AN: Here's the next chapter and I am still on target for getting this all up before I leave for Peru. This is a long chapter mainly because I couldn't find anywhere sooner to cut it. Just a little warning, this chapter does have mentions of medical procedures and surgary.
Helen and Owen were still discussing the operation and the drugs that Ashley had been under when they were interrupted by a soft cough. Both looked up as Ianto stepped up to the the railing that encircled the upper level and the stairs of the autopsy bay, with him was a Japanese woman. "This is Toshiko Sato, our technology expert." Ianto introduced her.
Toshiko smiled at her, "Ianto said that you needed some technology wizardry?"
"Yes Toshiko, may I call you that?" She nodded and Helen continued, "Are you familiar with the concept of an EM shield?"
"A continuous electromagnetic pulse that can be used like a curtain to block or interfere with surveillance devices." Tosh answered easily.
"Exactly, it is also the only thing that can interfere with John and Ashley's teleporting." Helen explained, "I need you to set one up for me, if she's not Ashley it will contain her until we can work out what to do, I fear she may be able to teleport out of the restraints or find some other way to escape them."
Tosh nodded, "Should be fairly simple to create one, we already have the equipment and software in place."
"She got through one before." Helen warned her.
"Then I'll put up two on different frequencies, one around the main level of the Hub and another around the entire base." Tosh said, "Even if she makes it through the first one, the second should contain her within the base."
"Thank you, but please do not activate it until John returns."
"Of course." Tosh said with a nod and returned her station.
"If you need to contain her then I'm sure we have some portable force fields around here somewhere." Ianto said, "We sometimes use then to contain hostile aliens but they've never been tested against someone like her."
"Yes, thank you Ianto." Helen said with a smile, "They could be very useful if you could find them."
"I'll get right on it." Ianto promised and departed.
Owen and Helen returned to their work only to be interrupted a few minutes later by Jack. "Hows it going?"
"Faster if people would quit interrupting us." Owen complained.
"Very well actually." Helen told him, "We are primarily waiting on Ashley's waking as I would prefer her awake for the procedure. Your Ianto and Toshiko are preparing some security in case she is not in her right mind when she does awake but I would also prefer it if you saw that your team were armed."
Jack nodded and left to inform his team but before the doctors could get back to their preparations a flash of red announced John's arrival. "Ah, John good. How is everyone at the Sanctuary?"
"Impatient to be here." John told her, "I said that perhaps after the operation, with your permission of course, I could bring them."
"If everything goes well." Helen said, "I was beginning to worry you were gone so long."
"Relax Helen, I was merely tracking down Tesla and informing him of Ashley's survival, as interesting as it would be to see his face the next time he decided to pay the Sanctuary a visit."
"Yes that would be amusing." Helen agreed.
"Still the expression on his face when I told him was satisfactory enough, he seemed to believe I was once again loosing my mind, this time by a different route."
"Yes I imagine he did." Helen said, "John, Dr Harper and I need to make some preparations for the surgery, I thought perhaps you would sit with her while we do so."
"I would like that very much." John said as he pulled the stool up to the side of Ashley's bed, she looked peaceful, more peaceful than he had ever seen her. That said he did seem to have a habit of bringing out the worse in her, he was a killer and thus embodied everything she hated and also everything she feared she would become.
"You are so beautiful." He whispered softly, stroking her already smooth hair. "So like your mother when we first met, sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we had never experimented with the Source Blood. You would have been born in 1889, and you would have hated it. Floor length dresses and corsets, people were shocked and appalled that your mother even dared audit courses at Oxford let alone that she wanted to be a doctor. You my dear would have been a scandal beyond proportion."
John allowed himself a rare smile at the idea of his loud and out spoken daughter forced to conform to the social norms of the turn of the last century, no doubt she would have been even worse at it than her mother had been. Certainly she would have been one of the Suffragettes, and probably not one of the ones just carrying a placard either. He was equally sure that she would still have followed her mother into her work with abnormals.
"I am sorry my child." He said quietly, "It is because of me that they were able to do this to you, madness runs in my family, bloodlust. Because of what I gave you they were able to do this but I promise you, I will do everything in my power to help you through this, if you will allow it." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, something she would certainly never allow if she was awake.
A soft cough caught his attention and he looked up to see a Japanese woman. "Yes?"
"I'm Toshiko Sato, Dr Magnus asked me to create a EM shield, in case she isn't in her right mind when she wakes, and I just wanted to tell her that I had done so."
"Thank you." John said, "No doubt she asked you not to activate it until I returned."
"She did."
"Then you can activate it and I will tell her once she and Dr Harper return." John promised, the young woman nodded and left, allowing him to turn his attention back to his daughter. He watched her in silence, memorising her features as he had never before had the chance to do. While what he had said to Helen two weeks ago was true, that he regretted what his blood had given their daughter, he had also lied to her when he said that he didn't regret not been there when Ashley took her first steps. Because he did.
He regretted that he had abandoned Helen in favour of madness. He had not even known of her pregnancy but he was certain that it would not have mattered to the Ripper. The John who loved Helen was lost within his alternative personality, the Ripper who hated all women. The Ripper was all that had existed for over a century, a creature willing to risk his daughter for his own survival, until Tesla had unwittingly shocked him back to his senses.
Now the Ripper was gone leaving only John, a man who had more guilt and regret that any man deserved to carry. A man who still loved his former fiancée and their daughter but who equally knew that he would be lucky to be allowed to call one friend and to have the other even speak to him.
Aspects of the Ripper remained in John's personality, namely his quickness to anger and desire to kill. Most recently it had been seen when he and Tesla had laid waste to the heads of the Cabal. But the difference between the late eighteen hundreds and the present was that this time John recognised the danger of that anger and he worked to control it. And if need be he would teach his daughter that control and help her as much as she needed to allow her to be the Ashley her mother had known once again.
Sometimes though his anger and rage felt like a beast inside him, clawing at his control and whispering things in his mind. Recently it had been growing stronger, with each kill that voice had become louder and the claws sharper. He knew he needed to stop killing but he hadn't been able to, not until his daughter had been avenged. Now though he feared that he might not be able to stop, and he wanted to, God more than anything did he want to stop killing but there was something inside him, something evil that hungered for blood and death. He repressed it, forced it away, hide it so that no one could see it, not even Helen. Especially not Helen. He wanted to be the man she had once loved but he feared that man had died along with the whores of White Chapel.
He would continue to fight it, for the sake of his one time fiancée and daughter, even though he feared it would be a futile battle in the end, he would fight it. For Helen and Ashley.
Helen smiled slightly when she returned to find John sitting beside their daughter, exactly as any father would sit at the bed side of his sick daughter. "John."
"Helen, there has been no change that I can see." He told her, "Ms Sato asked me to inform you that she has activated the EM shield."
"Thank you John." Helen said as she walked down the stairs, she was wearing a white lab coat over he black shirt and blouse she had been wearing when they arrived. She looked at the readings on the monitors, although John had been schooled in anatomy and physiology his knowledge was more than a century out of date so he deferred to her greater wisdom.
"The drugs are disappearing from her system exactly as expected." Helen told him turning away from the monitor to check Ashley, "And see here, the burns have almost healed completely." She was right, the redness a
had all but faded from Ashley's skin leaving her natural pale skin tone behind. "She should be waking soon." She looked up to see Jack standing at the railing, "Are all the security measures in place?"
"A double EM shield, a force field across the doorway, Ashley's restrained and everyone is armed." Jack promised her, "I just hope we don't need all that."
"So do I Jack." Helen said. He nodded to her and left the small family alone. Helen turned her attention back to Ashley. "Ashley love, can you hear me?" The girl on the bed stirred ever so slightly and Helen's excited eyes meet John's. "Ashley, it's time to wake up, come on." She moved more and Helen encouraged her, "That's it open your eyes, its safe, you're safe now."
Both Ashley's parents held their breath as she struggled to open her eyes, after a minute or two she finally succeeded and Helen almost cried at the sight of her daughter's beautiful blue eyes. "Mom?"
"Yes Ashley."
She tried to move and realised she was retrained at the wrist and ankle. "What's going on? Where am I?"
"Just lay still for a moment." Helen advised placing a hand on Ashley's shoulder. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Ashley groaned, "My head hurts." She complained. "I remember pain? Burning?" Ashley sounded confused
"That would be a side effect of trying to teleport through an EM shield." John told her.
Ashley turned her head to the other side and John was just as relived to see her blue eyes has Helen had been, "Dad?" John was shocked at the familiar title she used to address him.
"Yes Ashley, what else do you remember?" John pressed.
Ashley's eyes clouded with pain as the memories came flooding back, "Oh god! Oh shit! Mom you gotta lock me up, put me in the SHU and leave me there."
"Ashley just relax." Helen pressed her hand harder against Ashley's shoulder, holding her to the bed. "Nothing that happened was your fault, now I need you to stay calm for the moment. Do you remember the insect the Cabal used to control my father, Will and the other fighters?"
Ashley nodded.
"You have one as well, I think that they combined it with drugs to control you, to force you to do things you didn't want to do." Helen continued, "We're going to remove it."
"What about the rest?" Ashley asked anxiously, moving her fingers so that the vampiric nails taped against the side of the table to make it clear exactly what she meant.
"I think I can remove the worse of the alterations, like I did with the humans in the Cabal fight club." Helen assured her, "But some of what the Cabal did was awaking abnormalities that were already in your genetic code, I can't do anything about that."
Ashley took a deep breath, "You mean the teleporting?"
"Among other things." John told her, "Just relax for now, we can talk afterwards."
Ashley finally looked past her parents and realised that she wasn't anywhere familiar. "Where are we?"
John and Helen both looked up as they heard the force field across the entrance deactivate and Jack stepped up to the rail, "You landed in my basement."
Ashley twisted on the table, trying to see who it was but the restraints prevented her from doing so, "Who's that? Uncle Jack? Is that you?"
Jack jogged down the stairs and hovered over Helen's shoulder. "Hey kiddo, you're looking better, still I think you might need a manicure."
Ashley smiled slightly, "This your base?"
"Of course."
"Ashley I think your subconscious brought you to the safest place that was left, somewhere that could contain you." Helen suggested.
Ashley nodded, "I just wanted to keep you safe mom."
Jack looked up and waved to Owen to join them, "Ash, this is Dr Owen Harper he's going to help with the operation."
Ashley nodded. "We need to prepare for the operation." Helen told her, stroking her hair, "I'm going to release you now since you need to be on your side for the operation."
"No mom, don't please!" Ashley begged.
"Why ever not?" Helen asked thoroughly confused by her daughters actions.
"There's this burning desire in the back of my mind, like a little voice telling me to kill you both," She looked between her parents. "I don't know if I can stop it if you let me go."
This John understood all to well. "I know, I have felt it too. But you are stronger than I was Ashley, you will not give in because you don't want to hurt your mother and I don't think you want to kill me either."
Ashley shook her head, "Hurt maybe but not kill, and I want a rematch."
"As you wish. Now may we release you? I assure you that everyone here is armed and there is a double EM shield up."
"Jack handed out the good stuff." Owen said holding his lab coat aside to reveal the weapon strapped to his hip. "This could bring down a rampaging elephant with one shot."
"Ashley trust me." Jack said, "I won't let you hurt them."
Ashley looked at her god-father for a long minute and then nodded, Helen unfastened the restraint on her side while John did the other side and Jack her feet.
"How do you feel now?" John asked.
"The desire to kill is stronger but I won't let it win." She said determinedly, "But please don't leave me alone, it'll be harder to resist if I'm alone."
"Of course not darling, now Dr Harper and need to check the equipment for the surgery, but we'll be back soon."
"Shouldn't be more than a few minutes." Owen reassured her as she followed Helen up the stairs, Jack to departed muttering something about not liking operations leaving Ashley alone with her father.
"How much do you remember?" John asked her hesitantly. He wasn't exactly sure how to approach his daughter, the few times they had met had involved outright hostility her part and occasionally kidnapping on his. Now he was alone with her and he wasn't quite sure what to say.
"Too much." Ashley said softly, "How's your chest?" She seemed at as much of a loss as he was about what to say.
John offered her a small smile, "It healed, you did less damage than Tesla did. Your mother's arm is also fine." He assure her before she could ask.
"I didn't want to hurt anyone." Ashley said softly then continued, "Does everyone else know I'm alive?" She seemed to be trying to keep her mind off the up coming surgery and John was willing to help her.
"Your mother told them when she received the call and I went to inform them that it was indeed you. Regrettably Tesla now believes that I have lost my mind.
Helen and Owen returned then, "Alright Ashley, I'm going to give you drug to slow your healing, otherwise the incision will close up before I can operate. There is also a local anaesthetic which should reduce the pain but keep you conscious.."
"Like you did with granddad." She said, "I really wish I hadn't seen what you're going to do."
"I know sweetheart." Helen said injecting her neck then she turned her attention to John, "Are you staying?"
He wanted to but not if it made Ashley uncomfortable. "I would like to, if Ashley has no objections?"
Ashley shook her head, at that exact moment she wanted as many familiar people around her as possible and that included the father who had once fed her to giant iguana. Though she couldn't remember everything that had happened, she did remember, in those rare moments when her mind was her own, wanting her family to find her. Wanting her father to appear and take her back home to her mom and Henry, Will and the Big Guy. She tried not to remember anything really but she remembered wanting her family, as messed up as it was.
"Than I will stay."
Helen nodded, "As you wish," She threw him a lab coat and surgical mask, "Put those on. Ashley, I need you to lay on your side." She did as she was told and Helen fastened her daughters hair in a high pony tail before putting a surgical cap over it to keep any stray hairs away from the site of the operation. "Now Ashley I need you to tell me if you feel any pain."
"Yes mom." Ashley promised as Helen picked up the scalpel and pressed it against Ashley's neck.
"Can you feel that?"
"No."
Helen pressed the scalpel in further until it broke the skin, "And that?"
"No mom." Ashley promised.
"Good, the anaesthetic had taken effect, now you have to stay as still as possible Ashley."
"Sure mom." Ashley said, trying very hard not to think about what her mother was doing. After what had happened with the Cabal Ashley had had enough of doctors and medical procedures, it was only the fact that it was her mother that was allowing her to remain on the bed rather than trying to jump up and run, or teleport, as far away as she could. Seeking to distract herself she looked up at her father who was still standing beside her, "So how'd you get that scar on your cheek?"
John was surprised at the question, it wasn't something anyone had ever actually asked him. Helen would almost certainly have known, James had no doubt deduced it and Nikola's ego was too big to be concerned with anyone bar himself. "You are a far better shot than your mother was at your age." He told her, "If you were attempting to put a bullet in my head you would not come so close and failed to kill me."
"John, back then most women of my class and upbringing would have been hard pressed to find the trigger on a gun let alone point it at someone." Helen abolished him.
"I beg your forgiveness then." John said, "But your mother is correct Ashley, had I turned or teleported a fraction of a second later I would not be standing here."
"Ashley, I've uncovered the insect, I'm going to begin tying off the legs now."
"You know I really can live without the commentary mom." She replied then turned her attention to John, "So mom was a bit of a rebel?" Ashley asked, trying to keep him talking to help keep her mind off the fact that her mother was removing a creepy controlling insect from the back of her neck.
"Not as you would think of it." John said, "But I remember my surprise at seeing her in my class for the first time. I was amazed that a woman would have the audacity to even audit a course in comparative anatomy."
"How did you meet then?" Ashley asked.
John looked up and met Helen's eyes for a moment, she nodded to him so he explained. "It was in one of the Oxford libraries, I was searching for a book I needed and I came across you mother, seated at a desk and making notes from the object of my quest. When I asked her for the book, she told me that I needed to wait until she had finished. I was shocked at her tone and I reminded her that I was a student of the collage and there for should have priority over a woman."
"Which was a mistake." Helen commented as she motioned to Owen to assist her, most of her mind still on the task at hand.
"Indeed it was." John admitted. He turned his attention back to Ashley. "I was then treated to a short lecture on the idiocy of collage administrators who seemed to believe that it was still the Dark Ages rather than approaching the twentieth century and refused to allow her to enrol simply because of her gender. I was amazed to hear her cite contemporary theory to back up her claims that women should have equal access to such learning as the collage provided. By the time she was finished I had quite forgotten why I had interrupted her in the first place."
Ashley smiled at that.
"She proceeded to assure me that she would only be another half an hour with the book and that I might use it as soon as she was finished, then she calmly returned to her notes as if I had never interrupted her."
"What did you do?" Ashley asked.
"There was nothing else I could do, I couldn't very well take the book from a lady so I left and when I returned in half an hour your mother was waiting for me with her things all packed away and the library book closed on the table beside her. That was when I finally introduced myself and invited her to take a turn about the grounds with me. As we walked I remember asking her why she chose to audit the courses even knowing that she would never be allowed to gain her degree. She smiled and said that she learnt because she wished to understand the world and she did not require a piece of paper to prove her learning to herself. She also reminded me that rules could change. I was captivated by her."
"So when did you form The Five?" Ashley asked, the story was doing a very good job of taking her mind off the surgery and the accompanying pain every time the creature moved, plus her mother never wanted to talk about the old days. James Watson had been as bad when he was alive, never wanting to talk about their time at Oxford. Now she knew why, because neither her mother nor James wanted to be reminded of how it ended.
"I first introduced your mother to my friend James Watson in the March after we met. They instantly became good friends and I must confess I was jealous, Helen was able to keep up with James's mind far better than I was and he was able to understand the subtle complexities of the human body that so fascinated her but always seemed to be beyond my grasp."
"You never needed to worry John, all James was and ever has been to me is a very dear friend." Helen assured him, proving that she had been listening to his narrative even when she was concentrating on the operation.
"Helen you have always surround yourself by hansom or intelligent men and yet you fail to see the attraction you hold to them."
Owen caught and correctly interpreted the look John shot towards the main part of the hub, "Oh I wouldn't worry there mate, Jack's boyfriend would object."
"His boyfriend?" John raised an eyebrow.
"This is the twenty-first century John, try to keep up." Helen reminded him.
"As James and I pointed out to young William, we had to be dragged by the scruff of our necks into the twentieth, please allow me a small period of grace in these matters."
Even over the surgical mask she wore John could see the smile in Helen's eyes, then she turned sober, "Ashley I've reached the front pair."
"Mom, I'm scared."
"I know you are, but it will be alright." Helen assured her as she began the most delicate phase of the operation. Ashley gasped as the creature responded to Helen's actions by trying to bury itself deeper into her neck.
"Helen she's in pain, can't you give her something?" John asked.
"No John, I need her awake, her responses act as a warning about the creature's movements."
John nodded, but he really didn't like it. He crouched down on the floor beside Ashley so that his head was level with hers and took her hand in his without any thought for the long vampiric claws that she possessed With his other hand he stroked her forehead. "It will be alright Ashley."
She groaned in pain and squeezed John's hand, just as her mother had so many decades earlier during the first fateful experiment with the Source Blood. Neither of them noticed when her claws nicked the skin of his hand. For the first time John truly felt like Ashley's father; this was what it meant to be a father, holding her hand when she needed him. This was what his madness had cost him He knew that it was unlikely that Ashley would ever let him get so close again so he committed to memory exactly what it felt like.
Helen's voice interrupted his thoughts, "I've isolated the cut site." She told them, Ashley whimpered and squeezed his hand again. John looked up at Helen and could see the question that wasn't really a question in her eyes. Should she make the cut knowing it could kill Ashley? Did he agree with her? There was no answer except yes and they both knew it but at the same time it made John's heart just a little lighter to know that she wanted, that she even looked for, his support on this.
He gave a single sharp nod and watched as Helen took a deep breath. A moment later Ashley asked nervously, "Mom, what's going on?"
"It's done Ashley." Helen told her taking the tweezers from Owen, "Doctor Harper would you care for a new pet to study?"
"Nothing better to do at the moment." He replied and held out a specimen jar, "Lord that is one ugly looking bug." He added as Helen deposited the creature in the container and secured the lid, "Sorta looks like a cockroach." He looked back up at Helen, "Do you need me to help finish up?"
"No thank you Owen." Helen said, "You can go study it." Owen nodded and headed up the stairs to the main level, pulling off his mask as he did so.
"Hey Tosh, you have to see this." John could hear him moving further away and then the footsteps as several other people converged on him followed by an expression of disgust from a Welsh sounding woman.
Meanwhile Helen was talking to Ashley, "How do you feel darling?"
"Like me again, just me."
John gave her a small smile, a genuine one. "I know that feeling."
"I'll just close up the incision." Helen told her.
"Now that part I'm more familiar with." Ashley said.
"For some reason I'm not surprised." John said, "But your mother always did have a very good eye for stitches, usually left almost invisible scars. I remember one particular night."
"John."
"No mom, this I want to hear." Ashley insisted.
"We were due to graduate in just few weeks and we were out celebrating."
"By we he means the men." Helen said, "It wasn't suitable for a well breed woman to join them in touring the public houses, just to patch them up afterwards."
"What happened?" Ashley asked.
"A matter of honour." John told her, "Specifically Helen's. A group of men implied that she was unchaste."
"I seem to remember that I was, the proof is in front of us." Helen reminded him, causing Ashley to laugh slightly.
"Not at that point you weren't, we were not even engaged. Besides they implied worse than we did." He said and then turned his attention back to Ashley. "As Helen's friends we obviously couldn't just stand by and allow the insult to pass. James allowed them then chance to apologise, when they refused Tesla and I took matters into our own hands, Nigel and James joined in and eventually all of us were thrown out."
"And they staggered back to my father's house."
"Who was most certainly not impressed with our state until we told him the reason behind it, even then he was still not impress that we were as inebriated as we were. In fact I am amazed he gave his consent to my marrying you after that." He added looking up at her.
"Because he knew that I loved you," Helen said softly, John tried not to smile too much but it was good to hear that she had once loved him even as it caused him to wonder if she still did.
"Well this is certainly interesting." Ashley said, "And for some reason faintly traumatic."
"Less of that." Helen said, "There were quite few late night calls and patch ups, not all to do with your job, in fact I believe there were one or two from the police. John in some respects she is very much your daughter."
"Oh?"
"Yes." Helen said as she continued to stitch up the incision. "Ashley was arrested for drunk and disorderly."
"They started it." The girl in question protested, "I just finished it."
"By sending four of them to the ER."
"Hey the police never charged me."
"Only because they refused to believe that a blond twenty-one year old could do that much damage."
"And none of the men wanted to admit they were beat by a girl."
John watched the byplay sensing that this was a fairly typical occurrence between mother and daughter, he wished that he could be apart of it instead of an outsider observing but he had thrown that chance away more than a century earlier.
"There." Helen said, "I'll just put a dressing on and you'll be good." `
"Owen said you were nearly done." Helen and John looked up to see Ianto standing by the railing, "I was just going to order dinner for the team, will you be joining us?"
"If it's not too much trouble." Helen said, "And I would like to bring the rest of my staff here to see Ashley, I don't want to move her until we're sure she's stable, physically and mentally." She stroked Ashley's hair as she said it. John agreed whole heartedly with her, he knew the effect that teleportation had on his own mind, even now it felt as though with each jump another tiny fracture appeared in his control over his inner beast. They didn't know what the effect of him teleporting her would be but the precarious state of Ashley's mind at present meant that it would be better not to risk it and so her remaining in Cardiff for a while seemed be the most advisable course of action.
"I can check with Jack if you'd like but it shouldn't be a problem." Ianto assured them, "I'll order a full spread for dinner then."
"He has such a cool accent." Ashley said after Ianto had left.
"Yes." Helen concurred. "Jack agrees."
Ashley nearly jerked upright at that but John's hand hand on her shoulder prevented her from doing so. "Serious? He's with Jack? But I though he said never again, not after."
Helen interrupted her, "Yes he did however fate does not always respect the wishes of mere humans." She met John's gaze as she said the last part and in his eyes she could see regret, fate had indeed not listened to their wishes. If it had then they would not be where they were. She knew the regret in his eyes was mirrored in her own, she wished they could go back to how they had once been. But events had stolen the sweet innocence and naivety of that early relationship and nothing could undo it. "There, finished." Helen added as she affixed a dressing to Ashley's neck. "I'll just go clean up and then I'll be right back sweetheart."
Ashley nodded and Helen left. "You might prefer to lay on your side for the moment," John suggested, "Your neck is going to be very tender for a while, even with accelerated healing."
"Yeah, once the drug is out of my system."
"You have a lot of drugs in there at the moment, it will take some time." John noticed that she was still holding his hand but didn't comment on it, he liked the idea that his daughter needed him even knowing that she really didn't. "Are you feeling more yourself now?"
Ashley tried to nod and winced as the action pulled the fresh stitches in the back of her neck so she was forced to settle for a verbal answer. "Yes, but I still remember." She closed her eyes for a moment, "And it makes me sick, I killed so many defenceless residents. I tried to kill you and mom, I almost did, if it hadn't been for the woman I might have killed mom!"
"Hush now Ashley." John said soothingly while mentally thanking Kate Freelander, surely the woman Ashley spoke of, for saving Helen from her daughter and Ashley from the memory of killing her mother. "None of it was your fault. You bare even less fault than I do for not controlling The Ripper. You were changed through no fault of your own, the guilt belongs to Dana Whitcomb and others like her who used you and hurt you."
"Is she dead?"
John marvelled at how insightful Ashley could be. "Your mother did not approve but Tesla and I have taken out the entire leadership of the Cabal. You have no need to fear them again."
"Good." Ashley said firmly with such satisfied vengeance in her tone that John worried about her even as he recognised it as the mirror of his own feelings. "Do you really think mom can fix me? She fixed Will but he's human, I wasn't no matter how much I pretended I was."
"The Source Blood activated dormant abnormalities, such as my teleporting and your mother's longevity. If you had the vampire traits in your blood then so would we and the Source Blood would have activated those abnormalities the same as it did in Tesla."
"I never knew Jack the Ripper was a scientist." Ashley commented.
"I wasn't but enough time around your mother and I gained a good understanding of the biological world though it is likely a century out of date now." John shook his head, "No what I said before was how Helen explained it to me when I asked the same question you did."
"But what is you both carried bits of the vampire abnormality and it only came out in my cause I got both copies like haemophilia."
Genetics hadn't even been discovered when he was at Oxford, in fact it had been less than three decades since Darwin had proposed his idea of evolution and inheritance but time with Helen Magnus and James Watson would give any man a rough grasp of the basis of inheritance. "I doubt that Ashley." John assured her, "It seems far too convenient to me that in addition to everything else you just happened to have a hidden abnormality that would be so useful to the Cabal. Besides that, what are the chances that three of the Five were descended from vampires? No it is far more likely that it is the result of something the Cabal extracted from the Source Blood."
John looked up hearing the click of Helen's heels as she approached, "Your mother is coming and I am sure she can explain everything far better than I." He looked up to see Helen watching them. "I must return to the Sanctuary." He told them both, "There are many there who are no doubt anxious about Ashley." He placed a small kiss on Ashley's forehead and was pleased that she didn't pull away or say anything, perhaps his dream about their been family could become true after all. At least for as long as he could hold his madness at bay.
Regretfully he pulled his hand from Ashley's and took a step away from her bed but before he could teleport Helen said. "Thank you John."
"I am her father Helen, you will never need to thank me for this." He restrained himself from adding that for Helen he would happily jump off the White Cliffs of Dover if she requested it, something Nigel and Tesla had taken great delight in teasing him about while they were at Oxford.
With the thought that very little had changed on his side of their relationship with regards to feelings, John teleported himself to Helen's office. Once again finding it well populated, even more so than on his previous visit. It seemed that word about Ashley had reached the other residents of the Sanctuary and several of them had joined the main staff in Helen's office.
Each face looked expectantly at him when he appeared but no one spoke. "Ashley came through the surgery well and is much more herself." He had to stop because of the excited cheering that went through the office. John continued once the excitement had died down a little, "Helen does not wish to move her until she is sure that her mental condition is as stable as her physical one."
"Can we see her?" The Big Guy asked.
"Helen had requested that I transport you, Mr Foss and Dr Zimmerman to Cardiff, assuming we can trust Ms Freelander not to attempt to sell the entire population of the Sanctuary while you are gone."
"Hey!" Was in indignant exclamation from the woman in question.
"I'm sure everything will be fine." Will said, Kate was well on her way to becoming a full member of staff but what the return of Ashley would mean for that was unknown. Still John was carrying a small grudge for her involvement in the same Cabal that had kidnapped, and they thought killed, his daughter. "Kate could you make sure that all of the residents know the good news, don't forget Sally, and that the other Sanctuaries are informed. Just give them the basics and tell them Dr Magnus will give them a full briefing when she has a chance."
"Sure." Kate said, swinging her legs down from where she had been sitting with them draped over the arm of a chair while reading her book. John wondered just how much the literature standards had fallen since his time, between the front cover and the title 'Bengal's Heart' he doubted the contents could be considered serious or thought provoking in anyway.
Kate left the room and the residents that had gathered there followed her, the mood still very much one of celebration. Those resident who had lived there for years had watched Ashley grow up and she was generally very popular with those who were allowed to roam free. The ones in the SHU was an entirely different matter.
More up soon, please leave a reveiw?