FF: Twice in a Lifetime | Sanctuary | Helen/Charlotte | R 4/7
The look on Charlotte's face when Helen shows her the Sanctuary is priceless. The younger woman simply stares in awe and for a moment Helen can forget the imminent danger to bask in her delight at this revelation. Finally, Charlotte just shakes her head and smiles in wonder. "This place must be hell to heat in the winter."
"Actually, we run on solar quite a bit of the time."
"Oh, well, of course," Charlotte smirks.
Helen just rolls her eyes. "There's someone I'd like you to meet," she says, leading Charlotte up to her study where Declan is already waiting. Helen makes the introductions and then hands them both computer tablets and manila envelopes stuffed full of paperwork.
"What's this," Declan asks, already flipping through the tablet's information.
"My final instructions for both of you. Evacuation plans for the residents here and at the other sanctuaries if necessary. Bank accounts. I've given you each my proxy as Sanctuary head if anything goes wrong."
"Goes wrong," Charlotte asks, her voice deceptively calm. "What's going to go wrong?"
"Magnus, what are you planning?" Declan demands.
"I can't tell you right now - either of you," she adds, giving Charlotte and apologetic look. "But I need you to know I trust you both implicitly and I need you to do exactly what I've instructed. We don't have much time."
There is some argument, mostly from Charlotte, but in the end Magnus' stubbornness wins out and they both accept they will get no more answers from her than she has already given. Displeased with the result, but a loyal soldier none the less, Declan heads to the main resident area to begin evacuation procedures.
Charlotte waits.
"Please, don't look at me like that," Helen says wearily.
"Like what?"
"Like a displeased lover instead of an unhappy employee."
"Well, too bad."
Helen sighs. "I need you to do this for me, Charlotte. There are so many things that can go wrong in the next twenty-four hours… I can't worry about this. About you getting hurt."
"And what about you getting hurt," Charlotte challenges. "You're not immortal."
"Of that, I am all too aware," Helen snaps, regretting it instantly. "I'm… I'm sorry. You don't deserve this. Any of this."
"I deserve an explanation," the younger woman pushes, seeing the slightest crack in Helen's armor.
"I can't tell you what might happen tonight… but it will be dangerous. People may be killed. I… I might not survive," Helen continues softly, no longer looking at Charlotte but gazing out the window instead, refusing to let herself cry. "Inside that envelope you will find instructions for the Sanctuary, bank accounts, my estate. Letters for Will, Henry, Nikola, some others…" she turns back around. "I've divided my loyalties Charlotte. Trusted people with very little, but you I have trusted more than most because you were never a part of this. I'm trusting that you will see my vision finished if I can't. I'm sorry, but that's all the explanation I can give right now."
Charlotte takes a step and pulls Helen into a bruising kiss. It is dangerous, desperate, and demanding. Helen surrenders to it, kissing Charlotte back fiercely, pouring herself out, hands fisted in Charlotte's hair and the world tilts around them. For a few blistering seconds there is nothing but the two of them, an unspoken war waged with lips and tongues and teeth, and then Helen is pulling away, gasping, all of it just too much.
"I'll do this for you," Charlotte says tightly, fighting tears. "But you better do something for me."
"What?"
"You better live… or I don't care how badass you think you are, I will kick your ass."
Helen just nods. "Deal."
Trembling with fear and fury, Charlotte squares her shoulders back and meets Helen's stare evenly. "You better show me where to start with the evacuation."
"I'll give you the nickel tour."
*
The government's play is easy enough to see. As she explained to Henry, walling people up in a ghetto is only the first step to extinguishing them outright. There is always a final solution - something it takes Tesla minutes to discover once he sees SCIU's modifications to his design. But as easy as the government's moves are to see and guess, Caleb's are much more difficult.
She's suspected him from the beginning and has watched and waited, looking for ulterior motives, giving him every opportunity to expose his real plan, but he's been surprisingly genuine and careful. Never giving more information than necessary, always playing the heroic martyr, the reluctant leader. Helen sees through it completely now, her suspicions more than confirmed once the Big Guy sneaks out the DNA virus set to turn all humans into abnormals and revive the most dangerous creatures that have ever roamed the Earth.
It's brilliant of course, even Nikola admits as much. And rather ironic. Caleb's Praxian virus will turn the humans into the very thing they fear and have the added bonus of virtually destroying the human race at the same time.
She leaves the irony out of it when she sends Will a text message to meet her at a safe location near the Fifth Ward.
"If you still want to arrest me I'll be very disappointed."
"Coober Pedy, Australia. Black Mountain, North Carolina. Buckminster Fuller."
"Took you long enough to figure it out," she replies, her voice tinged with equal parts pride and irritation. It's not a complete picture of the last 100 years, but he has the gist of it.
"That's because someone didn't trust me with all the information."
"I didn't trust anyone. Nikola, Declan, Henry, Kate - no one knows." She doesn't mention Charlotte, it's too long of a conversation for these brief moments they have together before the storm hits.
"It was supposed to be different with me and you Magnus."
"You have to understand, all this started before you were born."
"All this started when you decided to chase Worth through…" he trails off, the fight no longer worth the energy. "Never mind. What's done is done."
His dismissal sparks something in her, the first few tinder smoldering before the blaze. "Consider our situation," Helen snaps, no longer content to let him judge her silently as she has allowed for the last several months. "Caleb is planning a new age of the deadliest races in history. SCIU is intent on genocide… What comes next? If one or both of those scenarios play out?"
And that is when she sees the final piece click into place, the realization lighting Will's eyes in the dark alley. "You knew all along that Caleb couldn't be trusted."
"Now do you see why your ego is the least of my worries?"
Will shakes his head. He does see which is the problem. Like everything, Helen's madness has had a greater purpose, something he wasn't smart enough to catch onto until nearly too late. His pride, his hurt feelings, clouding his judgment for far too long. "I just… wanted to be a part of it. After all that we've been through together."
Helen sighs. He understands, but he doesn't get it. He doesn't comprehend that he has been a part of all this, every moment of it. For the last hundred years Helen has thought of nothing but how to save her friends, her family from the oncoming war between the government and abnormals. And he doesn't get that while she was gone for a few short hours in his timeline, in hers it was over a century.
She learned how to live without him. She had to.
"Everything outlives its purpose, Will…" she says coldly, shutting down the last little pieces of herself that would seek to reach out and offer comfort. There is no more time for that. In her mind she sees her cabin burning again, down to ashes and smoke, and wonders if that will be all that is left of her when this is through. "Now what have you got for me?"
"Whatever SCIU's planning next, it's gonna happen tonight," he answers reluctantly.
"They're going to kill everyone in there." It's not a question but a statement of incredulity. The absurd coming to fruition.
"Tesla? Henry?"
"They aren't ready yet. Still searching for some bloody code to shut it all down."
"Let me try on my end," Will offers. "If I can screw up Addison's plan somehow-"
"You'll just end up arrested," cuts off, already seeing easily enough how that will end. "No, I need to get to Caleb first. Once he's dealt with everyone else can be evacuated. Can you handle that?"
"Magnus… taking on Caleb alone…"
"If you want to help, please, just do as I ask one final time," she pleads, voice breaking.
Will hesitates, not quite meeting her eyes. "I got your back."
She sighs in relief, one burden unloaded from her shoulders. "I'll see you when all this is over Will. I promise."
He nods, his eyes still not meeting hers, obviously wondering if this will be just one more promise she breaks in the long slew over the last few months. Without another word Helen turns to go, blinking away tears.
In the darkness, Will watches her out of sight.
*
She has never considered herself a sentimental person, and certainly that idea hasn't crossed her mind in over a hundred years, but as Helen steps through the doors of the Sanctuary for likely the last time she can't help but gaze around, trying to take in every brick, every plank, every cobweb. She is no stranger to sacrifice but she wonders now, standing inside the home that has brought her shelter and support, a lifetime's worth of family and friends and memories, just how much she will be asked to give. She has lost a daughter, her father, her friends and lovers. The next few hours will determine whether she must give her life as well. Here, within these walls she built with her own sweat and blood, she may bleed for the last time, and perhaps, she thinks, that is how it should be.
When she tells Henry and Tesla the news - Caleb's ultimate threat, SCIU's final solution - they stare at her in horror. Well, Henry does at least. Nikola just looks vaguely pissed. When she tells them her plan - all of it - they both go apoplectic.
"It's too dangerous."
"You've lost your mind."
"We're all gonna die."
"It'll never work."
Helen gives them exactly two minutes to rant and argue before she cuts them off with a look. "It will work if you do exactly as I tell you. No heroics. No second guessing."
Henry starts to argue anyway. Tesla put a hand on his arm, shaking his head. "Don't bother. I know that look. There's not a thing you could say right now that's going to change her mind. Am I right," he asks, an eyebrow perfectly arched in question.
She nods. "I've spent the better part of a century planning this. If there were any other way, believe me, I'd have found it by now."
They don't like it, they really don't, but time is short and every second they argue is a second lost in the face of Helen's unshakable will. And so they accept - as if they had a choice to begin with - and continue working on the containment fence, the fate of hundreds of abnormals now resting solely in their technologically gifted hands.
Helen leaves them to it. She has her own battle for which she must prepare.
Upstairs, she changes into tactical gear, tying her hair back to keep it out of her way. Habit bred into her as a child has her putting away her clothes, hanging them up straight, tucking the laundry into the hamper, and she has a flash of memory of the male servants in black tie and tails straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic.
She leaves the room, walking without thinking down the hall to a room that hasn't been opened in over a year. The door creaks as she opens it; when she flips the light on she sees dust motes drift around the room, disturbed by her sudden appearance. She's never gotten around to packing Ashley's things away. Could never bring herself to do it no matter how many times she told herself she would. After Ashley had died, after Helen had allowed herself to accept the fact her child was never coming back, she'd snuck into the room night after night, curling up on the bed to weep. If Will or any of the others knew they never mentioned it, but inevitably the next night there would be perfectly laundered sheets on a pristinely made bed.
But since she's returned and jumped back into her original timeline she hasn't come in this room, hasn't felt the pull for it she once did. It took a century but she finally managed to shove the pain of Ashley's death so deep inside herself it threatened to squeeze her heart into pulp with each breath. It was finally manageable.
Looking around the room she sees the disparate threads that woven together created Ashley's life. A childhood doll she refused to pack away; bookshelves stuffed to the brim with classical novels and military histories and gun magazines; rock band posters; trays of nail polish. A leather jacket hangs off the back of a chair, undisturbed since its owner last left it there. Helen picks it up, inhaling the scent of the leather, the soft smell of citrus and sandalwood lingering over it.
Ashley.
She slides the jacket on and gives the room one last glance before stepping out and pulling the door closed one last time.
In her office, she arms herself with her favorite gun, lingering a moment more over an antique pistol - one of the first she ever owned and learned to fire herself. It will take all of her training, everything she has learned over two lifetimes, to survive the night. She looks around the study, taking in with one wistful glance her own personal sanctuary, her safe haven. Here, she has done ground breaking research and designed cutting edge technology. Here, she has lingered with friends through the night and into the dawn over decadently good bottles of wine. Here, she watched Ashley take her first steps.
She says a silent goodbye, offering up her thanks that she should have had so many good years within the Sanctuary's walls, and then she walks out, not daring to look back.
Part Five