Summary: Chase Magnus must travel back to the Sanctuary and to the news that her sister, Ashley, was taken by the Cabal. Reuniting with her family, Chase is about to face her demons… in more ways than one. A/U

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sanctuary; I'm just a story teller.

Pairing: This will be a John/Helen story….later down the road.

CABAL LAB:

8 WEEKS AGO

Blood covered her hands and death clouded the air. So many were dead in her attempt to escape, she had to kill them. They would never have let her go otherwise. So now they were dead, and that suited her just fine. The beast in her roared in triumph, but it was a victory that would be short lived. She could hear more boot clomps which meant more guards, more guards with guns or tasers. Sinking into the shadows she waited for them like a Tiger waits for its prey in the jungle. She allowed the shadows to pull her in hiding her from direct sight.

"Fan out and capture the girl alive. We need her to complete our work for the next stage."

Chase knew that voice. It belonged to the scientist responsible for her torture and her attempted brainwash. They had made her into something other than the abnormal she had been born, and that would be their death. Chase stilled her body, waiting, anticipating her next move. They wanted to create a mindless killer, but they failed with Chase, though she was going to kill them, and she would revel in their blood. Extending her claws Chase struck out. She hit flesh and felt bone, blood, warm and res, flowed over her hand, gushed down her wrist and dripped on the floor. The woman crumpled to the floor. A wicked smile graced Chase's lips. The scientist was bleeding heavily from her right leg, with any luck she would never walk right again. Hauling her up by her neck Chase started to move through the guards. She didn't fear their guns, she had no reason to, and if she wanted to she could be over to each one of them before they knew what happened. They wanted her alive to experiment on.

"Move out of the way or I will kill her!" Chase roared her voice more animalistic than human.

Like good little boys they moved out of the way and Chase was careful to keep the scientist between her and a free shot. She wanted to be free, she wanted her jungle, and the blood she had shed would buy her freedom, or her death would, whichever came first. The door was only a few more steps away, once she was through Chase would run.

"You won't make it out of here alive!" One of the guards shouted. Chase only laughed an evil malicious sound that had the scientist in her grasp shivering, fear coming off her in waves. She knew the odds of her escape, and more people would die in her attempt. Feeling with the bottom of her foot, Chase encountered the door; freedom would be on the other side. Pushing it open and shoving the scientist at the same time, Chase was through the door and sprinting towards daylight. A guard charged from a side hallway. Chase couched and sprang, a vicious roar echoing from her throat as she landed on the man with her teeth sinking into his carotid artery. Blood dripped down her chin even as the guard bled to death. Chase reveled in his death and the taste of blood. Now she was more animal than human.

"There will be quite enough of that young lady."

Chase turned and saw a tall lanky man with a bald head. He held out his hand to her and she backed away. There was something about him that smelled familiar but she couldn't place him, couldn't place his scent. Chase crouched, intent to spring and attack, but he disappeared and materialized behind her wrapping his arm around her neck and the other around her waist just as more guards spilled into the hall. The last thing Chase saw was the flash of fire and the sound of guns being fired. Then she appeared in an apartment with the moon shining bright out of a huge bay window…

Chase came out of her memories and bolted off of the gurney in the infirmary. She put her back to the wall sinking down to the floor, pillowing her head on her knees shaking. It was the first time in eight weeks she had dreamed of what she had done to those people. During her waking hours she had tried to recall exactly what had happened, but she came up empty, a blank. It was as if the animal in her didn't want her to remember, didn't want her to become scarred. But in the dream the action was play by play in vivid clarity that Chase felt shame coil through her, she thought she might even vomit from the shear violence she had inflicted. Blood had even painted the walls in the lab, she was sure that it coated her from head to toe. And shortly after that her father had taken her to a dive in some small town where he explained who he was and why he had come for her. He had stayed with her for two weeks helping her, trying to get her to work through her inner demons, then one day he was gone. After she got that call from her mother about coming home, Chase knew her father had left to help save Ashley, but the fight hadn't gone so well.

"Chase?" Chase looked up at her mother when Helen sank down to her knees in front of her daughter.

"It's nothing, just being haunted by my escape." Chase took deep breaths and tried to calm her racing heart. Blood rushed through her veins and pounded in her ears.

"I know it's not the right time, but I need you to allow me to do this. If we could find a way to help…"

"Ok."

"What?"

"I said ok. Do what you need to… but don't sedate me, please. I can't take seeing that place again."

"You're not even going to ask what it is that I want to do to you." Helen asked.

"If it means helping Ashley, then do what you need to do."

"It will hurt, and I don't want to see you in pain." Helen reached her hand out and touched Chase's cheek lightly.

"I can take it, but the sedation makes it worse. My beast fights to keep me awake." Chase sucked in a breath again. Her nerves were shaking and her heart was pounding faster and faster. She could still feel the blood coating her hands and the blood running down her chin. If her mother had had to see her like that, then Chase would have never come home.

"We'll start tomorrow morning." Helen gently rubbed her daughters shoulder before she stood.

"No the sooner the better."

"There is no rush. Take time to recover from the nightmares." John moved next to Helen, but kept his eyes on Chase.

"If I wait much longer then I'll change my mind. Just give me a few minutes…" Chase dropped her head to rest against her knees again.

"Take a couple of hours and rest." John offered his hand and slowly Chase took it. She didn't want to think about it, she wanted to get it over with

"Dad, I…"

"Take the couple of hours. The offer is not going to expire." John pulled Chase to her feet and made sure she left the infirmary.

"She's more your daughter than she is mine." Helen didn't miss the paternal note John put into his voice. Something had changed him; something he had seen in Chase had changed him more than Helen was willing to admit.

"I've seen the worst of her."

"What did you see John?"

John took a deep breath, remembering the way she had looked bathed in blood. She had looked like the soulless killer he had once been. Brutal savagery lighting her eyes, a wicked grin painting her lips, and the lust for more blood shed. John knew the addiction very well back when he had been the Ripper. It brought back unpleasant memories from the past and present. John put his hand on Helen's back, taking them to her office. When they got there he shut the door and paced in front of the fireplace, each step measured, taking care to put his words in order before he told her what he had seen.

Pacing was doing John no good; he stopped in the center, bracing his hands on the carved wood. John bowed his head and took a deep breath. He knew he needed to tell her, but he was worried about how she would react. The words had to be precise, had to be able to convey what he had seen and still not paint Chase in a bad, uncontrolled light. John didn't want Helen to think that chase had turned into him when he was in the grips of his madness.

"If you are going to tell me, then, John, tell me."

"When I found her they had… they had brought out the inner beast in her, you would not have recognized her, and the mind of the animal had its foot hold on her. She was bathed in blood, the blood of the scientists who had experimented on her and she was poised for more carnage. If I hadn't gotten her out when I did, she would either be dead or her soul be would've been tainted beyond repair. When I got her to safety she coward in a corner for two days before hunger and thirst drove her out. Over and over she would say, 'No more, no more' I couldn't…" John's voice was low and full of pain as he trailed off, in his mind he could once again see her in the corner refusing to clean the blood off as it dried. John was finding it hard to finish telling Helen how broken their child had become. He had to see his daughter covered in blood and ready to shed more. It brought back too many of his own demons, brought back a time when he had lusted after the smell of blood, the thrill of the hunt and capture, and he had wanted to shed more. Maybe Helen was right, how easy it would be for him to slip back into being Jack the Ripper, but he had one thing to keep him ground, well other than Helen and the chance they could be more once again, but he had Chase and the need to help her through her own rage.

Helen listened and heard the note of sorrow ring in John's voice. She could image the devastation Chase could have wrought during her escape. It was no more than anyone else was capable of, but more so because she was an abnormal, a very strong abnormal who had teetered on the edge of insanity all her life. Before Helen could stop herself she took one step towards John and where he stood at the fireplace in her office. She wanted to reach out her hand and lay it gently on his shoulder, she wanted to offer some sort of comfort the way he had done to her. Chase was his daughter as well; he must have been tortured to see her, a mere image of himself when he was the Ripper. Helen clenched her fist and commanded her body to remain still. Her body still ached for his, still wished to feel his skin glide against hers. At nights unbidden her mind would conjure his hands soothing her hurt, taking away her lonely self imposed cage.

John had felt and heard Helen take that tentative step towards him. His heart lightened a little but then she had stopped. He had told her an awful truth about their daughter and he waited for her reaction. When he felt neither rage nor pain flow from her; he turned to her. She was just staring at him. John could clearly see her thinking, measuring what she should say next. He wanted to reassure her that Chase was fine, that her rage no longer plagued her, but he was sure that Helen would believe that just as she believed that he, himself, was cured.

"How could you save her?" It was a simple question. No recriminations, no judgment, and no change in tone. But it had John's anger rising.

"How can you ask me that?" John bit out, quickly pulling back his anger and making his tone neutral.

"How?"

"I could say it was because my paternal instincts kicked in. But that would taste a lie to tell you that. So, I will simply tell you that I couldn't bear to see her at the hands of the Cabal. She is my blood and I will do what I need to, to protect her" John answered and gripped the fireplace. His knuckles turned white from the shear amount of strength he was using to keep from going to Helen and tell her what she wanted to hear. In the weeks he had been guarding his younger child John had learned what it was to be a parent, and to be even more scarred that the Cabal would find Chase and return her to torture and experimentation. She had made his life much more able to bear. Chase didn't blame him for the lives he took, she told him that his madness had driven him and he couldn't control it. That was enough for him, it was enough that Chase was the only one who didn't blame, even when the world did, but that world was Helen Magnus. After all these years, what she thought of him still mattered a great deal. He was about to leave when her gentle hand touched his shoulder. For a moment John doubted she had touched him, but when more of her came into contact with him John turned. Helen had tears in her eyes and the hand that touched his shoulder was shaking. He drew her into the shelter of his arms, this time she went willingly, John whispered, "We'll rescue Ashley, and we'll save Chase."

CHASE'S QUARTERS:

The night was warm, the moon shining bright, with only a lament sung by crickets. Chase couldn't resist going out on her balcony to watch the stars. Her father had told her to take a couple of hours and so she would because he had told her. It was too late for him to be her father, but still he was just that; her father. 'He saved you, made you whole again.' A voice whispered in the back of her mind. It was true he had saved her and he had mended her broken soul, well as mended as she would allow him to make it. Chase had nearly clawed him to death the first time he tried to get her out of the corner. Three days later he turned on the radio and offered his hand. She had kept her hands close to her; pure instinct had her marginally reach out her hand. It was John who had leaned forward and gently grasped her hand, pulling her to her feet and taking a wet cloth he took the blood off her face. She could remember one hand clenched in his and the other gripping his shirt for dear life. Chase had come back into herself with that small act and had enough sense of self to ask for a shower.

She shook her head and fought back the memories. Placing her hands on the banister Chase situated her self and gently lowered down until she had her head pillowed on her arms and she was staring up at the moon and stars. The moon light cascaded over her and recharged her. Things were so simple in the dark. Creek! Chase tensed when she heard the sound, but the subtle scent carried to her told her it was Will. He was passing by her door, but stopped and stepped over the threshold.

"You can come in Will!" Chase shouted from the balcony, turning her head to smile a wicked smile at him.

He walked out on to the balcony with a file in his hand as she said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you but…"

"I look like a crazy person lying on this railing right?" Chase asked, amusement lacing her words.

"Sort of, yeah." Will responded and took another step out. He marveled at the clear night and the warm air.

"I like to lay out here, always have, even when I was seven years old. Sometimes I would even fall asleep and wake when the sun rose." Chase commented and added a wicked chuckle.

Will had heard that same sound emanate from Druitt on occasion. It freaked him out then and it freaked him out coming from Chase. He looked down at the file he carried and read the name: Chase Magnus. The file had been in some affects James Watson had left him after his death. After the sudden meeting with Chase earlier he thought he might look through some of the files, and he had found Chase's. Will hadn't had the nerve to open it and see what James had said about her.

"Is there something you wanted, Doctor Zimmerman?"

"I just wanted to talk."

"So ask a question."

Will forced a chuckle, "Ok, most obvious one would be, why are you laying on a railing in the middle of the night?"

"Because I like the night, she is my mother, my protector, my camouflage. I blend in and hunt my prey until I can strike. This gives me comfort, always had, and it always will."

"You sound like Druitt," Will muttered.

"Well he is my father; half of my genes come from him. I've had to settle that account and it no longer bothers me. He is my father and I am his daughter; the daughter of the Ripper."

"That's creepy. Doesn't it bother you that your father was the Ripper?"

"No, that was the past. He is no longer that man due to Tesla and the burden of his conscience's reemergence. The era of the Ripper is long dead but for those who remember it, and they are three of the five. I hold no opinion of what he did then, I wasn't around."

"But doesn't it make you angry?"

"No, why should it?"

"He was the Ripper."

"How can I blame him for something he had no control over?"

"You can't." Will heaved a sigh and conceded the point.

"No I can't, because I am a cursed creature just as he is. Blood stains my hands and buries my soul. I would be in the wrong to blame him." Chase turned and got up off the railing to stand before Will. It as the first time she had spoken in such macabre ways. Maybe it was the night affecting her mind of merely being around her father and to colorful way he spoke.

"But…"

"Will, I am his daughter and I am the only one who loves him right now. He needs me just as I need him." Chase placed her hand on Will's shoulder and offered him a sad smile before she left him to think. The night would allow him to do that and she would wonder around remembering things from her past. A foot out of her door, she saw her father leaning against the wall. He had his arms crossed and his head bowed but Chase knew he had heard every word of her conversation with Will. Rather than talk to him she pulled out her iPod and placed the ear buds in her ear. Turning up the music she listened to the song NOT MEANT TO BE by Theory of a Dead Man. Still he wouldn't let her get away that easy. Druitt fell into step beside her and waited. For the first minute she tried to ignore him, but him being there overwhelmed her and she yanked out the head phones.

"What?!"

"Those were very nice things you said about me." He had a hint of laughter in his voice.

Chase scoffed and headed down the corridor but turned back, "They are all true."

"Don't tell your mother."

"Coward."

"Chase." John stretched his daughter's name and she leaned away from him.

HENRY'S LAB:

Henry heard Chase coming, he could smell her, and he could feel her. She was just there in his senses and he wanted to keep her close. He wanted to keep what was left of his family intact. Chase had always been closer to him than Ashley. That was probably sue to the fact that she was something close to what he was. "Hey Henry, are you doing anything important?" Chase asked when she rounded the corner. Henry had been working on a way to neutralize Ashley and about to head to Tesla's lab but he could afford to give Chase a few minutes, anything to keep him away from Tesla just a while longer.

"Sure, for you." Henry smiled as he picked up his tablet.

"You wanna go lay down in front of the fire with me?" Chase leaned against the wall, crossing her arms.

"You're serious?"

"Yeah, unless you're busy, I don't want to get you into any trouble."

"No, no, no, for you I can spare anything." Henry thought quickly. Tesla would be fine without him for about an hour and an hour is what he would give Chase. When they had been younger he and Chase had loved to nap in front of the fireplace after playing in the snow all day. It was one of the things he had missed when Chase had left in the middle of the night. Sure he had gotten a spare word form her every now and then, but for her to leave in the middle of the night, that was a hurt Henry would talk to her about, sooner or later.

Henry walked over to her and took her hand, giving her a gentle tug to follow him another way out of his lab. They would pass a few of the cells but they would get to their favorite fireplace faster. Momentarily Henry forgot about one of the cells they would pass until Chase stopped and stared at the glass. She dropped his hand and went over to look at the Big Guy curled up on the floor of his cell. He could smell hurt, and sadness roll off her, it was no more than Henry would feel when he looked at the Big Guy. Chase put her hand flat on the glass and waited. From her reflection Henry could see tears, tears he wanted to wipe away.

"What happened to him?"

"He was infected with this virus the Cabal created."

As if sensing them the Big Guy got up and staggered. He looked at Chase and felt some of his pain vanish, but it was only the pain in his heart that had lightened at seeing the youngest return home. He moved slowly over and placed his hand over his, flat on the glass, looking at her. She had tears in her eyes over him.

"I'm sorry." Chase whispered.

"It is good to see you home." He grunted and tilted his head.

Chase turned and looked at Henry, "Why is he still like this, isn't there a cure?"

"There is a cure and he won't take it."

She turned back and leaned her head close to the glass.

"I live the way my people live."

"Stubborn." Chase whispered but gave him a weak smile. He was right, and he lived the way of his people even though he never went back to them. Chase jumped back quickly when his hand impacted the glass. He went from docile to violent in the span of a second. For the first time since she knew his, Chase was scarred of him and what he could do should he ever get out.

"Leave now." He growled and Chase backed further away taking Henry's hand again. He pulled her away from the cell and they took the steps two at a time to get to the main level. All thoughts of curling in front of a fire flew out of her mind.

"Come on. I know what you need." Henry didn't wait for Chase's response, gripping her hand tighter he ran down the hall. Racing around corners and sprinting down halls, Henry ended up at the doors to the garden.

"Henry, I don't…." Her voice trailed off when she stepped outside. The moon was lower; its light seemed to dance over every flower and vine. She couldn't resist, Chase let go of Henry's hand and ran through the maze of flowers.

Everything was so alive at night, her eyes wondered over every flower, they seemed to glow with their own inner light, and it made them look like Technicolor. Chase had always had sharp eyes at night, but after her recent stint with the Cabal everything had new life in her eyes. Even looking at Henry in the dead of night, he glowed as well. It was almost as if Chase was seeing things in terms of heat.

"Glad I brought you out here?"

"Yes," Chase rasped out and stepped closer to Henry where he slid his arms around her, pulling her body close to his, and leaning his forehead to her.

"There was something I was going to say, but it flew right out of my head seeing you like this."

"Henry, if you want kiss me, go a head. Cause want you to." Chase whispered tilting her head to the side. As a young teen she had always had a crush on Henry, but her leaving had prevented her from telling him. She didn't want to inadvertently hurt him. The rage that had once fueled her father had just begun to boil through her system, making her irrational and quick to anger.

Henry angled his head and lightly placed his lips to her, feeling the softness, and wanting more. Applying more pressure he ran his tongue over the crease of her lips, seeking entrance, begging for more of her taste. She grinned into his kiss before opening her lips, her tongue darting out to dance with his. The taste of wolf and feline mixing into a heady concoction was enough to cloud the mind and dampen the senses to all other sounds in the garden.

They pulled apart and merely smiled. The night was so peaceful, stars twinkling in the sky, and the moon providing the light. Chase looked up at the moon, it blazed as bright as the sun, but not as bright as the smile she wore from Henry.

"We should head inside."

"No, I have a little while before I have to go down to the la, I want to enjoy it, with you if you have time?"

"Anything for you."

"I'm really glad I cam home Henry," Chase placed her hand in Henry's, intertwining their fingers and taking them further into the darkness with only the moon and stars as light.