1900
With James secretly by her side, Helen took the advice he first gave to her back in 1898 to heart; to sit back and reevaluate her position. It granted her the unique opportunity to see where she had been initially short sighted in her life the first go-around; not that she could have known so at those particular times. Hindsight is a wonderful tool to have, especially in this case where it's now become her foresight. To some people, it would be an amazing gift to know where the road of their life was leading, to others, maybe not so much. Helen could only hope that her earlier escapade with Worth didn't derail her younger self's path, diverting it from its ultimate destination as that was the only map she was following. So far, she hadn't seen an ill effects.
Over the last two years, Helen Magnus now going by Helen Bancroft, carefully constructed her plan and narrowed down her focus. As daunting of a task navigating time travel initially seemed be, to figure out how to proceed was revealed to be quite simple. On a rare sunny London afternoon, she decided to go back to the basics, feeling somewhat like a school girl again. After pretty much getting nowhere since establishing a small cash flow with a rudimentary financial network, it finally dawned on her to take her own advice. Something had clicked in her mind when she had read her last telegram from James about her other self's travels relating to the Sanctuary in regards to a new patient, prompting her to remember when she had helped James get back on track in solving the Spring-Heeled Jack case; the Sanctuary's first resident.
Following a philosophy exercise, she stripped herself down to her core. What made her, what was her purpose, her passion, what does she want, etc. Without a doubt, the top three things that came to her mind was that she was a mother, a doctor, and the leader of the Sanctuary Network. Her passion was medicine with a deep rooted innate desire to care for others of all kinds and to help bring the world together. That she possessed vast quantities of curiosity to learn about things that are hidden, wanting to help spread compassion for and knowledge about these creatures as they are often harmed out of fear and ignorance because they are simply misunderstood. She wanted to be a light, a beacon, a sanctuary.
Looking back at the history of the Sanctuary and trying to look forward at the way it was and would be heading after she rejoined the timeline gave Helen the firm foundation that she needed to establish her plan. A major problem that she found was that she didn't like how the Sanctuary got wrapped up in global politics and came under governmental oversights as the years passed by. With each passing abnormal incident, more interference took place, not just from outside organizations, but also from inside the structure of the Sanctuary Network itself. As much as Helen Magnus didn't fit the common mold of who society expected her to be, she unfortunately had to conform to the way the world worked around her; the Sanctuary wouldn't have been able to continue to exist if she hadn't. She absolutely loathed bureaucratic nonsense, but had to put up with it in order to secure funding and standing. She also noted that she created her own mistake by instating the Sanctuary Charter. At the time it was created, it was based on rules from an era that she didn't know anything different from. As time passed by, the world changed and the Sanctuary grew, but the charter did not.
Remembering her youth, she recalled already being tired of being forced at an early age into social constructs and dreamed of a world in which she could be free to follow her pursuits without any constraints holding her back. Now, with the aid of time travel, she was liberated. Even though she's having to relive the past, she certainly doesn't belong to this world anymore and its restrictions. This time around, she knows that there's so much more she can do. She knows of which windfalls to grab and which pitfalls to avoid. Before, she could only take what was given to her, but now, she's going to take what she wants.
What Helen wants is freedom for the Sanctuary.
And why not? With it being the turn of the century, "anything's possible".
