Spoiler: This will be a two-parter.

This had been a story sitting on the back burner since Doctor Strange came out. I had deliberated back and forth on it, since A) most of the material spliced the movie and the information from the comics together I had gathered together, and B) I wanted it to tie in well to Avengers: Infinity War Part 1. When I saw the latter, I immediately had my extra material. Besides Captain America, Doctor Strange has found himself to be another top character of mine, at least in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (I still have to read the comics...). To me, he's so much more likable than Stark, especially with what he does in the recent Avengers movie. This chapter takes place right after the Doctor Strange movie.

Read and review, please and thank you.

Disclaimer: Not mine... now shoo.

Doctor Strange rubbed his eyes wearily as he tried to focus on the pages of the text before him. Wong had left, being the only sensible one in going to bed. True to form, he'd tried to convince the younger magician to cease and desist for the night. He needed to rest after the battle they'd just had. There was the rest of the month to look over the texts and figure out how they were going to recruit new students and figure out how to adequately prepare for the future threats that Earth would face. The arguments for him to retire to bed were nearly endless and they were reasonable. However, true to form, Strange refused to stop. He wanted to get through just the rest of this book, he said, and then he'd get some sleep. The librarian looked unconvinced, but nodded his assent.

"Just be mindful," he'd said before leaving. "These books don't just contain ancient magic; they are the ancient magic. Tricks can be played upon a tired mind."

And so Doctor Strange was all by himself now, in an empty room full of ancient manuscripts and the magics used in the construction of such a building. He hadn't noticed it before in his excitement to learn more magic, to study even the forbidden spells, all of course with the old desire to have his hands –and his original set of skills – back. Now that he had abandoned that to study to solve a problem that literally contained the weight of the world on his shoulders, of course he was going to notice the creepier aspects of this magical library. The more his eyes ached as he continued his perusal of the ancient tome, the more he swore he heard whispers in the empty library.

The doctor was suddenly startled from his reading when the corner of his eye caught black smoke flitting past. He looked up, saw nothing for the fiftieth time, and that was the final straw. He couldn't take any more. Shutting the grimoire, he pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve some of the building tension behind his temples. Breathing deeply inwards, then outwards, he cautiously reopened his eyes. His sight was clear, and his hearing was quiet. No smoke darkened his vision, no mysterious whispers fought to be heard, and the book lay opened to the page he had just been reading. He should still go to bed, however. It was 3:00 am, and he'd be getting up early enough.

Shutting the magical text, he rose, stretched his lower back, and swung his leg over the seat. Swinging the other leg with the leftover momentum, his fingers delicately traced the cover of the book before deliberately grabbing the bottom corner. The text swung out into the open, moving in sync with his strides as he went to replace it on the shelf. His hands were quicker this time and smoother with the motions of putting it back and stringing the chain back across. He took a step back, nodded in satisfaction, and would have turned immediately away if not for the light catching on the stone on the cover of the grimoire to the right of it.

The purple gleam captured his gaze. He stood there dumbly, watching the gleam recede before coming back (due to the candlelight flickering; it had to be). It repeated this process several times. He knew he was tired when he couldn't summon the will to walk away. It was after the fourth reduction in its gleam that he gave in and moved to unstring the chain from across the cover and lift the book on down. He took in the cover of the book but for a moment before opening the cover to reveal the contents inside.

The Book of the Vishanti. That was an interesting title. He would have to ask Wong about this Vishanti. He turned the page to reveal a table of contents. The spells contained within appeared to be of a very interesting nature, if he was reading them correctly. His finger started down the page, only pausing to read each title of each spell. Third of the way down the page, and he couldn't find it within himself to continue. His finger remained unmoving next to a spell that had immediately caught his attention. The title was Resurrection Spell.

He almost wanted to laugh with the ridiculousness of it all. The Ancient One had confided in him that she had foreseen all possibilities leading up to her death, that there was no possibility of avoiding her death. He had no doubt that she knew of all of the manuscripts, but did she really know all of the spells? Furthermore, even if she had, wouldn't she have told him to use it to bring her back? Or did she not think she was worthy enough to ask that question, given that she had been revealed drawing power from Dormammu's dark dimension?

Well, he wasn't going to let her give up that easily.

His fingers clutched the pages eagerly, almost frantically as he turned the pages, almost ripping several of them. Finding the page containing the Resurrection Spell, he released his physical hold on the paper to the grip of his eyes. He scanned the entire page.

"Okay... okay… good…" he murmured. Adrenaline at his new discovery had kicked his brain into gear, reviving his tired brain cells to absorb this new information as fast as possible. He saw that it continued on to the next page, and so he turned the paper as his eyes continued to scan the information.

It wasn't that he didn't like being the new Sorcerer Supreme. Having the Time Stone, being able to use portals to jump back and forth throughout dimensions, and a flying cape as a multi-purpose pet were all amazing perks. It also that he didn't think he wasn't ready. He was, and had been, ready for a while. Stealing the books from the library under Wong's nose and using his astral form to study while he slept was only proof of how quickly he had absorbed and advanced under the Ancient One's tutelage. Mordo's too… but, well that could be left alone for another time.

"Okay… good." He flipped the page back to look over the information to make sure it all connected correctly, and then back to the final section. "Okay, awesome. I think I'm ready to –"

It was then his eyes caught it. It was an asterisk. Of course it was. A tiny, just dandy little damned asterisk that denoted the possibility of something going wrong. How come the weaker spells didn't have this problem?

"Dammit," Strange muttered. Wearily, his eyes traveled to the bottom of the page, where the same tiny, neat asterisk met tiny, neat handwriting that said, Warning: Any mistake during recitation no matter how small or unintentional will turn the one being resurrected into a vampire.

"At least I read all the way through," he said aloud, smirking at the memory of Kaecilius's face when told of that mistake. His smirk faded, though, and he sighed aloud. His fingers still grasped the page as he turned it back and forth slowly, seeing but no longer absorbing the text. His mind had decided to focus on a more interesting topic: whether or not he should attempt to go through with this.

Earth was facing more threats in the future. That was the one constant of the universe he was sure of, and that he had also foreseen. While training of new students couldn't not go on in light of this knowledge, he was also having trouble figuring out how to divide up his time appropriately. There always had to be one person guarding each of the Sanctums that were left in Hong Kong and New York. Since Wong and he were left as the guardians of each of the said Sanctums, that meant that they couldn't leave. Okay – change that to probably shouldn't leave. Needing new students meant that someone had to train them, however, since they probably weren't going be near as brilliant as he was.

Joking. Yes, he was joking.

That aside, there still remained the need for a teacher to teach. With Kamar-Taj being connected to all the sanctums, Wong and he would easily be able to split an equally grueling schedule of training new recruits. It was like being asked to train and guide new neurosurgeons back in New York, except then he had been able to refuse.

If he could bring back the Ancient One, however, that meant that they would have that necessary person to restart training 24/7 at Kamar-Taj. It also meant that they would have someone else with enough training as backup to face the threats in case either Wong or he failed. Plus, he still had questions about the Eye. The book on it referred to it as an Infinity Stone, and he hadn't yet found anything else that told him what an Infinity Stone was or where it came from. Yeah, bending time was cool – unless you kept getting killed over and over again – but there was still the need inside him to know, to understand. Background information had helped him on many of the medical cases he had worked on before. This was no different.

Strange became restless, and as he became restless, he gave in to the urge to pace. Striding to and from the desk and back to the bookshelf, his mind whirled with possibilities. She had seen possibilities in bringing him in to train, even though she had done so reluctantly. She had seen his arrogance and his ambition, and yet was convinced enough to give him a chance. No one else, not even Christine had done so. He had paid her back by not standing with her when she needed it most, and she had died because of it. He owed her. That feeling felt foreign to him, and he almost hated it. Almost.

So, he owed her. Did that mean he should try to bring her back. Despite his initial inclination to do so, he hesitated, thinking on their last conversation. If she had seen every possibility through time leading up to her death, did she also foresee his thoughts about trying to bring her back? Did she foresee him attempting to bring her back? Did he succeed? Did he fail? Did she approve, or did she disapprove? Would she end up dying again anyways? Or was this desire ultimately just another shred of evidence of how massive his ego was?

"You're a man looking at the world through a keyhole, and you've spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole, to see more, to know more, and now, on hearing that it can be widened, in ways you can't imagine you reject the possibility." Her words from that day in Kamar-Taj came back most timely. How relevant – as he's considering the possibility of bending the natural laws (again), her words came back for his thinking pleasure.

Mordo had been against any bending of the natural law, so to be forced to see his teacher and his pupil do so in the same day must have been enough to break his resolve. Despite being an ally in that last battle against Dormammu, he had left soon after. He was no longer a sorcerer that Strange knew of, and he had left behind two comrades and a planet who desperately needed his abilities, not to mention a whole group of students that would need instruction. To bring him back was not going to happen, no matter how much the Ancient One had wanted to believe otherwise.

Alternatively, here he had the chance to bring back the Ancient One. Sure, he had to say the spell 100% percent right or she'd become a vampire (still live forever!), but it was a chance. A chance to bring back one of the most powerful sorceresses to help save the Earth, and spiting Dormammu was just an additional reason to do so. There was no reason notto bring her back, especially for someone as powerful as him.

Should you? He could have sworn that in that thought echoed her voice, and he wanted to yell and curse it for bringing that topic up. Instead, he groaned aloud, trying to drown out what he knew would follow. He was unsuccessful.

Like it or not, his ego was involved in this. His ego was intertwined with his being, to the Ancient One's exasperation, and it had gotten in his way before. He could even credit – or fault – his current situation to his ego. Before, he wouldn't even have thought once, let alone twice about his ego affecting his decisions. At present, minus his surgical abilities, plus magical abilities, and having survived his execution countless of times, he could admit to having an ego. Possibly. He had never cared to think about it, and looking back he could see that that had been a mistake. Christine most of all had tried to make that point. She had tried, but only the Ancient One succeeded in hammering the point home. His forehead ached with that memory.

He was the reason he kept failing. It was his own ego that kept him from reaching what he was meant to achieve. His own ego had continued to be his downfall until he had learned to believe in and use in a power that he had only dreamed of having. Was that any less of the case here? If he attempted to bring back the Ancient One, was that because he truly needed her, or because his ego wanted to prove his mastery of over more than just spells? Showing that he had control over life and death would indeed be a major boost to his ego, regardless of his intentions.

Suddenly, his forehead throbbed and his temples pulsed with sudden and intense pain. He brought his fingers up to massage those tender areas, realizing that the pain signified he needed to desperately get some sleep. Once the pain had subsided somewhat, he thought back on this dilemma.

Maybe he was overthinking his motivations behind it all. He still wanted to bring her back, though, and his reasons still had some good reasoning behind them. However, he would make himself a deal: Put the book back now. Get some sleep. Consult with Wong tomorrow. Try to not make it obvious that he was thinking about resurrecting the Ancient One.

Sighing, he stood, and he took the book in his hands, keeping it open to that damned page. He stared at it as he walked back towards the bookshelf, understanding his choice to reconsider his hasty plans, and yet regretting it all the same. All too soon he stood before the tome's select place within that bookshelf. Without further hesitation, he slammed the grimoire shut, lifted it up and onto its shelf, and restrung the metal chain.

Now, he needed sleep. He stepped aside and made his way towards the exit of the library, figuring the opportunity to stretch his legs would further add to his exhaustion, making his sleep that much sweeter. As he reached the hallway, he could almost see the cover of the tome hovering before him, trying to make him reconsider. He did not look back; instead he hesitated, choosing to stare at the image in front of him until it changed into the wall he knew was there. He had made his decision, and he would stick with it. Tomorrow. He restarted his pace towards his quarters as his thoughts remained behind. I'll make it up to her somehow. I'm the Sorcerer Supreme now. I'm sure Wong would agree with me that I can do this.

Then again, his bed had never felt softer.

"Uh, Wong?" The stocky Asian guy looked up from his breakfast.

"Yes?" Strange inhaled slowly.

"I need to ask you a question."