Disclaimer: I dont own the rights to Sanctuary or any of its characters.
Sanctuary - Brandy and Tears Part 1
Helen Magnus sat on the floor of her office staring into the log fire. Her arms wrapped around herself. The flickering flames of the hot roaring fire the only illumination in the room. Although the fire was roasting Helen felt nothing but cold. She sat staring into the flames trying to focus her mind. Lost in her thoughts she ignored the two people who but knelt bewildered beside her. In the last 24 hrs she had finally freed the love of her life from the creature that tortured him for over a hundred years and nearly lost her daughter. Her head was spinning with the emotions running through her.
" I think she might in shock" said the tall, handsome bald man worriedly.
"I've never seen her like this" the young girl apprehensively replied.
"Helen?"
The way he said her name made her shiver. The sound of his voice as said he said name brought back a thousand memories. Her mind whirled hearing the un asked questions just the simple speaking of her name posed.
The girl reached out her hand and rested it gently on Helen's shoulder. "Mom do you want…."
"Mom?" the man interrupted sharply.
The hurt angry tone of his voice eventually seemed to reach Helen and she turned from the fire towards him.
"John…" she started to say then found she couldn't talk as the tears that were threatening started to overwhelm her. She'd loved him with all her heart and soul but she been running from the man, monster and truth for over a century.
She took a deep breath and began again.
"John I can explain." she managed to choke out reaching out to him with her hand.
John had been glaring at her in disillusioned hurt anger but seeing Helen in turmoil, his anger crumbled and he reached out taking her hand and sitting on the floor in front of her.
"Helen?" he asked again. A million unspoken questions.
"Mom?" questioned the young girl also sitting down beside her mother and squeezing her shoulder. She was aware of the electric atmosphere in the room but didn't know its cause. The girl did not know who this 'John' was but he obviously had a profound effect on her mother.
Helen had been drinking in John's handsome features highlighted in the flickering firelight clinging to his hand with a death grip. At the sound of the girls voice she dragged her gaze from John.
"Ashley!" she breathed reaching out with her other hand to take Ashley's hand from her shoulder. She looked between her daughter and the man who was her father. Not knowing how to start and how to introduce them to each other at last.
"Mom what's going on?" Ashley glancing at John questioningly.
The exhaustion of all the years of lies and hiding suddenly became too much for Helen and felt the hysterical laughter bubble out of her.
"Mom"
"Helen" John and Ashley said in unison both concerned by the manic laughter coming from the women in front of them.
The concerned looks on their faces registered with Helen and she managed to stop laughing and drag in a deep breath.
"I guess I do owe you both an explanation." she said dragging in another steadying breath. Trying to figure out how to even begin. "Ashley would you pour us all some brandy please?" Helen asked squeezing her daughters hand.
Ashley returned her mothers squeeze and then sending John a dark look which read don't upset my Mom went and poured three stiff brandy's, handed them round and returned to sit by her mother.
"Thank you" John and Helen said together and then shared a smile. It had been two lifetimes since they drunk brandy in front of a fire together. Helen's smile not quite reaching her eyes as the painful memories of their past threaten to swamp her.
Ashley glanced from one to the other sensing some deeper communication going on between the pair. Which confused the hell out of her because she could tell whoever this 'John' was, he was someone important to her Mother but the man was a complete stranger to Ashley. She and her Mom shared everything - or so she thought.
Helen could see the confusion on her daughter's face. Could see that Ashley understood that this man was special in some way. See she was trying to work out how, and figure out why she had never met him. Helen took another deep breath in and knocked back the drink she been clutching. The brandy burned its way down her throat and made her choke but the shock pulled her thoughts back together and she suddenly knew where to begin.
Helen drew a deep breath and looked between John and Ashley. They were both here. Her lover and her daughter. It had been too long since she could and had touched John, and she almost lost her daughter tonight. The idea of never been able to touch or see Ashley again made Helen shiver in terror. Helen reached a hand out take one each of theirs. Helen needed the contact. John and Ashley glanced at each other as they both took the hand being held out to them by Helen.
"I need to start this tale at the beginning the very beginning." Helen told them. "And If you could both bear with me I'll fill in the gaps." Helen sighed closed her eyes and let herself remember…..
….Helen was in one her most favourite places the library at Oxford University. She loved the smell of the books and being that close to all that knowledge. She also loved flouting the rules of society by being the 1st women to be allowed to attend the revered university. It was the unenlightened age of 1884 and her expected role in life was to marry and become a wife. Helen Magnus had no intention of being anyone's wife. Their was far to many new and exciting things to be learned, do and discover for her to think about such silliness as men. She was she as usual lost in a science text soaking up as much information as she could. She had no concept of time when she picked up a book and hours could pass before she pulled herself away from it and back to the world around her. Today was no different as she had once again spent hours lost in her books. The sun was beginning to set when Helen became aware she was not alone. She was never alone, alone in the library but when Helen was lost in a book the room could be full with people and she would not hear or see any of them. But Helen couldn't seem to concentrate on her book. Something was nagging at her, almost like she could feel a presence - like whoever it was, was touching her. She glanced up to shake off the silly notion and found her eyes caught on a stranger sitting opposite her.
He was looking at her. He was a very handsome man. His black hair was long and he wore it tied back in a pony tail. Her eyes suddenly met his and Helen's breathing suddenly became restricted. She had no idea who this man was but he made her body feel alive in a way she never knew before. The look in his eyes made her want to reach out and run her fingers through his hair. Whoever he was he seemed to be as captivated by her as she was by him. Neither of them seemed able to look away. She suddenly became aware of how tight her stays were and how they were crushing against her breasts. And how the tightness made her breasts tingle with the crushing friction. The sensation making her nipples harden…
"Helen" Helen dragged her gaze and thoughts away from the stranger she was staring at and turned to her attention to her oldest and dearest friend James Watson.
"James" she smiled at him. Trying to school her voice and features into their normal countenance.
"Are you feeling quite well Helen?" James asked concerned. "You appear to be rather flushed?"
Helen felt herself blushing and busied herself gathering her books to hide the fact. She could not help to glance up to see if the handsome stranger she had been staring at her had heard James's remark but the stranger had disappeared. Helen felt herself start to frown. Maybe she had dreamt him up. She shook gave herself a mental shake and turned with a warm smile to her friend.
"I'm fine James. Just day dreaming" she said with a self depreciative grin.
"That's not like you." he replied.
"That's because I've been cooped up in this library all day." she said noticing for the first time the setting sun. Lets go get something to eat." she smiled reassuredly at him.
James seemed to accept her explanation and he didn't mention it again as they set off to find food. Walking beside her James started to tell of some new friends that Nikola Tesla had introduced him too that afternoon.
"Tesla's is bringing them to join us for dinner tonight" James continued. Helen had only been half listening her thoughts still with the stranger in the library, still trying to work out if she had imaged him and the feeling he had invoked in herself.
" That will be nice" Helen mumbled in reply knowing James expected her answer. She continued to let James lead the conversation nodding in the right places as they made their way down to the café just off campus where she James and Nikola had started to take their evening meals.
The bell over the door tinkled as they entered the quiet little café and the three men who had been seated at their usual table stood as Helen and James approached.
And Helen's breath caught in her throat once more as she realised the stranger from the library was one of the two men with Tesla.
Helen had a few moments to compose herself whist James had shook hands with all three men. James then took Helen's arm and pulled her forward.
"Helen Magnus this is Nigel Griffin" said James introducing her to a good looking gentleman about the same height as herself.
"Pleased to meet you Mr Griffin" Helen said a slight challenge in her voice as she held out her hand for Nigel to shake.
Nigel grinned at her and taking her hand, shook it saying "Pleased to meet you too". Helen couldn't help but grin back she was sure she was going to like this man.
"Hello Helen." Nikola Tesla charmingly smiled at her.
"Nikola" she acknowledged the dark haired Serbian.
Then Helen drew in a deep breath as James drew her attention to the last gentleman in their party. "And this Helen is Montague John Druitt" Said James.
He was tall was her first thought. She had not noticed that before as he had been sitting in the library. He had a slim build but he filled the suit he was wearing leaving her in no doubt of a muscled toned body beneath. Helen again felt the need to run her fingers through his hair to see if it was as soft as it looked. He seemed to tower over her and she could feel his nearness and gaze having the same effect on her as it had earlier. He looked down at her and their was curiosity, kindness and respect in his eyes but their was also something else that made her pulse race and her body ache. Helen never one to back away from anything drew in a deep breath and held out her hand daringly "Pleasure to meet you Mr Druitt". Druitt took Helen's hand and spark seemed to pass between them where their fingers touched setting her pulse to race. She could see he felt it too.
"A pleasure to meet you too Ms Magnus" replied John. "Please call me John." The sound of his voice made her shiver.
"John" she smiled at him in reply. The world seemed to shrink to just the two of them and they seemed to be holding hands and looking at each other for a life time but in fact it was just a few seconds before John released her hand. Breaking the hypnotic effect he seemed to have on her. Her hand tingled where their skin had meet and now they were no longer touching it felt like she had lost something.
"Shall we order?" Tesla's question interrupted Helen's thoughts. She dragged her gaze away from John and round to the others. She smiled at them as she sat down grateful for Nikola's need to be the centre off attention as it distracted her and saved her for making a fool of herself by staring at John again. Although she could not resist a glance to watch the way his tall lean body moved gracefully as he and the others sat down.
"Indeed" she replied. "I starving" she said smiling at the four men.
Hiding behind the menu Helen managed to regain her composure and slipped a mask over her features to hide her true thoughts from her fellow diners…
"A mask I was to wear two life times." Helen said. Bringing her mind back from the past to the present to the two people who sat with her in the fire light.
She looked at John. She could see the swirling emotions in his eyes as he too remembered the day they met. Her own cheeks were wet. The tears she had been holding back finally falling without her knowing.
"Are you ok Mom?" her daughter asked.
Helen dragged her gaze from John's to her beloved daughter. "It was two lifetimes ago but it still feels like yesterday." Helen sighed. "I fell in love Ashley" Helen confessed. Desperately trying to control the tears that the pain of the guilty admission had brought on.
"Mom…" Ashley didn't know what to say. She was sure that somehow the John her mother was talking about was the man sitting and griping her mother's other hand as if he was holding on to a life raft. But how could that be if it happened when her mom was back at Oxford? All Ashley knew was that her Mom was in pain so she shifted closer and putting her arms around her.
"Mom its ok you don't have tell me if…."
"No. Its time you knew the truth." Helen was vehement. She looked into Ashley's eyes with a new sense a strength. She couldn't go on hiding the truth and now John was free of his demon their was no reason they both couldn't be told. Once they knew Helen would be free too. Free from the lies. She wiped her eyes and leaned into her daughters hug.
"I fell in love" Helen continued. "It was not what you would call a whirl wind romance." Helen smiled as she looked back. "It was in fact months before either of us voiced the deeper feelings we had for each other. We took things slowly and became the best of friends. So when we finally gave in to our deeper feelings it was like coming home." Helen drew in breath and looked over to John interlocking the fingers of their joint hands. "He was my soul mate." Helen husked.
John squeezed Helen's fingers his eyes never leaving hers. He wanted to take in his arms and show her she was still his soul mate but the presence of Helen's daughter prevented him. Helen's daughter. He dragged his gaze away long enough to look at the beautiful younger version of the women he loved and in the firelight for the first time noticed striking similarities to someone else. But how could that be? He turned back to Helen and opened his mouth to speak.
Helen who had been watching him closely gave a slight shake of her head and although John frowned he remained silent respecting her wishes.
"I was determined back then I was going to be no ones wife but when John asked me to marry him there was only one answer I could give." Helen continued. Dragging her gaze from John to once more look at their child in the firelight."
"You were engaged?" Ashley asked shocked. Her Mom engaged. Ashley could not believe it. Her Mom who relied on no one. Ashley suddenly realised for the first time that her self contained confident no nonsense mother must have led a very lonely life.
Helen had been watching the emotions pass over her daughters face. "Yes. I was amazed too" Helen smiled at her. "But I was happy, settled, our work had come on in leaps and bounds.." Helen paused her smile becoming wistful.
"… it was wonderful whilst it lasted." The mask that she usually wore to world falling over her features to hide her pain.