled in her eyes, spilling over to trace the curve of her cheek and he quickly wiped them away. There was fear there in her features, but also awe--wonder and happiness. He could not miss the way her hands moved to cling desperately to his shoulders, holding tight as if she were afraid that he was about to vanish entirely.
“The Gods. I saw the Gods…”