Author's Note: This older Helen, younger Helen is confusing to write! LOL! I sure hope it's easier to read.

Five Hours in Ye Old London

Chapter 4: Little Chatterbox

Young Helen gasped loudly as a pair of cold hands grasped her about the ankles.

"Ashley," John groaned and bent down. "Pardon," he apologized to the wide eyed blonde as he reached slightly under her dress to grab his daughter about the waist and pulled her out.

Ashley squealed as she felt herself being pulled backwards, and then flipped upside down in the air. John stood up and looked down at his daughter, whom he was holding by her waist upside down. She began giggling loudly, then squealed again as he pulled her right side up.

"Do it again, Daddy! Do it again!" the little girl squealed and clapped her hands. He laughed softly and swung her down again, leaving her upside down a little longer before pulling her back up again. Her loud giggles making the three adults laugh with her.

"Some of us are trying to work back here!" a grouchy voice called from the back of the room.

John and Helen looked at each other and rolled their eyes at the same time, causing them both to laugh again.

"Do it again, Daddy!" Ashley demanded, her face all flushed pink.

Groaning, John replied, "I think not. You're getting rather heavy," and sat his daughter on his hip as his arm went around her waist.

Ashley gave her father a pout and whined, "Why not?"

"Because I am old," he indulgently told his only child, kissing her on the nose. "And why were you under her dress, you naughty child, hmmm?"

Curious, she grabbed her father's face with her hands and pulled it to her until their noses touched. "How old are you?"

"Very old," he said in a deep, rumbling voice, "and you still have not answered my question."

Glancing back at her blonde 'cousin,' Ashley explained. "I wanted to see how her dress is so poufy and swings when she walks."

John shook his head at her. "It is rude to look under a woman's dress, especially someone you don't know well."

He didn't see the hurt look that moved across the blonde's face but her older counterpart did and felt sorry for her younger self. It must be incredibly hard to see Helen and John playing doting parents when the younger Helen had thus far been denied such pleasure.

Ignoring his reprimand, Ashley turned back to her father. "How old is very old?" She held up ten fingers. "Is it more than this?"

Smiling adorningly at his child, John chuckled. "Much more. You will have to do that several times to get my age," he informed her.

Ashley flashed ten fingers at him twice. "More than that?"

He nodded. "More."

Ashley flashed ten fingers at him three more times. "More than that?"

Grinning broadly, he nodded. "Keep going."

Ashley flashed ten fingers at him four more times. "More than that?" she asked, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Keep going," he said, twirling one finger in the air.

Ashley flashed ten fingers at him five more times, looking down at her hands at the end and, crinkling up her nose in defeat, proclaimed, "You're really old, Daddy!"

Laughter filled the room, including from the back of the room. "Older than dirt might be more apropos," came a heckle from the back of the room from Tesla, followed by a loud guffaw from Watson.

"Your mother is a year older than me," John pointed out to the child, nodding towards Helen, who shot him a dirty look.

Ashley flashed her mother a dimpled grin. "Mommy, you're even older than dirt!" the child announced. Loud bursts of laughter could be heard from the back of the room and John threw his head back and chortled.

"I love that kid," Tesla called out and laughed again.

John took in the disgruntled expression on the women's faces and laughed again. "I told you she doesn't censor what she says," he told the blonde with the pursed lips before him.

"So I see," young Helen remarked, perking back up again as Ashley flashed her dimples at her. Her daughter was very inquisitive and spunky. She liked that very much.

Still chuckling, John set his daughter back on the ground. She immediately went to her mother and felt up her dress.

"I like her dress," pointing back to the blonde, "better," the child said. "This dress is too hard and doesn't have any flowers."

Helen smiled down at her silly child. "I like her dress better too." She looked up and smiled at her younger self. She groaned as Ashley dropped to the ground and dove under her mother's dress, only her legs sticking out. A pair of ice cold hands grabbed her ankles, causing her mother gasped out, "Ashley!"

Druitt looked at her with one eyebrow raised in question.

"Cold hands?" the blonde offered and grinned as the brunette nodded.

John shook his head. His daughter really was too much at times. "Ashley," he said in a warning tone.

Helen's skirt jerked here and there as Ashley felt around and her mother had to clap both her hands over the skirt to prevent it from flying up here and there. "Ashley!" she called, also in a warning tone. "Come out from there. This instant!"

Ashley backed up from under the heavy skirt, sitting up before getting all the way out and causing her mother's skirt to ride up to Helen's knees. Her mother pulled the dress off the child's head before it rose any higher. "Really, young lady. It is not nice to go under someone's dress," she reprimanded.

Looking up, she found John grinning at her inappropriately. "Nice gams," he teased and winked at her.

"Shut up," she laughed and tried to give him a stern look. The playful moment was ruined when they caught sight of the horrified look on the blonde's face. The Druitt of her era was a nightmare and it was most unsettling to see his older version flirting with her older version. Their smiles faded and both returned their gaze back down to their daughter.

"Helen, I really need you both to help finish assembling the continuum device's frame," Tesla called from the back of the room.

"Of course," she called back and then looked at John. They needed to do something with their daughter while they were working. Leaving her to roam free on her own was a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

"I can watch her," the blonde offered, reading their minds.

They turned to find her standing tall, hands clasped lady-like at her waist. She could pass for a prim governess if one did not know her at all.

"I'm not sure you know what you are offering," Helen told her younger self. "She can be a real handful."

She gave her older self a patronizing look. "I am sure I can handle one energetic child."

"She's not a normal child," John said softly as he patted his daughter's head.

Ashley beamed at her father's words. "I'm special," she proudly told her 'cousin.'

"Yes, you are," the blonde confirmed, beaming back at the little girl. The more time she spent with the child the more she saw of herself in the child. Glancing back at her parents, she made her case. "I do deal with abnormals all the time. I have no doubt I can successfully watch Ashley for a bit. And Tesla needs your help," she reminded the pair.

"Yes, I do! Any day now!" he called from behind them.

The pair groaned. "Alright," Helen acquiesced. "But you will come to us immediately if you need help," she sternly told her younger self. It wasn't that she was worried that young Helen couldn't handle the child… more like she was worried that her attachment would grow stronger and she would end up devastated when they all left to return to their correct era.

"You have abnormals too?" the child asked, doing a 360 spin to check out the space. She saw boxes of all sizes, many still packed, scattered around the room, and several tables. About 20 feet away, Nikola and James were working on two side by side long wooden tables. There was not an abnormal in sight. "Where are all your abnormals?" she queried the blonde.

Helen was surprised that her older version had introduced the child so early to world of abnormals. "Oh, well, we have a few. They aren't here. They are… someplace else," she said, deciding it best not to let the curious child know the holding rooms were in another part of this basement. Judging by the look on the brunette's face she agreed with that train of thought.

"Oh," the child said in disappointment, her bottom lip sticking out in a little pout. "Well, we have loads in our house," she explained. "Maybe you can come visit and I'll show them to you."

The blonde smiled sadly at the child and just nodded. What could she say. It would be a long time before the timeline caught up enough for her to be standing in her own Sanctuary as Ashley's mother.

"We have a mermaid," Ashley told her as an encouragement. "She's really nice and she talks!"

The blonde's widened eyes returned to the older Helen in surprise. "A mermaid," she whispered in disbelief.

"A talking one," Ashley reminded.

James' head popped up from behind a tall stack of boxes. "You have a mermaid?" he yelled incredulously.

Helen bit her bottom lip. "Um… maybe," she answered James, who had come back to join them. A look of excitement bore on his handsome face. "A real life, honest to goodness, mermaid?" he asked.

"That's what I keep saying!" the child cried as she threw up her hands. Honestly, adults never listened to a thing you told them.

"And she talks? I mean, really talks?" he asked. One would think it was Christmas and he was getting the best gift ever.

"Uh huh," Ashley told him. "Her name's Sally."

In unison, he and young Helen said, "Sally?"

"What kind of name is Sally for a mermaid?" James asked with a sniff. It was so unimaginative.

"Her name isn't Sally. She is just called that because no one can pronounce her real name," Helen explained. "And yes, she does talk… telepathetically."

"Wow," James said in an amazed tone. "I wish I could see her." He stopped and the group suddenly became somber.

Helen gave him a soft smile. "Well, you will, eventually. You're the one who helped me save her from the nets."

A large grin spread across his face. "Really? Fascinating."

"Yeah, yeah. This is all fascinating people but if we don't get moving we'll all be stuck here for the next century," a snarky voice shared. "I am not going through the clothing horror fest that is the '70s a second time!"

Druitt grinned. "Yes, seeing you, Nikola, in a powder blue leisure suit would be a quite horrifying sight." James gave him a quizzical look. "It's a type of horrid suit made of stretchy material. The clothing of the '70s was one of the low points of fashion history. No one wants to relive it a second time," John explained with a smirk. James nodded with a small smile.

Ashley didn't have a clue what they were talking about so she continued with her current train of thought. "We also have nubbins."

"Nubbins?" Young Helen asked. "Is that another creature with a difficult name to pronounce?"

James snorted. "I should hope that's not the abnormal's real name. It sounds too much like 'bobbin.'"

Helen smiled. "That is not the abnormal's true name." She nodded down at her daughter. "That's what she nicknamed it."

"They are really cute and cuddly! Especially the babies. They sure do make a lot of babies," she remarked, her head tilted and her eyes screwed up in thought. "I wonder why."

"Making babies is their whole purpose, as we all learned when someone let one escape," Druitt proclaimed and gave Helen a knowing look. She just shook her head at him to behave. If he so much as whispered one word of what happened that night she was going to strangle him right here, right now.

Five year old Ashley had wanted to play with the fat one named after Tesla and had managed to sneak it into her bedroom for the night. By the time the household had discovered it was gone the next morning, there was a hole in Ashley's bedroom wall and the creature had destroyed several hundred dollars of electrical wiring before being caught. It would have been fried to death had it not contained some of Tesla's DNA which seemed to help defray the effects of the electrical currents. Leave it to her daughter to pick the one nubbin with the vampire fangs.

Oh, well, she really couldn't complain. She and John had a very eventful night thanks to that nubbin. It had burrowed itself from Ashley's room into Helen's room and stayed in that section of the wall for quite a while, judging by the ardent lovemaking between Helen and John that night. All the wiring in three of her walls had to be completely replaced. And judging by the goofy grin on Henry's face and his initial slowness to respond in catching the little fur ball, Helen suspected he and Erica had also had a very busy night. They had finally found Damian half passed out in one of Henry's boots, a piece of wiring sticking out of his mouth, by following the smell of burnt fur to Henry's closet.

Pointing to herself proudly, Ashley grinned. "That would be me. I let Damian out."

"Damian?" James asked, laughing.

Helen grinned. "It's named after Tesla."

"Do I want to know why?" young Helen asked, also grinning. She couldn't imagine Nikola being pleased that a 'cute and cuddly' abnormal was named after him.

John grinned wider. "They are both short, fanged and demonic." James guffawed loudly and both Helens bit the insides of the bottom lip to keep from giggling.

"I'll give you demonic in a minute if I don't get any help with putting together the base for the continuum device," a cranky voice said, joining them. "We have been here for almost two hours. The device needs three to fully charge and I would like to get home in time for the Wookie to serve dinner. He's making Hungarian Cabbage Rolls to be served with red wine tonight."

"What's a wookie?" the blonde asked.

Her counterpart shook her head. "He's not a wookie. There is no such thing."

Tesla gasped exaggeratedly, placing a hand over his heart. "That's sacrilege, disbeliever. I knew you channeled the dark side," he smirked. "Now, back to work people."

Food sounded good to Ashley. "I'm hungry," the child whined.

Seizing the opportunity, the younger Helen suggested to the girl, "How about you and I go to the kitchen and make something to eat while the others finish up their project, hmmm?"

"Do you have pizza?" the girl asked excitedly. She really liked pizza. Not as much as candy, but it was pretty close.

Seeing the confusion on her young face, Helen piped up. "There is no pizza here." She gave a sincere smile to the young woman across from her, whose face had fallen in the belief that Ashley's current mother was trying to stop her from spending time alone with the child. "But perhaps you two can find something else to eat," Helen suggested. Her blonde counterpart looked relieved and nodded appreciatively to her older self.

"Whatever you do," John inserted, "for goodness sakes, do not let her do the cooking."

Ashley protested. "I can too cook, Daddy! The Big Guy and Mommy both let me cook with them."

"They also have a fire extinguisher nearby to put out fires if necessary." He mouthed "Don't let her cook!" to the blonde, who looked surprised by the exchange.

"Our little one likes to make things go kaboom," Ashley's mother explained dryly and gave her younger self a sharp look.

The blonde nodded in understanding and held out her hand to the child. "Shall we?" Ashley took her hand and the two exited the room chatting away.

The others watched them go. Helen, John and Nikola were all thinking the same thing – how bizarre it was to see a corseted, Victorian version of Helen walking hand in hand with the child she would wait a century to give birth to. James was the only one who didn't appreciate the irony of the sight.

"Tic tock, people," Tesla drawled, shaking his head and quickly walking to the two tables in the back, with James following.

Helen and John stared at one another for a minute. "She'll be fine," he said reassuringly.

"Which she?" Helen asked and they both grinned, then turned and walked together to join their friends.