A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who's left feedback; I'm really glad you're enjoying it. I was left in shock when Eulogy ended the way it did and wanted to do something to change it. Sometimes I think fanfic exists to correct the mistakes of the show's writers. :-)

John took Gregory to get settled and then dealt with Henry and Will's inquisition about what had happened during the trip. His efforts allowed Helen to focus solely on her daughter; she began a battery of medical tests and was in the lab, watching the output from an ongoing CAT scan, when John managed to join her a couple hours later.

"Anything of note?" he asked as he stood beside her.

"I have confirmed that she is indeed Ashley," she told him. "Her DNA matches the file I have on record and there's evidence of the broken bones she received as a child."

"Have you determined what is wrong with her?"

"She's suffered serious cerebral trauma. Quite honestly, she should be dead and I'm uncertain why she's not – or why her regenerative abilities were unable to repair all of the damage along with the other injuries she received."

He looked over to his daughter's motionless form. The idea that this was a tease – that they'd found her just to lose her again – made him feel unbearably cold. "What can you do?"

"I don't know…I believe that the treatment I developed for you may be effective in repairing the damage. However, since I don't have a good understanding of what exactly the Cabal did to her, I'm not sure if it would really make things better or worse."

The scanner beeped as it finished its analysis and the bed slid out. "Can you please take Ashley back to her room?" Helen quietly asked. "I need to go over these results."

John nodded. "Of course."

Progress was slow over the next week. Helen spent virtually every waking moment in her office or in the lab, trying to come up with a way to help her daughter. Running the Sanctuary was left to the rest of her team, and they all accepted the responsibility without a complaint.

Late one night, after he'd been able to make some headway with all the tasks requiring his attention in his lab, Henry slipped away to the infirmary to check on the Sanctuary's #1 patient. "Hey, Ash," he whispered to her unconscious form as he took the seat beside her bed. "Man, what I wouldn't give to hear you make some smart-ass remark right now…" His only answer, however, was silence.

"You know I don't do this bedside vigil thing very well. I still have nightmares about the day you broke your leg as a kid. I couldn't do anything but watch as…it seemed like you were falling forever. And your mom…" he smiled slightly, "The boss freaked out worse than you did. And read me the world's most impressive riot act for not protecting her little angel…"

He exhaled shakily. "Damnit, Ash; I'm sorry. I was supposed to be watching out for you on that mission and I just let them… I promise I'm gonna make it up to you, okay? Somehow. I'll make it up to you and the Boss if you just wake up, okay? Everybody's waiting on you and do we strike you as a bunch of patient people? I don't think so!"

After a moment of hesitation, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "You always were the little sister I never had. Get better soon, Ash. You have to."

John got concerned the next morning when he realized that Helen had pulled an all-nighter in the lab. There was someone depending on her to take care of herself and he didn't want anything to happen to either one of them.

Helen looked away from her computer as she saw John enter the lab with a breakfast tray. "What time is it?" she asked.

He set the tray down on another table and then pointed to the clock in the corner of her screen. "Eight twenty-one AM."

She sighed, wearily rubbing at her eyes. "I didn't even look. No wonder I'm so tired."

"Mmm. You need to take care of yourself, Helen," he told her as he extended a hand to help her up and then led her over to her waiting food.

"I know, I will, I just…I found something promising and couldn't let it go until I had completed my analyses."

"And did you?" he asked as he gave her silverware and uncovered her plate.

"Not yet," she admitted, "But I'm much closer now." Helen sighed as she looked at the food he'd brought. "How did you know exactly what I was craving?" she asked she picked up one of the chocolate covered strawberries and took a bite.

He smiled. "I got a few suggestions from a source that shall remain anonymous."

"Would I be incorrect if I guessed that your 'source' was my manservant?"

"Can anyone ever sneak anything past you?" he replied.

Helen laughed. "It was an easy guess."

"Mmm. You should sleep for a while once you eat. All of this will still be here when you awaken."

She shook her head. "I can't, John. She's lost so much time already."

"It is only for a few hours," he protested.

But she still refused. "I'll be fine. I can rest when my daughter is well."

John sighed. "Helen, be reasonable."

"Reasonable?" she asked, her eyes flashing. "What part of any of this is reasonable?!? I never should have stopped looking for her; I knew this was a possibility."

John looked away. He'd been consumed by his own grief and the beginnings of madness and knew that he had influenced her to abandon her search. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want your apology," she told him. "I made my own choices and went against everything my heart was telling me to be true. Now I have a second chance with her that I bloody well don't deserve and no one is going to stop me from doing everything I can to help her!" Helen started to get up and go back to the computer, but John caught her arm. "Let go, John."

He shook his head, gently reaching to wipe away the tear that had escaped her eye. She tried to turn away but he wouldn't let her. "Finish your breakfast," he quietly said, "And then tell me what I can do to help you with your work."

As it turned out, her overnight stint in the lab proved fruitful. Ashley's latest scans indicated that the serum Helen developed seemed to have a positive effect. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

Helen couldn't bring herself to leave her daughter's side; she couldn't let her wake up alone after everything she'd been through. She didn't let herself think too much about what Ashley's mental state would be when she regained consciousness. Her daughter had already been able to override the programming and genetic modifications that the Cabal had done to her; the idea that – after everything else – she would revert to a ruthless killing machine was too painful to consider.

She fell asleep in a chair at Ashley's bedside; John found her there around midnight and didn't have the heart to try to move her. He instead grabbed an extra blanket, draped it over her, and then settled down himself in the second chair that was on the other side of Ashley's bed. The two women looked so peaceful together; he could easily picture his daughter falling asleep with her mother as a child after being comforted about a nightmare.

"She needs you," he whispered to Ashley, "More than she probably ever realized – until it was too late."

John eventually fell asleep as well; when Helen awakened in the middle of the night, she smiled slightly to herself to see him across the room. A year earlier, if anyone had suggested to her that she and John might actually be a family, she would have immediately had them committed for psychiatric evaluation. But now…

As her sleep-addled brain began to clear and she started to attempt to stretch out the crick in her neck, Helen realized that the bed between her and John was no longer occupied. She reached for the switch to the lamp beside the bed, frantically looking around. Her eyes finally landed on a figure crouched on the floor in the corner. "Ashley?" she whispered as she stepped over to her. "Darling, are you all right?"

Ashley looked up and uttered three words that made Helen's blood run cold. "Who are you?"

TBC...