AN: The final installment in "Helen Does the Time Warp, Again", this section comes after Long Road Home, Begin Again, Enter Athene, To The Letter, Dog Days are Gone, The Keeper of Death, Hazy Shade of Winter, The Good Fight, Paint It Black, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town and The Last Week. Time Travel! Who knew?
Spoilers: Into the Black
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Among the things I do not own.
Characters: Helen Magnus, Declan MacRae
Summary: For a while, things happen very quickly.
The First Day
For a while, things happen very quickly.
She loses track of the days. She's meant to keep a record, to really experience and enjoy that first day back, but it happens in fire and blood and negotiations, and she simply doesn't have the time. To be honest, it's something of a relief.
She wins, in the end. It costs a lot; her Old Friend won't be out of the infirmary for a week and Henry is going to have to rebuild most of their security systems from scratch. She hasn't heard from John. She's not sure how she feels about that, but there is so much else happening that she barely has time to notice. She's learned to be patient, even if it took her a long time.
Kate is able to broker a deal with the Hollow Earth abnormals and Helen is able to strong-arm her surface allies into accepting it. For a moment, right before the accords are signed, she has genuine doubts, but she's simply had too long to plan, too long to set the pieces on the board, too long for anyone to stop her.
At the end of the week, she looks around and realizes that she is home, that she is Helen Magnus once more, that she no longer has to play a part or hide in the shadows.
She books a flight to London. She needs to see it, to make sure that it worked out as well over there as it did here. She hasn't been back to Europe since World War II, and even though she calls Old City home, she misses it. She tells Will that she's just going to make sure that her allies in British Intelligence are onside, and if he guesses that Declan's contacts surpass hers and she's just making excuses, he says nothing.
It isn't until she's sitting in James's sitting room, Declan's now, but once upon a time her father's, that it all sinks in.
Declan doesn't say anything. He pours tea and waits. He is usually so unlike James that it always surprises her when he acts like James used to. He hands her a brandy when she doesn't touch her tea, and Helen is thrown back into memories she's now lived twice over. She downs the drink in a single gulp.
"You know," she says, fixing him with the gaze that usually breaks even the most hardened of individuals.
"I've guessed, is more like it," he replies. "There are a lot of things I don't know."
"James didn't tell you?" she asks. James had never given any indication that he had known, any more than Nigel had, but it would not surprise her to learn that her old friend had been unable to keep the secret from Declan.
"Not exactly," he laughs. "After he died, I found notes all over the Sanctuary. Instructions, notations, letters - some quite personal - and I thought they were just things he'd tucked away."
"What clued you in?"
"I'm the only one that ever found them," he explains. "Months and months of notes, and the only person to find them was me. So I thought he must have done it on purpose. Not randomly at all. The day you left, I figured it out. I went looking in his pipe box, and there it was."
"What did he say?" She stares at the fire and drinks her tea. The room doesn't smell like James anymore, but there's something of him here. She understands why Declan hasn't redecorated, and is glad of it.
"That we shouldn't panic," he says, smiling. "That you'd be back."
"Oh, James," she sighs. She's not talking to Declan anymore, but she doesn't really care that he can hear her. "You are too clever."
"He didn't tell me who you were, though," Declan adds. "I got that one all on my own."
"I'm not sure if I'm ever going to get over that," Helen says. "Being her, I mean. Being her and keeping everything to myself."
"You know, you did hire a psychiatrist for days like this," Declan says.
"Will still hasn't forgiven me for letting his mother die the first time," Helen replies. "How can I tell him I did it again?"
"The Keeper of Death was important," Declan points out. "Abnormals have had stories about her for decades. She can't just die."
"She didn't die, Declan," Helen says.
For the first time, she can see everything clearly in her head, the beginning, the end, the middle she's now lived twice. For the first time since 1898 she is alone, living her life with no guardian but those she can see and touch. There is no shadow, no reason for it any more. Praxis is fallen and the last of the vampires have been sealed beneath the earth. Her path has led her out of the forest again, and the sun is shining.
"She didn't die," Helen says again, and feels the truth of it in her bones. "The Keeper of Death cannot die. She's just gone back to living."
"I think I'll need another brandy before I can understand that," Declan says ruefully. "Unless you'd fancy the whiskey? I try to keep track of the good stuff, but God knows James had his own filing system, even in the cellars."
"Whiskey would be lovely," Helen says. "And we can talk about all the abnormals I made contact with before I came back that might be more open to the Sanctuary now."
"Helen Magnus," Declan says, pouring from the side-board. "Only you would use your second life to make the first one stay exactly the same."
"Thank goodness for that," Helen says. "I don't think a world in Adam Worth's image would be much fun at all."
"Was there nothing?" he asks. "Ever?"
"Of course there was," she says. The words choke her, but the whiskey burns them out. "But I don't think the world in my image would be much better than Worth's, so I let it happen again. All of it. Who am I to judge?"
"I'm glad it wasn't me," Declan says.
He raises his glass to her, and then empties it. The tea cups sit, forgotten, on the table between them and Declan pours another round.
"There's a parliament of owlmen in Cornwall, did you know?" she asks.
"Yes, there's been spotty reports since the 70s," Declan replies. "But we've never managed to locate them."
"The current Matriarch of the parliament is the granddaughter of one of the founding members of court of the Keeper of Death," Helen says with a smile. "The court was a nuisance most of the time, I'll admit, but it has paid off once or twice over the years. I think you can safely send envoys now. They'll be accepted."
"I'll draw up a mission plan in the morning," Declan says. Helen is still on Old City time and he knows that he's probably not going to get much sleep tonight while she catches him up on everything she's done.
"Excellent, while you're down that way you can look in on the piskies colonies. There even more difficult to track, but not impossible any more," Helen says.
Declan sets his glass down and reaches for a map.
finis
Notes: And that's it for Helen Does the Time Warp, Again! Thank you so much for reading along with me. Bring on season four!
Gravity_Not_Included, October 3, 2011