Author: Kloperslegend
Pairing: Myka Bering & HG Wells
Rating: PG
Spoiler: Season 2
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, but some days I sure do wish I did.
Summary: Unleashed into the world, the last thing Helena could ever wish for is to be wide awake.
11/15/12
1.
The first thing she felt when the bronze lifted was pain. Her limbs felt asleep thousands of years over, and blood rushing back into your veins after a century-long break is never something non-traumatic on the body. Had gentle hands not wrapped her in a blanket and whisked her forward, she knew she would have collapsed. God, how she wanted to.
"Did you have any trouble?" She could barely register the second voice, a man's voice, as the hands pushed her along.
"No, but I'd recommend a twenty-four isolation from light." The woman who released her. Obviously these people weren't the regents, but she couldn't even garner a hint of a guess of the strangers were. If they were warehouse agents, there wouldn't be the urgent tone lacing their words. Helena put herself on guard.
"…care of it all." The woman said, and she was handed over.
Even through the blanket when she was brought out into the sunlight, exposed to the harsh rays of the world she hoped had gentled, it had hurt. In a way, it was proper. It was fair. Going out, she had caused the death of an agent. Her return ought to be painful. She had been cowardly when asking to be bronzed, and as she caught herself from a stumble – muscles still waking up from a dormancy she thought would never end - she was deeply scared that the rest of the world was going to be just as ruined as the scene before her.
She tried to speak, and, voice unwilling, continued in silence.
It was a horrible way to start a consistently horrible day.
"Come on, friend, you've got a great deal to catch up on. Welcome to the future. Let's change it, shall we?" Those were the first words she heard. The man had announced them after taking her from the first pair of hands and funneling her blanketed body into some sort of automobile. Rushed, he hadn't bothered to mention what sort of world she was being welcomed into.
"Would you like to know what year it is, Miss Wells?" he asked, huffing and puffing as he put himself in driver's seat. Apparently she was so far in the future, people drove on the wrong side of the road. But it was more likely they were in America.
He seemed far too talkative, or perhaps her circumstance had acclimated her into a forced introversion. She shook her head, mind muddled. "Do I want to?" she returned, voicing the only clear thought she had.
"Do you?"
She shook her head again, slowly. "Perhaps… not yet."
The older man nodded his head slowly. "Very well. But know that I've gone through a great deal of trouble to free you, Miss Wells. I've held much anticipation regarding our meeting." Here he grinned, and Helena grimaced. She knew this grin; he wanted something and was going to go to great lengths to achieve it. She steeled herself for what was undoubtedly going to come. Helena took no action for anyone other than herself.
"You see, my dear, I need your help. There's been a terrible mistake. The warehouse has become corrupt. I am trying to correct this disaster before something terrible happens."
Helena processed this in silence. In the bronze she had contemplated her own actions and the response of the warehouse. While she fervently believed the warehouse would have been kinder and wiser to help her with the death of Christina, she couldn't deny or refute the justness – the mercy – of her punishment regarding her resulting foolishness. "What exactly has gone wrong?"
"Oh, you don't want to hear that now. You've just been freed. Wouldn't want that to be your first exposure to this brave new world, now would we?" He chortled a bit, as if laughing at a private joke. "But I think we can help each other, once you've recovered. What they did to you was horrible, horrible. Completely unfair. You see, the warehouse did the same to me, my dear. We are the same."
She flipped the blanket off her head. It had become annoying. "You lost a child?"
"No, but something similar. I used my resources to save a lover, and was punished most viciously."
"You used an artifact, then." She was surprised at the lack of emotion in her voice.
"Yes," he hissed, "and if I hadn't, she would have died."
Helena could understand that. "And now you are after revenge."
"Justice," he corrected.
Helena needed to decide quickly. In the bronze, she had changed. Something had been created: a century of meditation can do that to you. Most of the time – because days were completely immeasurable – she was at peace with Christina, and others… she wondered how any mother wronged could ever feel better. Ever. But if she had learned anything, it was the disasters that can come from rash action without forethought. Her throat tightened at the thought of Wolley, the poor man…"What exactly is your plan, then?"
"I know what you were after when they bronzed you." Helena's eyes widened. In her bouts of insanity before she elected to be bronzed, she had made some terrible mistakes. It had only been cautionary measure, if things became too horrid, if…
"No. That's completely unreasonable. Whatever happened to you could not possibly warrant the use of that."
"The Minoan trident, my dear. You can say it."
Helena internally cursed, hoping he was referring to some other artifact, any other artifact. "You'll kill so many innocent people." She reached for her neck, and her throat clenched. The locket, where was the locket?
"If the warehouse figures out our plan, they can take appropriate measures. Arthur - " He glanced over at Helena, " – your Chaturanga – would never allow humanity to fall in such a fashion. They will be forced to expose themselves and the warehouse. You see, Miss Wells, I'm not trying to destroy the world. I'm trying to save humanity by forcing the warehouse to… share."
She didn't know the man, hell, she didn't know his name, but he felt like the sort who would kill her if she wasn't useful. She could – would – play his game until there was a way out. "Understandable."
"Think, Helena," she jarred slightly at the use of her first name, "Christina need not have died. There might even be an artifact in the warehouse that can bring her back. But you'll never know," the man leaned over to put his lips next to her ear, "unless you look."
Miss Wells did her very best not to be tempted.
They drove for miles in silence.
"It's the year 2010."
Helena startled a little; she had just started falling asleep. And here she was thinking that this was just a dream. She brushed her hair from her face. "Come now, I don't even know your name and you're already expected me to just accept you in the pinch of what's obviously a very important game?" Back on your feet now, Helena old girl, she told herself. "What exactly do you intend to do? Because before I plan on cooperating, I have some demands of my own."
Her company chuckled. "I'm Macpherson. James Macpherson. And the plans will come in l due time, when we're safe and a bit farther from South Dakota."
She nodded and allowed her head to thump against the window. "Seems like you already know who I am, Mr. Macpherson, so I won't bother to introduce myself. And you've said you want the Minoan trident. But I'll say again: I have some demands of my own. You'll get nothing from me until they have been fulfilled."
He considered her comment. "I shall do my best, Miss Wells, but do try to understand. Considering we are akin to international fugitives at this point in time, some things may simply be out of my reach." They passed their fifth car in five hours. It was red. He added, almost as an afterthought, "But you have my word I'll do my best. So what can I do for you?"
"My things – I'm assuming they're in the Escher vault?: I want them. Not all, you understand, but a few choice items I'm afraid I simply can't live without."
"Such as?"
"Such as, the specifics are none of your concern," Helena shot back, "I didn't ask to be debronzed. You could have at least had the decency to take along some of my things."
Macpherson grimaced, and took a deep breath. "I'm afraid, my dear, there was very little time for such things."
"We'll make time, now. Or your plan shan't get off the ground at all."
"Miss Wells… you realize that your things are somewhat… inaccessible?"
She crossed her arms, pulling the blanket around her tighter. "Yes, Macpherson, I'm not a trollop, I understand the implications of the Escher Vault. We'll need the goggles."
"The key to the goggles are with a guardian, and I doubt Mrs. Fredric will be lenient if we borrow them. We'll have to think of another way." They sat in silence, Helena listening to the motor of the automobile rumble beneath her. She refrained from commenting on it, not wanting to seem impressed.
"I'm tempted to suggest my imperceptor vest, but I'm afraid that too would be a waste of our time." Finally becoming somewhat uncomfortable, she her hair out of its bun.
"Ah, yes, I remember reading about that. Wherever did it go?"
"It doesn't matter. It's quite useless. There was never a way to power the vest efficiently, as the amount of energy required is tremendous." She ran her hands through her hair quickly to rid it of any knots.
Macpherson grinned slyly, hands flexing on the steering wheel. "Yes, well. Science has come a long way since your time, Miss Wells, however ingenious you may have been."
Helena prickled as his insinuation, but said nothing. After all, she had no idea who he was or how, if all, he was associated with the warehouse.
"Is that so?" she said, voice still hoarse from disuse. She tried not to sound too incredibly fascinated.
His face split into that same craggled grin, and she suppressed a frown.
"It sounds like we'll be going to Switzerland, then," he said, taking a turn-off as a giant engine roared above them.
Helena immediately decided that she was going to have a love/hate relationship with planes. Theoretically, as James had described it to her, it was quite sound. But the concept of being trapped inside a cylindrical hunk of metal thousands of feet above the air did not appeal to her survival instincts, however sound the theory was.
"Why Switzerland?" she asked, sitting cautiously next to him in the seat on the right. Her eyes roamed around the cabin, innate curiosity always getting the best of her.
"Where did you say the vest was?" he interrupted, touching the back of her hand lightly. She pulled away, pursing her lips.
"I didn't."
"If you think you can manage in this century, I'll send you get it. I would rather not split up, but it will save us time and throw off our pursuers. I'll need to know the location of the vest either way, Miss Wells."
Helena narrowed her eyes shot back, "It's in London. And there, of all places, I'm sure I shall 'manage.'"
He chuckled. She was beginning to dislike this man, despite their similarities. "Very well. We'll fly to London first, where I'll drop you. I will meet you back in London at an address I shall send you using this device." He offered her a small rectangular device. "This, believe it or not, is a phone. Specifically, a cell phone. You could say it's the child of Bell's phone, and Tesla's wireless communications project."
She took it carefully and examined it, taking the back off and examining the battery before flipping it open. "So his project with the American government yielded something, did it?"
Macpherson smiled. "You could say that."
"I'm assuming it works like a sophisticated radio –"
"Indeed. The signal is handed off to different radio towers as you approach the edge of its range; each tower covers a 'cell' of land, hence the term 'cell' phone."
"Ah."
After showing her the basic workings of the phone, he quietly excused himself to the bathroom. Helena rose and walked around the plane, fingers lightly brushing the cabin overheads. This wasn't what she thought the world was going to be like when she woke. It was all so fast here.
Then again, she hadn't thought she would be waking at all.
He dropped her at London. After mulling around town for a while, shocking herself with each new difference, each inconsistency, she stopped at a bar for a drink. Not ladylike, and something she would never do in public in 1890, but warehouse 12 had had given her access to unique experiences.
Both the beer and the nostalgia moved through her like a sickness, nausea included. It was worst after she left the bar and made her way to Church Row, where every street corner and lamp-post reminded her of her sweet Christina. God, Christina. Her throat clenched remembering her daughter and the offer Macpherson had so slyly imparted on what she knew to be a fragile mind. A possibility of getting her back… No. She shook her head, boots clacking on the cobblestone as she forced herself to walk past her old house and return to the hotel Macpherson had provided.
A small suitcase sat on an unruffled bed, full of clothing she would never have imagined to wear. Macpherson had been kind enough to provide her with the essentials of the era, simply because it wouldn't do to 'have her stand out like a sore thumb.' As if she couldn't find a way to blend in herself. It was insulting.
Helena undressed slowly, tossing garments on the bed as she moved to close the curtains. Tomorrow evening she would get her imperceptor vest. She had intended to use today as time to scout out what sort of security her house was being placed under, but that plan had been thrown out the window the instant she set foot on the streets.
"What am I doing here?" Helena didn't even realize she had spoken until nothing but silence greeted her in return. "Bloody well nothing good, that's what I'm doing." She muttered, questioning herself for the thousandth time. She pulled the curtains shut loudly, fabric swinging; a reflection of her indecision.
Rolling into bed, she quietly reviewed the images Macpherson had given her of the warehouse 13 agents. "Peter and Myka," she said aloud, testing the sounds in her mouth. Their names seemed nice enough. Setting them on the bedside table, she wondered briefly if they would shoot her first, or take her for questioning. They certainly didn't seem to like James Macpherson.
It wasn't long until sleep greeted her as glove greets a hand.
I really appreciate critique. Any little bit is helpful! Don't be afraid to be harsh; I want to improve.
While I plan on writing this story for my own pleasure, support will likely result in quicker updates.