Adriaallen thank you for being an awesome beta reader. Unfortunately only the mistakes are mine, hope you enjoy though.
Sanctuary for Now
Helen was pacing the length of the room. With nothing to do for the time being; and confined to her room for another few days for the risk of interfering, made her feel on edge. She'd always had trouble with doing nothing and it was no different this time. If she was honest, this time it actually might be worse. Forcing herself to stop pacing, sit down on a chair and read a book. A few minutes later she had to admit that she was just pretending to read, she had mainly been staring out of the large windows in front of which her chair was located.
From the room she had a perfect view of the river separating the old part of the city from the newer area where she was currently trapped in her hotel room. Looked to the far right she could see the Sanctuary on the opposite side of the river. She wished that she was already back there; missing the place immensely, as well as the people who were still there. Although she expected it to be a little awkward at first, she would have to get used to them; the place and the work again. After spending so many years on a different aspect of the work with abnormals it would take some getting used to, returning to what she did before.
Over the past century she had done everything possible to refine her plans and back up plans for the coming time. To make sure every possible scenario was predicted and prepared for. Though the end result was for almost all cases the same, the road there deferred depending of the actions of the other actors. She hoped that it did indeed have everything covered and though it was impossible to be better prepared for her insane plan than she was, she still worried if it would succeed as she had planned, or if it would become the disaster she feared. The only thing making her go through with it was the knowledge that not going through with it was not an option; that would end worse than if she failed to execute her plan.
~`*~*Sanctuary*~*
The surprise on their faces when they found her sitting inside the Sanctuary after they thought her missing or dead had been amusing; she was sure that had Nikola been present at that moment they would never lived it down. Even though seeing everyone initially had been a joyful reunion it had been hard to go back to how it was before being sent back in time. Especially since she could not tell any of them what she planned to do. Because it was such a joy seeing everyone again, putting distance between herself and the others was harder than she had anticipated it to be. Distancing from Kate had been the easiest since she was literally at a distance in Praxis, with very few ways to communicate.
Pulling away from Henry had been very hard, for one he was like a surrogate son to her, and secondly; it was intensified when Erika's pregnancy had been discovered. She had felt like she needed to be there for him, helping him to deal with the complications of the pregnancy; no matter how odd it felt for her to become a surrogate grandmother. Luckily for her the distance she had to put between the two of them had not been as big as the one between Will and her.
Somehow even though it was hard to put a distance between them because she knew it hurt both of them, it had been much easier with Will. Since coming back he did not seem to trust her or her judgement any longer. More than ever when Abby had been taken over and turned into a singing creature, he had not trust her medical opinion nor did he think she had Abby's life as her best interest. Additionally in the caves he had clearly indicated this once more to her and had hurt her with some truly low blows regarding her past. She knew that in both cases his worry about the situation and his withdrawal during the second incident had been the real cause of the cruel words he had said. However he did believe it to some extent, or he would not have said anything. The way he hurt and distrusted her had made it easier to create space between them, which had been her intent during the final stage of her plan. Though she had to admit that even though it had been necessary it was not something she was proud of, or would like to do again if it could be prevented.
Nikola had made it simple for her him being a part of SCIU had made it very easy to pretend it had bothered her more than it actually did. Even if she hated him for being part of that horrible organization; she had not been too concerned about it. Nikola had always been bad in picking his allies, and had been a bit to driven by power and material maters. She had known if things progressed the way she predicted, he would walk straight back to her. It was the good thing about having known him for so long and seeing him do the same things before; it made it harder though, to feign her hatred for what he did, though her annoyance had been real. She couldn't believe he had fallen for that yet again. 'Really, Nikola?' By the time they encountered the Praxian nanite it had been very hard to keep up the appearance and she was sure he had seen through it, luckily it was not long after that he finally figured it out himself and came back to the Sanctuary.
Still all of them made it relatively easy to let her put them in the ideal place for her plan. All except her old friend or "The Big Guy" as the others call him, he made it difficult. By the time she convinced him to tell her what was going on; she'd had to adjust some important parts of her plan. It made her doubt again if what she was planning was the right thing to do, if the consequences were worth it, if they could handle the losses and if it would work.
She knew that for it to go as hoped a lot of luck was needed but also knew that she could not do anything since the world was not ready to know the full truth. However, by now she sometimes wondered if the world would ever be ready for her world, if had proven to be harder and harder to keep it a secret over the past few decades. On the other hand she had occasionally consulted James about the plan since he already knew about her time travel, and he had agreed with her it was the best possible action they could take under the circumstances.
~`*~*Sanctuary*~*
Sitting in her private part of the garden-like surrounding of their new home she wondered; had it been worth it? It was a loaded question to ask herself. The new place was beautiful and had almost everything they could ask for, but it was not truly home. Not without the loved ones that were not present and with no memories of things that happened here. She knew the last one was a matter of time and for the first one, she sighed, that the pain would become less as those new memories were made. Memories like their faces when they saw the new place, especially Will's, who only saw it after a few weeks.
Going underground had made the Sanctuary less dependent on governments and other players on the political playground; however it also made it harder to get around on the surface since there was no support from those authorities anymore. They now had to watch their backs carefully to not be discovered and hunted down.
Furthermore the losses they had suffered had been tough; to find her old friend in front of the gate like that was something she could not help but be enraged and sad about when she thought of it. She knew that she was not the only one having trouble dealing with that, Kate had a hard time accepting that saving her life was something he had wanted to do and that the outcome had not been her fault.
Blowing up and burning down the place that had been her home for decades was still something that she struggled with. Not only had it been one of the few places she had ever truly felt at home, her safe haven for so many years, it as well held a lot of memories both good and bad memories, but above all memories of Ashley. Though, prepared for the outcome she had been able to transfer her most valuable items to the new Sanctuary, though had not been able to take everything. She could not walk down the hall and see the vase that her old friend had glued together after Ashley had been trying her new role skates in the hall when she was six. Or walk past the place where Ashley had drawn on the wall when she was eight.
Of all the places she had lived over the course of her long life it had been the place she had truly felt at home. But in every battle there were victims and sacrifices and in the end the only thing they could be glad for was that there had been so few on their side and honour the ones that did not make it. All in all she was glad it was over for now, welcoming the few moments of peace they were offered.
The uncertainties for the future were great and she was sure that the next battle they had to fight would be long and tough. She hoped by then they would be ready to face what would be thrown at them. Helen wished that in a few years the world wake up and be ready to face the truth gracefully instead with nuclear warheads and violence or solemnly scientific interest. Besides the acceptance of their existence she also wanted the abnormals to be accepted as beings. Not as lab rats to satisfy human curiosity to use them as guinea pigs.
The world still had a long road ahead. Which meant her work was not done, and they would have to hold their stand and wait for it to be ready or for the truth to come out. Either way their work was not done, and the only thing they could do was try their best and hope everything would work out.
She heard two heated voices arguing in the distance. When they came closer to where she sat she heard Kate and Will arguing over the treatment of one of her patients. She stopped pulling on the grass she had been sitting on, stood up, straightened her skirt and started walking towards them. Though not able to predict the future, she could make sure the two of them did not kill each other or her patient. There was always work to do.