Webisode based - including a character named Barney, who expired a la Harry Dahglian, only with a radioactive cryptid, not a neutron-reflecting brick and the Demon Core.
Barney also apparently meant something very special to at least one of the Magnus women, if the sight of Ashley crying as she watches a filmed excerpt of him discussing his time at the Sanctuary, and its end, means anything more than Emilie Ullerup is an accomplished actress.
Please note that Helen had not revealed her mother's given name during the webisodes.
No ownership. No profit.
About 21 years before the events of the first webisode of Sanctuary, Dr. Helen Magnus is making a few notes in her journal regarding a certain experiment she has underway.
I have chosen the embryos to be implanted – only two, for two is all I will risk: 14 and 27.
14 is from the third trial, and 27 from the sixth. Both trials include enhanced vigor and healing, per the original, historic specifications, along with the requisites to make my genetic contribution dominant. I have modified both for enhanced neural integration, and hence, durability, heightened intelligence, disease resistance, enhanced senses and reflexes, and enhanced cellular replication. Both embryos are developing well and normally.
Barney has chosen a surrogate mother for the first trial – and enjoyed pretending to be my grandfather in the process to a degree that is nothing less than Freudian, I might add. I shall have to break him of the habit of referring to me as his 'little girl,' no doubt. Or, perhaps, I may be able to deflect that particular pet name onto the child when she is come.
I had determined to call the child Willianna Gregory for John's parents' names, and my own father's name. Barney however, had other ideas, and his unending, and vigorous, protests that such a name would make the child a freak of society in despite of all my hard work to insure her genes shall be normal, have finally prevailed, if for no other reason than that I value some semblance of peace and quiet in my own house.
My own mother's name, Bathsheba, was declared to be even worse than the name I created by blending William and Ann. Though I think it a lovely name, as I always have, my dear Barney declared Bathsheba sounds as if it belongs to 'the ninth wife of Brigham Young's best drinking buddy.' (Which made me realize I had no idea if Brigham Young so much as indulged. Note to self – make preliminary checks into the Mormon gene pool. Something interesting might come of a population which has been self-enclosed in such a manner.)
So, the child, when she comes, shall be called Ashley Ann, for my Father's London home, Ashley Place, and John's mother, Ann. Thank God that this name has, at least, passed muster. Otherwise the child might well have had no name at all until she attained her majority and gave one to herself!
With those tribulations behind us, and, for no other reason than that 14 comes before 27, trial 14 shall be first. The implantation is scheduled for next month, with the resulting child to be born near the new year.
And we will see what we will see.
"So – how're y'comin' with all things superbaby?"
Helen Magnus laughed and shook her head, looking up to Barney with a smile as he limped stiffly across her study, his cane thumping dully on the turkey rugs adorning the floor.
"Hello, Darling. I believe I already regret admitting this project to you," she laughed.
"Now, now. A man always likes to know when his wife's expecting a baby."
Helen shook her head again. "Some things never change, including your sense of humour. How are you today, my dear?"
The old man snorted cheerfully. "Well as can be expected for an old fart!"
"Oh, Barney – "
"Helen, cut it out. Weren't for you, I'd have died a much younger, monster-hunting fart," he said, rolling hazel eyes. "Y'can't fix stupidity, or aging, when they come as original equipment."
"Actually, on the subject of intelligence – " she began, and Barney burst out laughing.
"So superbaby's gonna be way too smart for his or her own good, huh?"
"Well – "
"Or maybe just for yours?" he teased, one brow cocked.
"Her good," Helen declared with a grin, laying down her pen. "And what do you mean by mentioning just my good, Sir? She might well be too smart for your good too, you know."
Barney sighed, looking away across Helen's small study with a shake of his gray head, then dropped his gaze back to her desk as he reached out to fiddle with the armillary sphere on the corner of it.
"Sweetheart, we both know I'll never see this boy or girl – "
"Girl," Helen corrected, automatically.
"Little girl grow up. I'll be lucky to see her grow into double digits."
"Barney – "
He took his hand off the armillary sphere to put a gnarled finger to her lips. "Hush. No lines, not even the polite ones, Helen Victoria. You know it's true."
"I don't have to like it," Helen said, after a long moment of silence. "That I shall lose you."
"And get a child."
"Oh, the devil take it! This is an experiment! One your research and input helped to make possible, Dr. Barnato Gould!" Helen huffed at him. "One that I hope will give you a pet and companion who can abide here with you when I must of necessity be elsewhere. And, if all goes well, the stem cells from this experiment might well provide cures for all sorts of neurological conditions – yes, even aging! Or anti-aging, as – "
This time, Barney clapped his entire age-knotted hand over her mouth.
"Helen! If nothin' else, hearing' you go on like that give me something else to live for! Poor kid'll need someone to treat her like a kid, instead of an experiment."
Helen pushed his hand away, exasperated. "Barney, you know who the father of those embryos is. I dare not think of this as anything more than an experiment. I am about to bring the daughter of Jack the Ripper into the world!"
"Daughter of. Not Montague John Druitt, the monster himself," he said.
Helen shuddered, still holding Barney's age-knotted hand – so that he couldn't clap it over her mouth again.
"He was not entirely a monster," she whispered to her husband, thinking of that night Montague John Druitt had first asked her if she would do him the great honor of attending a concert with him. He'd been so adorably nervous, and so utterly gratified at her affirmative -
Barney cleared his throat and Helen jerked her thought back to the late twentieth century with a start. Barney watched her for a long moment and Helen tried to straighten what she suspected might be an inappropriately dreamy expression.
"Well then, mathematically speaking, his daughter can't even be half a monster, can she?" he finally offered.
Helen rolled her eyes. 'So much for your suspicions that Barney has suspicions regarding your feelings for John,' she thought.
"You do not understand, my dear," she told her husband.
The old man snorted. "Oh, I suspect I understand more than you think, Helen."
Helen blinked, eyes wide hearing him use that word so soon after it had figured prominently in a thought she definitely didn't want him to hear.
Barney shook his head. "More than you think, Helen," he repeated. "Promise me something?"
Helen lifted a brow. "After more than a half century, I have learned to be quite wary of any promises you require, Sir," she said, trying for a light tone.
Barney snorted again. "Oh, no, m'girl. No trying to distract me out of this."
He waved a knotty finger at her, coming around to sit on the corner of her desk before he spoke again.
"Promise me – when your girl comes, you'll make room in the experiment to love the child. Whatever else she'll be, she'll be your own flesh and blood, Helen. And she won't have asked to be born. Promise me, you'll see her for herself, not just as Druitt's daughter."
Helen pulled away from him, walked off across the room, hugging herself. How did one admit to one's husband that one still thought of one's former fiancé – one's mass-murdering, fanatic for mutilation, psychotic, Abnormal fiancé – with a degree of affection that even that husband rarely achieved in one's eyes? Or, that if one ever came to love the child one was engineering as an experiment, it would be because that experiment would be a child of his, and one's own contribution of flesh and blood was immaterial in the face of that emotion –
"Helen?"
"I cannot promise you such a thing, Barney," she said, staring at the Quechuan tapestry on the wall. "I can only promise to try."
"I'll take that."
Barney rose and walked over to her with his stiff, old man's gate, touched her cheek.
"My poor, eternal Helen," he murmured, and drew her into a hug, and, even then, she wondered if he truly had any idea what he was pitying her for…
End Notes:
Yes, I've taken that 1930's wedding photo from the room that Will Zimmerman wakes up in after the Sasquatch kidnaps him, and combined it with Barney's story, and voilá! Not only does the man have an entire name - Dr. Barnato Gould - he's married to Helen Magnus!