Chapter Text
While I was not witness to what took place next, Hyde thought it was important to include the conversation in the narrative so his later condition would make sense. I had to argue a good deal with Lanyon during the editing process, as he was embarrassed by a large portion of the chapter, but in the end he agreed that it was important to know what had happened to Edward Hyde.
Once alone with Doctor Lanyon, Jekyll finally felt as if he were able to relax, as if some great danger wasn’t looming over him again. He slumped weakly against Lanyon with a shaking, weary sigh. “I’m tired, Robert.”
“I know Henry,” his friend said, softly embracing him in an attempt at comfort.
“All I wanted to do was help people… And keep myself from hurting them. Look at what is happening now, is it my fault? Creating the Society, has that only doomed London? Has it doomed the Lodgers?” he continued, squeezing his eyes shut as if he were witnessing his crimes most violently before him.
Lanyon was silent for a moment before tightening his embrace, “Henry, this is not your fault. I see now, everything you have done, to yourself and for this place, has been meant for good. We were helping people, we gave them hope, how were we to know that someone else was planning our doom?”
He pulled back, taking Jekyll by his face and forcing their eyes to meet. “I get it now, I think, I think I know now why you’ve done all this. For you, an attack on mad science was an attack on you, these people are your people, they’re like you. And you… altruistic bastard that you are, you wanted to help when you saw them being hunted and hurt. Now, the person I care about has been hurt too, and I want nothing more than to keep him safe.”
“Robert…?”
“I won’t let them do this to you again. Twice now they’ve tried to take you from me, from the Society I mean. I must stop simply standing by and watching it happen, I’m going to do my best to keep you safe.” He took Jekyll’s hands, holding them most tightly as he swore this promise, determination filling his whole face.
Jekyll blinked in surprise, then began to smile a little.
But when he opened his mouth to speak, his expression changed to one of anger and his eyes flashed a brilliant green. “It’s a little bit late for all this don’t you think?”
“Hyde?” Lanyon gasped, surprised. “You’re- you’re still here! Thank god!”
“Oh I’m sure you’re really relieved,” Hyde snapped, yanking his hands back and curling up on himself on the opposite side of the couch. “All this talk of keeping Henry safe, well what about me? I’m in here too! I used to be him! I remember everything as well as he does and it still bloody stings, Robert. Why should we believe you actually mean it hm? Especially if you’ll forget about us again when your precious family comes into play.”
Lanyon wilted, “Hyde… I’m so sorry.”
“What for, hm? For not being there when I was kidnapped? Or for something else?” His eyes narrowed to a glare before he looked away, pouting like a child.
“I meant both of you, when I said I’d keep you safe,” Lanyon said quietly, folding his hands in his lap and looking down at them. “Protecting you, Hyde, makes sure that Henry is safe as well… at least part of him. I’m, I’m glad you’re still here.”
Hyde didn’t answer, only hunched his shoulders up more.
After a long moment, he spoke again.
“Did you know, I can’t sleep?” he asked softly. “At least, I have trouble with it, always have. It caused problems during the surgery.”
Lanyon looked up, eyes growing wide with concern and horror. “Surgery?”
Hyde nodded, “Surgery. I kept waking up, but, not like I could do much. Robert it hurt so bad… I wanted to die more than anything else, to be free before I woke up again in that nightmare. Do you know what it’s like to be skinned? To have your insides poked and prodded?” He gripped his shirt, starting to tremble, “I keep feeling it, their hands inside me, flashes of the pain… You’re so damn lucky Henry wasn’t paying attention or your dear friend would’ve-”
He was cut off by Lanyon embracing him again, warm and tight and defensive. “I’m sorry, God I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”
Hyde was still for a moment, before letting out a strangled sob and burying his face in Lanyon’s shoulder, crying heavily.
Only when the tears had stopped did the two part, with Jekyll now wiping away the tears, his eyes having returned to their normal red-brown. He even chuckled slightly, “You know… I didn’t think he was ever going to grow to like you again, he holds so much of our bitterness… And yet, I think you changed his mind today.”
“I never stopped caring about you,” Lanyon confessed, offering his friend a clean handkerchief. “Even after the affair, even when I found out you lied, you’re my dearest friend Henry Jekyll. I can’t lose you again.”
“And you won’t, not if we can stop this.” Jekyll smiled weakly and stood, folding the kerchief all neat and tidy. “Now… I really ought to get out of these prisoner’s clothes, they make me feel inhuman.”
“I’ll fetch your spares from the chest,” Lanyon offered, leaping to his feet and trying to be helpful, only to make his friend smile a little bit.
While his back was turned, Jekyll began to undress from the clothes that had been forced upon him. However, upon removing the shirt, Jekyll felt a thrill of terror race down his spine as his eyes fell upon strange, stretched looking scars that ran from below the palms of his hands and up to his shoulders. He dropped his shirt and looked down at his chest, fighting a hoarse cry of terror as identical scars trailed up his abdomen and across his chest in a Y shape. Why, if he were green, he would look just like Frankenstein’s creature.
His cry brought Lanyon rushing back with the fresh clothes in arm, “Henry? Henry what is it?”
He froze as his friend turned around slowly, the same scars on his back and his neck. “Robert… look what they did to us. Oh my god I really am a monster now!”
“Not this again-” Lanyon cast the clothes and ran to his friend. “Henry, just breathe! You’re home, you’re safe, and they’re not going to hurt you again.”
“But they didn’t hurt me,” Jekyll insisted as Lanyon took his wrists before he was able to do something drastic. “They did this to Hyde! By god- what were they looking for? Did they find it? Did they leave something inside me? Robert- I should be dead! I should have never made it home!”
“Henry, do you remember the cabin we went to in the country? My parent’s cabin?” Jekyll nodded nervously and Lanyon nodded with him, reassuring. “Good, good. Remember the werewolf who collapsed on the step? The one you insisted we had to help? You saved her with that potion of yours. I think, I think you called it the Fleshweaver tonic? I think they used that to make sure you didn’t die on that table, to close your wounds. That’s why you’re still alive, alright?”
“Yes, yes alright, that makes sense… What were they looking for? It’s not like Hyde’s anatomy is remarkable.”
“Well, I have always been curious where your extra height and muscle mass goes when you shrink like that,” Lanyon admitted, slowly releasing his hold on Jekyll. “These scars, they look like the type of cuts used when examining corpses, they were studying you…”
“They only let us go because I changed back,” Jekyll mumbled, allowing Lanyon to turn his hand over and examine the cuts. “If I had stayed Hyde… what do you think they would’ve done? Melted us like that poor man they’d given my potion? Turned us into some kind of beast by modifying the potion? Or…”
“Or nothing. They have no use for you, or they wouldn’t have let you go,” Lanyon insisted. “They clearly stole Sinnett’s science years ago and were only interested in his hand, and they already have your potion, but perhaps no subjects to study its effects on.”
“Great…”
“Henry you didn’t invite their kidnapping, that is not what I mean when I say this, but you did turn yourself into a novel man when you began these experiments on yourself.”
“I know, I know.” He sighed and looked away from Lanyon, shoulders drooping solemnly.
Lanyon frowned and reached up to fix his friend’s hair, “Come on then, let’s get you in clean clothes and treat your cuts properly before your feet become infected. The Lodgers need their leader, and I’m sure Doctor Watson would appreciate your advice.”
“Thank you, Robert.”
“Always, Henry.”
Soon, Henry Jekyll was dressed respectably once again, fixing his cravat in the mirror as Lanyon capped off the whiskey they had shared to rouse him from his stupor. Just as he had finished tucking the red garment into his vest did there come a rapid knocking at the door, which Lanyon was swift to answer. He peeked out and sighed, “Rachel this really isn’t the time.”
“Doctor please!” Ms. Pidgley protested, dancing most anxiously from foot to foot in the hallway beyond. “Just let me see him! I’ve been so so worried and I know he’s in there. I've heard you two talking and arguing but now that he’s decent I can actually talk to him and, and make sure everything’s alright.”
Lanyon moved to lean on the door frame, “Why are you so worried, Rachel? It’s unlike you.”
“From your point of view,” she countered with an angered pout. “Look, Jekyll is my boss and a good friend, it makes sense for me to be worried about him after every fucking thing that’s happened so far. Also! Also, Hyde is something of a little brother to me. And…” She trailed off, her energy faltering and being replaced with sadness. “I don’t want to lose my brother again, you understand? So when heard they’d been taken-”
“Lose him again?” came Jekyll’s voice as he pulled the door open further. “Rachel, you never mentioned losing a brother. I didn’t-”
He was cut off as the smaller woman threw herself into his arms, clinging to him and pressing her face into his chest. “It doesn’t matter! You’re alright and that means Hyde is probably alright and that’s all I care about right now.”
Jekyll froze, taking a moment to regain his balance and stare at her, before his expression melted into a smile and he returned her embrace. “Oh Rachel… You’ve always had such a big heart.”
“And another thing-” she pulled back, reaching up to take Jekyll by the face and pull him down to her eye level, “Hyde if you can hear me, can you give me a sign? Just, something to tell me okay? Please? I want to hear it from you too!”
“Gah!” Jekyll pulled back, surprised, and his eyes flickered green. “Rachel, good God calm down! I’m fine!”
“Edward!” she beamed, leaning in to hug him again, only to be stopped by Hyde’s firm hand on her shoulder.
“Yes yes I’m grateful to see you too,” Hyde scowled. “But- don’t treat me like some child! I can handle myself! And you’re not going to lose me if I can help it.”
“Good! And you’ve got my help too,” Pidgley said with her excited grin, stepping back and pulling an intimidating kitchen knife from her apron. “The next time those fiends try to hurt you I’m going to gut them like a pig and serve them to Helsby’s sharks!”
“Now there’s no need for that!” Lanyon was quick to interject, seeing Hyde grin in an excited and slightly manic way. “Let’s save that for after we retrieve the others who are still missing, hm? There’s work to be done.”
“Oh. Right, yes,” Hyde said, his eyes returning to red as Jekyll took the helm once more. “If only Holmes weren’t missing as well, surely we would find some way to track where I had been held, or where one might conceivably hold a lab of such scale as they must have.”
Pidgley fought laughter and shook her head as if she knew something they did not, making the doctors share a puzzled look. Lanyon folded his arms, “Rachel, if there’s something you haven’t told us that could help, Henry and I would like to hear it.”
“Well it’s just, Holmes isn’t the only one who knows how to find secrets in London,” she admitted, growing a little sheepish. “I’m not supposed to talk about it with rich blokes like you two, but I think we can make an exception given how terribly bad things have gotten.”
“Why can’t you talk about it?” Lanyon asked, growing suspicious and giving her a sharp look. Pidgley swallowed nervously before continuing, “Well it’s my sister in law you see, she’s very private and concerned about the police, but if anyone can find something hidden in London, it’s her and her girls. We can go to see them tonight, she ought to be home in the BlackFog Bazaar if I’m not mistaken…”
“She lives in the BlackFog?” Jekyll couldn’t help but gasp, a bit of excitement entering his tired eyes. “Why! Let’s go! She is most certainly going to be on our side, I don’t doubt she will lend her aid! These fiends are nothing but trouble for people like her.”
“Exactly my thinking sir,” Pidgley nodded, bouncing with equal excitement. “Come on! We need to get that time traveler person as well as Doctor Watson, the whole team so we’re really prepared.”
The three of them, with the doctors grabbing their coats from a hanger beside the door, hurried into the foyer to look for myself and Wells. They found us at the door, where I was preparing to leave, and Jekyll called for me to stop. “Watson! Watson, wait! We have a plan!”
“A plan? So soon? Well tell us! I’m eager to see what you’ve come up with,” Wells said with a knowing smile, putting his hands into his pockets. I slowly let the door close without latching as the three came to a stop before us.
“My sister in law might be able to find everyone, she knows everything about the city!” Ms. Pidgley explained, gesturing with her hands. “You two should come with us, we’ll need your help and no doubt you want answers too.”
“Count me in,” Wells beamed. “The sooner I get my time machine back, the sooner I can start putting things back in order and undoing some of this chaos and suffering. Weena will be safe here, it seems some of your Lodgers have taken quite a liking to her.”
“Doctor Watson? Are you coming?” Jekyll asked, looking at me hopefully. My somber expression must have told enough because his face fell and he grew solemn. “Doctor? What is it? Where are you going?”
“Twice now, people I trust have accused Holmes’s brother of being involved,” I began, speaking slowly. “I cannot simply believe this, so I’m going to find Mycroft and ask him directly. If I am what Wells suggested I am, I believe Mycroft will answer me truthfully, and help me find who has taken Sherlock. I wish I could come to assist you all, but this is something I have to do, and I have to do it alone.”
“I understand,” Jekyll said with a slow nod, approaching me. He offered his hand, “In case this is goodbye, thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for the Society, and for us, Hyde and I. Without you, and without Holmes, I think we’d be in a far, far worse position.”
I smiled slightly and shook his hand, “It’s been an honor, Doctor Jekyll. I’ll see you all again, I hope.”
“Good luck Doctor Watson,” Ms. Pidgley said in a soft, sad voice as I departed the Society for Arcane Sciences.
Here our story parted ways, for now.
Because it took all of us to bring this nightmare to an end.