Mercy

Feeding times were easier after Jacob scoured the Brit's guidebook on magical beasts. Most book stuff was over his head – hence the reason he stuck to baked goods instead of college – but the directions were simple. True, the book was a touch abstract in parts (like who stirred mashed gunk clockwise exactly three times and left it to stew in the sun for hours before adding so many pinches of whatnot and what's-the-herb?), but it told Jacob what he needed to know: what to feed the monsters if the silver monkey didn't happen to be around.

Apparently, that silver monkey also had a classified name. Even wizards believed in science. Dougal was a Demiguise and not a Damascus, "Cog" was neither a mole nor a miniature platypus, the entrancing water dwellers known as Kappa were just as dangerous as everything else in the case (Dougal's calm interference between Jacob and certain death was getting to be a touch nerve-wracking), and the dung beetles of immense proportion were – whatta you know – giant dung beetles.

The sheet of darkness wasn't in the book.

At least Jacob could name the critters now, and mind his fingers more carefully so that they didn't get nipped off.

He figured Newt was getting a bit nippy, too, after the wizard got one sniff of the outdoors and took another inglorious tumble off the bed.

"Someday you'll listen to Dougal," Jacob grunted as he dropped the empty meat bucket and heaved Newt back into his nest. The wizard shot him a fuming glare, which Jacob suspected would have held more heat if the Brit wasn't so dang passive.

"I'm fine," Newt ground out, the 'ff' still sounding like he had a pebble wedged between his lower lip and his teeth. "You can't keep me here."

Oh, so now Jacob was playing the jail warden and not the doctor's aid. Or maybe Newt always pouted like that when told to stay put. It certainly looked like a rebellious stint – maybe even a tantrum. Jacob almost wondered if the Brit did have an older brother.

"Hey, doctor's orders," Jacob said pitilessly. "That leg might be healed but you're still hobbling on one ankle."

Newt rolled his eyes, as though adults were simple-minded obstacles who governed the world under the dusty spectacles of common sense.

Now Jacob was thinking of 'Claude the Kid' again.

"I'll just sit outside," Newt mumbled. "Can't get into any trouble there."

He seemed very interested in memorizing Bill's quilt. Jacob would have bet his bakery blueprints that this guy had an older sibling somewhere, probably calling hail and brimstone down on whatever hapless city had kidnapped his baby brother.

He shivered at the thought.

"It's sunlight," Newt said softly. "S'posed to be healing, isn't it?"

Glassy green eyes blinked once as though to assure 'I'm innocent, can't you see I won't do anything', but that one crooked shoulder testified only mischief. The kid down the street with the blind crow lied just as transparently.

"Uh-huh," Jacob said dryly. He glanced at the book, the keeper of unanswered questions, and changed tactics. Drawing the chair over, he slung it backwards and straddled it, looping his arms over the headrest, trying to make his unimposing self seem harmless and trustworthy.

Well, as much as he could. The Brit seemed to know how to track everything in the room without actually looking up.

"So… before you do the whole meet-and-greet with all the creatures…." Jacob began, and took note that Newt perked up instantly at the dangled carrot, "There's something I wanna know about them. Like, where'd you find all of 'em, anyways?"

Newt picked at his cast. "Around," he said vaguely. "Been adding them over time. Rehabilitating them as I can."

"So it's like a park?" Jacob ventured. "An – an animal sanctuary of sorts?"

"Of sorts," Newt agreed. He hesitated, his shoulders dipping slightly, and added, "They take to you."

"Well, they haven't killed me yet," Jacob allowed. He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Although the pink thing did try to take a chunk outta my foot before Dougal chased it off."

"It's a murtlap," Newt said, nodding once. "It's native to the coast of Britain."

"Uh-huh. And the Nundu," Jacob added, huffing in disbelief. "You don't realize how big it is until you stand right up to it – "

"Don't do that," Newt said, scowling like a professor who didn't really know how to stop a backtalker. "Their breath can kill entire villages."

"Yeah, they – uh…." Jacob's smile faded and he cleared his throat. "Right. Very dangerous. Do they get much bigger than that? Cause, uh, its swallowing whole bucket loads at a time and….." He pulled his collar at the affirming nod.

"Don't get too close," Newt rasped, before coughing into his sleeve.

"Dougal warned me off," Jacob assured him. He paused, rubbing his sweaty palms, and plunged into the question. "I… uh… wasn't sure what to feed the one in the icebox."

Newt's eyebrows flew high.

"The winter habitat," Jacob clarified. "You know, snow and cold? Swirling patch of … black stuff? What do you call that thing, anyways?"

Dismay eclipsed budding green into hazel. Newt focused more intently on the scarlet thread he was unraveling from the quilt.

"Oh." Jacob's eyebrows pinched together. "That dangerous, huh?" He paused, picked a straw out of the wicker backing, and then added, "Felt kinda lonely."

Hazel scrutinized him for a brief instant. Jacob focused on the chair.

"S'an Obscurus," Newt finally mumbled. "It's pure magic. Very powerful."

"So it doesn't need to eat anything?" Jacob guessed. That explained one mystery. "Why's it penned up?"

The Brit's nose curled as though he'd been affronted. "It's safer there," he said quietly. "It can't hurt anyone."

Jacob prodded too harshly at the wicker and hissed, snatching his hand away. Wincing, he scraped at a raised line of wood stuck in his thumb. "Who's it safe from?"

He didn't see the surprised glow in Newt's eyes, or the tilt of that obstinate shoulder as it slowly relaxed.

"That's irrelevant now," Newt said softly. He gnawed his lip and began detangling a blue thread. "She… she was a wizard. A powerful one, I think, given the Obscurus. She was only eight."

The blue thread sprang free, and torn nails began wrangling the next.

"What happened?" Jacob pressed.

Newt stilled.

"She died," he said at last, with a quiet sigh as though he had explained it too many times, in far too many unwelcome scenarios. "I pulled the Obscurus from her, but the separation from her magic destroyed her."

"Mag – that was her magic?" Jacob interjected.

Newt didn't reply, scratching at a neat hole made from the separated threads.

"So that's… kind of a piece of her in there," Jacob summarized. "I didn't know wizards could do that."

Stormy eyes narrowed and Newt viciously dug his thumb between two patches. Half worried for the Brit's emotional state and half terrified of what Bill would say when he saw his great-great-grandmother's quilt in patches, Jacob rapidly changed the subject.

"Is that what the other wizard was after?"

Immediately Newt's head swung up, his attention restored.

"Well, he wanted something, right?" Jacob ventured. "Was it the – the Obscurus? He wanted the magic?"

A long, uncertain blink, and then Newt shook his head. "No. It can't do anything without the host." He went back to savaging the thread count.

"Why was he after you?" A final cringe and a speckle of blood, and Jacob flicked the sliver out of his thumb.

Newt's shoulders tensed. His fingers gathered in cotton fabric, anchoring deeply though it must have caused him pain. "How should I know?" The hoarseness in his voice was almost a whisper. "I'm just here to observe magical creatures. I was never involved in any of Theseus's…."

He trailed off, clamping his mouth shut like a child who had spilled a secret and knew that now someone would make him tell.

Jacob almost did just that, almost asked who Theseus was, and why the dark wizard wanted to know his business, and why either of them could be found in New York, and why Newt of all people would be considered a valuable informant, and how Grindelwald knew that he should track Bill down in the first place….

But before he could ask any of these questions, the Erumpent stamped two massive feet in the doorway and snorted. Newt's attention span was shattered instantly.

"Coming," he mumbled, tossing the quilt aside. He twisted both legs over the bed, faltered on the scarred one, and would have bloodied his nose on the workbench if Jacob hadn't nearly tripped over his own chair in time to grab his shoulder.

"Really?" Jacob chastised – uselessly, considering that Newt was hopelessly oblivious to his own limits. He slung the Brit's arm over his shoulder, feeling for a second that this was right – that Claude was back, being an idiot like usual.

"Help me outside," Newt requested, and the moment was gone.

"Don't blame me if Bill nags you for this," Jacob warned as he guided the significantly taller if gawky wizard around the wicker chair.

The moment they cross the threshold, Newt nudged the Erumpent aside with a simple brush to its nose and the sunlight creased his battered face, the fretful lines eased and he slumped against Jacob, willingly settling in as he was lowered against the wall just outside the door.

And then Jacob was the one shoved aside as the Erumpent nosed in, snuffling Newt's hair and blowing distastefully at whatever fleas the wizard might've picked up at Jacob's apartment. It was the first of many reunions, and hardy the most emotional.

Jacob was forced to retreat inside the building as the whole of the suitcase zoo amassed, feathers and hooves and fur dusting the air as each creature scurried or pranced or bounded to meet its caretaker. The Thunderbird competed with the Nundu for the loudest exultation, and Jacob wondered how a prickled cat that could slay villages with a single huff could purr as it bumped into Newt's shoulder and nearly knocked him flat.

The Murtlap groveled by Newt's bare feet, rolling its belly for a scratch – not even remotely threatening, much to Jacob's chagrin. Newt complied, and was instantly beset upon by a throng of chittering plants and a Swooping Evil that demanded either affection or brains, in whichever order was offered. The Niffler wriggled into the mass, claiming Newt's lap, and slapped his arm until he glanced down for a moment at the stethoscope which the critter eagerly dug out of its pouch.

In that freakish, unearthly moment, as hideous beasts squalled for Newt's attention, Jacob thought of another mob, one in a dismal, busy street, where humans clamored for blood and no one intervened. Now Newt was smiling, detangling a silently twittering pink bird from his robe, closing his eyes in exhausted, peaceful euphoria.

And Bill thought it was humanity's right to put all of this in a glass case for scientists to scratch notes about and medical doctors to dissect.

Maybe his heart was in the right place – Bill didn't have any more cruelty in his veins than a beggar's toothless mutt – but he didn't know this world. Not like Jacob. He didn't know what humans could destroy.

Or maybe he knew it all too well. Maybe there'd be less jars of calves foot jelly and more evenings of sitting around, enjoying his great-great-great grandfather's furniture, if people would stop haranguing each other and give him a few hours of peace. Maybe Jacob was the delusional one, always thinking that people were a little better, a little kinder, always forgetting that they were all born with a selfish pining for someone to be a little lower than themselves.

Society tried to make beautiful worlds just like the suitcase, but more often it just glazed over the heart of man.

Plopping down in the grass, Jacob held out his hand to the Thunderbird and shivered as it lowered its head and gently nipped his fingers. Newt paused worriedly, then relaxed in confidence as the mighty bird of prey accepted his companion. Jacob chuckled, amazed, and waggled his fingers at the Niffler.

The pestilential nuisance stuck out its tiny pink tongue and shuffled into the crook of Newt's elbow.

"He's not going to take it away," Newt promised, ducking a Graphorn's slimy salutation.

"I can't believe this," Jacob said, watching two Billiwigs swivel in a mating flight. "This is amazing."

"You really think so?" For a moment it was just Claude looking back, green eyes sparked and naïve, just an ignorant kid who would unleash magic in the middle of Mary Lou's witch hater's rally.

The kid never really left, Jacob realized. He was just more of a hassle to look after when he tried to maneuver the world on his own.

He wondered who Theseus was, and if he had ever felt the same.

Sunlight erupted in a crash of lightning, and rain sent the Niffler scrabbling under Newt's arm. The other beasts cowered, edging away from the Thunderbird as the storm crescendoed.

"What's going on?" Jacob hollered.

Newt's face was white. "Get me up there!" he pleaded, thrusting the Niffler into the grass. He gripped the shack walls, trying to pull himself up, and Jacob had his arm in an instant. He pulled him out of the downpour and shut the door, shaking water droplets out of his hair.

"What is it, some kind of warning?"

"Upstairs!" Newt demanded, lurching ahead of Jacob.

"Lemme go," Jacob insisted, grabbing the Brit's blue coat. He shoved it on the wizard's shoulders even as Newt batted him away. "Look, it's probably one of Bill's customers." More likely the electrician with a neglected bill. "I'll send him off and be right back down."

"I'm not letting him down here!" Newt's teeth chattered, his energy pouring out in helpless passion and antagonism that could only be rooted in fear for something well loved. "I'm not – I won't let him hurt them!"

"Okay, okay," Jacob shushed, buttoning the coat securely and wishing he'd thought to grab the Brit's shoes. "Okay, we're going upstairs, but I'm checking first, all right? We won't let him in."

Newt nodded agitatedly, staggering ahead, expecting Jacob to match his pace and not let him fall. He nearly did fall, lunging around Jacob's back to grab the silver-tipped wand from the workbench, and held it awkwardly in his left hand as he shuffled up the steps. He was shivering from more than cold, green eyes jaded in anticipation as the suitcase swung open.

Jacob pushed forward so that he was the first out of the case. He turned slowly, taking in the fluffy, dust-mite infested spare bed, the closet, the closed bedroom door. No wizards or intruders. Slumping, Jacob stooped and helped Newt clamber out of the case.

"See, it's fine," he reassured, shivering at a rush of air that swished just before he shut the case. "This is Bill's house, remember? Nothing can….."

The bedroom door creaked open, and Newt blanched as white as the Obscurus' terrain. Jacob blinked several times, flustered, and exclaimed, "Bill!"

The doctor's hollow, weary eyes cleared in a snap. He scratched his head, taking in his surroundings with a murmured, "Don' remember headin' home." He glanced at the two of them and narrowed his eyes at Newt.

"By all that's sainted and martyred, Kowalski, what's he doin' on his feet?"

Jacob stammered, whether to voice a response or a warning, he would never know.

But he would forever regret.

A hand clasped the back of Bill's neck. A simple squeeze, a murmured spell. The doctor's head lolled and he fell over his suitcase.

"Bill!" Jacob hollered, lunging to catch his friend.

Several things happened at once. The dark wizard raised his wand, something heavy and invisible bounded onto Jacob's shoulder, he sprawled against the suitcase, instinctively grabbing hold, and Newt seized his shoulder before flapping his left hand. The silver-tipped wand flashed, the room vanished, and Jacob fell in a clatter of suitcase and smoke and the agony of knowing he had seen Ol' Bill walk into a sickroom for the last time.