Last edited on Jan. 14, 2013.

Disclaimer: Nope, I am not affiliated with the television show Sanctuary.

Will and Helen were walking down a hallway in her Sanctuary.

"I went through the files on Addison's team," Will gestured to the files in his hand, "A lot of Ivy League educations, state department résumés, no marriages or kids."

Helen rolled her eyes. "Orphans preferred, lovely." Will handed her the files. "What do we know about this Addison fellow himself?" She opened the file and was greeted with a picture of a bald, pale man with moderately hard features, his mouth pressed in a firm line with just a hint of a smirk. It looked as if he had to be expressionless for the formal picture, but normally the man smirked more than anything else. Upon seeing this face, Helen took it as more proof that this Gregory Addison would be just as difficult to deal with as Lillian Lee and General Villanova, perhaps more so. It seemed ironic and insulting that this man shared her father's first name.

Will continued. "He's the U.N. Security Council's top troubleshooter: Harvard Law, Brookings Institute, the Hague. He's advised world leaders on everything from Iraq, to Libya, to the B.P. Oil spill in the Gulf."

At this, Helen was genuinely impressed. "Wow, now he's here to deal with us."

Will nodded. "If he wasn't such a pit bull, I'd be flattered." Helen agreed.

Nothing more was said en route to the main foyer as Helen pretended to peruse the rest of the file while her mind drifted. After almost zero contact with the world of the Sanctuary Network for over a hundred years, she was still readjusting to her old life as its leader. Regardless, she was glad to be home. She had gone through a few bouts of depression during her one-hundred-thirteen years of sabbatical: first in response to seeing the 1898-Adam's heart break over losing his sweet daughter Imogene, combined with the reminders of how her heart had been shoved into a paper-shredder because of John and the Ripper case. Then once again when she had to prevent herself from drastically affecting the events of various blights in history, such as the world wars and the Lazarus epidemic; yes, the past century had indeed been a long one.

Helen shook her mind back into the present. She needed to stay focused. Addison and his team would be at her Sanctuary in an hour, and she had to be ready to face his power-play mindset. Her old friend and butler did some last-minute tidying and security checks while Henry prepped the computer network. Helen and Will had spent the past few hours finalizing her master plan for Addison's visit. The fate of the Sanctuary Network hung in the balance today, and whether it came out on top afterwards depended on this exchange with the UN Security Council.

Henry, Will, Helen and her old friend met in the front room. They began with Henry's progress report: "The terminal farm's up and running in the research lab. Are you sure you want me to give these guys complete access to our current protocols?"

"Bunch of strangers poking around; I don't like it," her old friend interjected.

Will held up his hands. "Nobody does, but it's not like we have a choice."

Henry asked, "What about the 'tea with Magnus, photo-op with a mermaid' option?"

"That ain't gonna fly this time."

Helen stepped into the conversation, "Everything's changed since the Calderas to Hollow Earth were breached. High-level people need reassurance that the situation is under control." She turned to Henry. "You've secured the research database?"

"Done. Current security and user activity are open access. The rest is behind an invisible firewall. And I'll be monitoring their traffic full-time, so we'll know right away if they try anything off the hook."

Next she asked her old friend, "All secure on the residential levels? No stragglers?"

"Tight as a drum," he replied, "Total lockdown in 40 minutes."

Helen made eye contact with each of them. "Good job, everyone. Right, one more walkthrough and we'll reconvene here at—"

They were surprised to hear the doorbell. Helen turned to face the door.

Will mimicked her. "What? An hour ahead of schedule?"

Henry checked the PC Tablet in his hand. "No, there's no way. Gate defenses are up. There is no way he just walked to that front door." He brought up a window on the screen. "Yeah, see? Gate was opened with an approved code…mine..."

Will was a bit peeved. "…Well who'd you give it to?"

"No one!"

The doorbell sounded again.

"…to the best of my knowledge."

Helen signaled them to follow her to the door. Her old friend cautiously opened it.

Standing there were the two people they last expected to see, especially together. It was none other than Henry's girlfriend Erika and Nikola Tesla.