For 'mayireadtoday 'who gave the prompt for this Magnus/Wells fic, and made many beautiful icons and you tube videos to inspire it :) Go check them out!
With my thanks and my hopes that you won't find it too disappointing. xoxo
Lest you run faster
HG Wells
HG Wells pushes the panic right down inside of her, squashes it, suffocates it, refusing to let it take hold of her. She has no place for panic. She breathes in deeply, letting the exhilaration of long awaited freedom take over her. The excitement of the world around her. She shrugs off the utter terror of being in a place so foreign to her, so many different technologies that she could not understand. It leaves her feeling dizzy, disoriented. But she has no time to dwell on it.
She always felt she had been born before her time. That she would be somehow happy in the "future." That people would accept her, her ideas would be respected. She would be hailed a genius. She would receive the credit due to her, in spite of the fact she was a woman.
She is frustrated beyond belief, even a century later, to find herself cast in the shadow of her idiotic useless brother. It was a fate she had never readily accepted. She tells herself to let it go, times have moved on. And there was little point dwelling on it now. It wasn't like she could walk the streets in this day and age, proclaiming to be HG Wells. She would be institutionalised on the spot.
Something stirs in her, a twinge of pride, to see her name is still recognised in this time. Years beyond her own life time, and her words, her legacy, had lived on. There was something rewarding in that, even if it was dampened by her brothers shadow over it all, leaving her nothing left to claim as her own. She asks herself if it was worth it? The choices she made, the things she had invested her time, her talent, towards. Everything that had happened in her life leading up to this moment. She shrugs that question off too, there was nothing she could do about it now.
The loneliness stings her. She is a little disappointed with the big wide world. She had endured years of solitary confinement in the bronze sector. Telling herself all the while that once she gets out- everything will be so different. It comes as a bitter shock to find that she is just as lonely as she had ever been in there. That it's worse in fact, because there are living people all around her, and she just can't connect with them on any level. She doesn't really want to. They are strangers. The world has moved on, further even than she had dared to dream. She has no place here.
In this mystical "future" she had envisioned it had not occurred to her that she would be utterly alone. It had not occurred to her that if she woke somehow in this magical future, she would have only one goal- to get back to the place she belonged. The place she had been taken from, the time she should have lived in, should have died in.
She found herself wandering the old city. Something had drawn her to the quaint place. It was familiar. If she closed her eyes for a moment she could almost believe the clock had been turned back a hundred years. There was something so comforting about the place. She wandered aimlessly, watching for many days. It was there, purely by chance, she caught a glimpse of the woman. Impossible, yet unmistakable. Helen Magnus. The Helen Magnus. Not a descendant, a distant relative who bears a remarkable resemblance. Helen Magnus was one of a kind. And HG Wells knows from her own predicament, it's not entirely impossible for someone to be standing here many years after they should have died. HG Wells knows all too well that nothing is impossible.
She laughs aloud uncontrollably, delirious with the sensation of having found someone known to her. And of all the people to be left standing, unchanged by time, that it should be she and Helen Magnus, is great cause for amusement. That strange feeling, of being known to someone, of being understood, is enough to make her forget entirely the rather unfortunate circumstances under which she and Helen parted ways many years ago.
Helen Magnus
It is not often that something catches Helen Magnus completely off guard. That something takes her entirely by surprise. That something, or rather someone, stops her heart beating. Leaves her standing there, helpless, breathless, speechless. Utterly bewildered.
The lifetime of Helen Magnus had been a long one, a lonely one. She had loved, been loved, and been left alone- time and time over. Loss is familiar to her. The burning, stinging, searing pain of grief. Loss is inevitable when you have the so called 'gift' of longevity. A burden that simply has to be carried. And she has endured more than her share.
The thing that is not familiar to her- is having something restored. That is a concept which simply does not fit within her world view. Something she had never experienced. Something she had never expected- even though, if her life's work had taught her only one clear shining indubitable lesson- it was this one- 'Expect the unexpected'.
But it is simply beyond her comprehension that something, rather someone, from another place, another time, another lifetime, might deign show up on her doorstep. Someone that undoubtedly does not belong in the here and now, in this dismal life. A place Helen finds herself abandoned in, left behind by all those she had once considered peers. Surrounded by very well meaning people who simply don't understand her, nor where she has come from.
People have become complacent in this day and age, thinks Helen. Everything is handed to them on a platter. The wonder is gone, the drive, the creativity, the passion. Or perhaps she is merely getting old, weary. She feels that there isn't anything left that can touch her in this life. Nothing left that can astonish her. She is already dead on the inside, just going through the motions.
It's a sunny day, like any other, when Helen finds herself feeling bored. Weary. Decidedly and alarmingly- old. She finds the warmth of the suns rays make her ache on the inside. She finds she has no purpose, as she watches the younger staff at the Sanctuary- thinking to herself that they are more than capable without her. Not one among them would miss her. Not one among them truly needs her now. She was loved, appreciated perhaps, even revered. But desperately needed? No. She can see no purpose, and the weight of that, after a lifetime of being needed, presses down on her. She finds herself stepping back, little by little, from the sanctuary, from life, from the people around her. She looks in front of her, wondering just how many years she has to live, without her daughter, and she thinks to herself that she can not stand even one more day.
But she is Helen Magnus, mighty and strong. And so she smiles, so she keeps putting one foot in front of the other, without purpose. . Almost as if she is waiting for something.
That's exactly how she feels, this particular morning, as she stands atop the sanctuary roof, watching the sun creep over the city. She stand, still, motionless, just watching. Just waiting. For something to tear her gaze away.
She has been standing for hours, she knows this by the position of the sun in the sky, when she hears the voice behind her, calling her name. It's a voice she has not heard for many years. A ghostly whisper of someone long vanished. A voice she never expected to hear again. And yet, she has no doubt at all as to who the voice belongs to. It is unmistakable.
Helen wonders, at first, if she has died. Somehow, without noticing, she has ceased living and entered the world of the dead. If she is surrounded now by all those people she has lost along the way. But it begs the question- of all the people she had loved and lost along the way, of all the dead she longed to be reunited with- why her?
Helen draws in a long painful breath that leaves her aching all over. She is still breathing. She looks out over the sunny city, the world is still turning. She is not dead, she is certain of this, and perhaps a little disappointed.
The second thing that occurs to her, is that she has finally gone mad. This seems more plausible than the dead theory. She was hallucinating. Hearing voices. Too many hours standing out in the sun. But the question remains– Why her? Why now? After all this time...
A calm silence has fallen over her. She has all but convinced herself she imagined the voice in the first place. She has all but convinced herself she is alone on the roof top, feeling sorry for herself, wasting hours idly staring over the city, just waiting for something to reach out and touch her. But she can not shake the feeling that she is being watched. If she holds her breath for a moment, she can hear someone else breathing. In fact, she can feel the warm breath against her skin on the back of her neck. She can almost hear the other woman's heart beating. And still, she hesitates a moment before she turns around. Almost as if she is afraid that if she turns around, the other woman will have vanished. She will find that it is all a cruel trick of her imagination.
As she turns, tearing her gaze from the cityscape, finally having a reason to snap out of her trance, she catches sight of the woman standing before her. Standing so close they are almost touching. Almost, but not quite.
Helen is rendered speechless, the color has drained from her face. And yet it wasn't merely the shock of the unexpected arrival of someone who had died many decades ago. It was more the unexpected pleasure of finding that her own heart was still beating, that she felt for the first time in years- truly alive. This was enough to make her forget entirely the circumstances under which the two had parted a lifetime ago.
Helen takes a step back. Subconsciously. Not because she is afraid of anything. Because she is simply overwhelmed. Because she wants to take a good look at the sight in front of her. So precariously proximal to the edge is she, that she almost loses her footing. But the other woman reaches forward, taking her hand, pulling her close, steadying her.
"It's been a long long time, Helen." She says playfully. "Have you nothing to say to me?"