Author's notes

Finally! The last chapter of that story that got out of hand. I think some people who read TTAW know that I have a thing for babbling after multichapter stories. And it isn't anything different with this one. But it has slightly different reasons.

This story became a really important topic for me and this is why I want to say some words at its end.

One day the imagineberingandwells blog posted the prompt to this story and I immediately fell in love with the concept. Because I sensed an interesting opportunity to explore Bering and Wells' dynamics and relationship in a quite different way. But since I was working on Truce AND TLS now, I decided to not write this story. Some of my tumblr followers encouraged me to do it and then AU week came and I wasn't able to publish a chapter of Truce, because lastminutegenius is still busy with the beta. So I drew a few AU pictures instead but was unsatisfied. This was when I wrote the one shot that got out of hand. Of course I already had imagined the whole story, but I forced myself into leaving this a one shot with an open end that made Helena reject Myka as her therapist because the woman caused different feelings inside her. Even though she liked her as a therapist.

Yeah, and then people yelled 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'ONE SHOT'? WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'COMPLETE'?'

I stared at these reviews and asked myself if I could manage writing this simultaneously to Truce and TLS and came to the conclusion 'no'. So I put those two stories slightly back and started finding people who could help me with this story. This is firstly the-social-recluse who herself is a good judge in wheelchairs and who did an awesome beta. Then there's Aimofdestiny, my real life friend who has an excellent taste and knowledge in music and who really made this story better with the music choices. Thanks to both of them.

And then there's Svenja. My choice to continue this story depended on her, because *clears throat* I did a thing which I normally don't do. I made a decision about a character without knowing if this decision is even possible and realistic. When I wrote the first chapter I let Helena say 'Everything else is working just fine' and I had no idea if this could be true. I didn't worry much about this, because it was only a one shot. I actually did some research for this one shot and read a very interesting article about paraplegics who aren't able to feel their lower body anymore and their way of having sex. It was not important to me that Helena is able to have sex in the way written in chapter seven. All I asked Svenja for was the possibility of her paralysis while still being in control over her bladder and bowel movement. This was what I included in Helena's sentence and the fact that she knows she's still able to have sex even in a slightly different way if necessary.

Svenja browsed through her text books for me -I'm really grateful for this- and told me that if we want her to have control over her fluids, she still needs to feel her legs. And I liked that thought, because it made it possible to write the happenings in chapter three. But I would also have been okay with creating a different sex scene. It really intrigued me.

I don't know how likely Helena's injury is. I learned a lot about nerves and their names and functions, but I don't know if it's actually likely that only those motoric nerves get damaged. Let's just pretend that it is likely. Svenja told me a lot about therapy methods for this, physiotherapy and also about the possibilities surgery could bring. The damaged nerves are placed on the spine in direction of the stomach. That's why Helena has a scar on her stomach instead of her back from her surgery to take the pressure from her nerves. Because it's more likely.

The music was a very interesting part of the research. I successfully pretended to know stuff about classic piano music for about nine chapters and I'm giving myself a medal for this. Because I don't know anything about piano music. Nada. I didn't learn an instrument. I even can't read notes. I just listened to the things Aim sent me and wrote down what I was feeling during those pieces and what she commented on it. That's all. I will put a master post on my blog where I will write down all the names of the pieces I used for this or I listened to for this.

And now I'm going to tell you that this story isn't even a story about Helena sitting in a wheelchair or about her being a pianist.

This is a story about Helena's recovery from her mental illness. She's ill. In my story, Helena suffers at least from depression, anxiety and social anxiety. It's even likely that she has PTSD, but I don't know very much about PTSD, so I didn't write it into the story (all I know about PTSD is that it doesn't work like in Grey's Anatomy ;)).

For me, it was important to give a more or less realistic view on this aspect. I don't know very much about this, but I've made my experiences with it. And I know that you don't suddenly recover because you have a new love interest in your life. The thought is quite cute, Myka appears into Helena's life and suddenly she's fixed. But this isn't how things work. That's why I gave her Steve for help. The part Myka played in Helena's recovery is more like the pianist expressed it. She's the reason why Helena wants to recover. She's the person who supports her during it, who holds her and who allows her to be weak. But she's not the reason for Helena's recovery. The reason for Helena's recovery is she herself and her hard work with 'Mr. Jinks'.

I know this is rather unromantic and a little untypic for fanfiction, but I have a personal interest in this. That's all I have to say about it.

Another interest in this story was the topic of disabled people and love.

We all know this is fanfiction and in fanfiction people tend to do the dingaling. But there's something Pete said that I want to give an emphasis. 'People tend to not see disabled people as sexual beings'. The-social-recluse expressed it as 'not easy to date'. They are both right. People tend to not see disabled people as sexual beings or somebody to date. But they are. And it's utterly frustrating to know that people don't see this or actually don't want to see this. During my work for the German red cross and my art project in university I worked with disabled people. And this was a topic that sometimes came up in our conversations and made me mad. So everytime Helena smirked while touching Myka or while making her blush because all her innuendo, I tought to myself 'In your face, assholes!' I mean I'm not here for opening eyes or something, but... *makes unhuman noise*

There's a last thing I want to say before this Author's note gets out of hand, too. Aim and I made a joke on tumblr about sequels and painful prequels and there were suddenly all those people demanding an extra painful prequel. Yesterday I wrote a short text about my opinion on this prequel and I will declare it again on this platform.

I will not destroy HG Wells. There won't be a prequel written by me about Helena Wells having a car accident which kills her daughter and paralyses her. I won't write a story about how her depression shows up and about how she thinks her paralysis is a punishment and how she slowly isolates herself in her own flat. I know this fandom enjoys angst and pain, and until a certain point I enjoy writing angst and pain (I mean, take a look at TLS O.o), but this is too much for my weak heart. Maybe it's because I know exactly how she feels like. Maybe it's because I'm weird. But I can't write this story. If anybody wants to do this, I'm willing to answer every question about this AU, the accident, Helena's conditions, both, her disability and her mental illness. But I probably won't read this story, because as I said I enjoy angst and pain only until a certain point.

Thank you for your understanding.

Thank you for reading and encouraging me to write this story (even though I think the interest in this story faded a little away after chapter 6 - only one review on two chapters?! Is the review function broken or something? *nervous laughter because I feed on reviews*). In the end, I have to say say that this story is one of my favourite things I've written so far.

Greetings from Germany,

MaLu

On Monday I have a job interview for... Leena's job. Basically. Maybe not with a famous pianist, but for an organisation. Let's see what happens.