Helloooo. Here goes chapter 21. I'll leave you to it without any delay, I'm too exhausted to write an introduction (but I'll answer your comments as soon as I'm back after a few hours of sleep, of course :)). Thank you so much!

A day spent with Henry had done some good to Helen. They had not spent any quality time together in ages. More than 113 years to Helen's careful calculations. And she had missed it. She had always thought that as long as Biggie was around to raise Henry, she could be excused for being an absent mother, not thinking it would impair his development. And now that he had Erika, and a baby on the way, she had somehow felt she was no longer needed.

Truth was, she had learned from her own experience that moving forward without your mentor's guidance was a hardship that was best to be avoided as long as possible. Henry needed her to recover from Biggie's death, she was his rock.

And as hard as it was for a control freak like her to admit it, she needed him too. All pride aside, she needed every member of her team. She didn't have to ask for Will's expertise to recognize she had reached a severe state of depression. She was exhausted, she doubted herself rather frequently, she had trouble focusing on paperwork, and her self-esteem was so down that she didn't deem it necessary to repair her everlasting friendship with Nikola, missing him like hell but thinking he was better off without her anyway. As for desire, lust, she had none. And that alone should have alarmed her sooner.

She had tried to take matters into her own hands, licking her wounds alone in the dark, away from her friends. But after that day, she had acquired a new perspective on the whole mess. Maybe she could mend the team and herself at the same time. For once, her sanctuary's motto would be all for one instead of one for all. Through collaborating to help her get back on her feet, the team would be even more solid than before.
Helen would take one step at a time. She had no idea what her future with this baby would be like, and it terrified her. Nevertheless, she still had about five months to prepare for it and she would make the most of that time. She intended to follow Will's therapy, be more of a mother to Henry, share her burdens so that they wouldn't crush her and... Yes, she really needed to make the first move towards Nikola to try and establish a new trusting relationship.
Yet, if she wanted to accomplish anything, she had to see Ashley first. She couldn't bring herself to simply leave her be in her virtual world. She wouldn't sacrifice any of her children, poor innocent creatures, fruits of her sinful experiments. This new invention inside of her had the right to see the light. And so had Ashley. Helen couldn't resolve herself to leave that Praxian engine alone, knowing that her daughter might want her to do something.

That's how the moonlight found Helen that night when it glowed through the window to caress her pale skin in the darkness of her bedroom- decided. She had developed an habit of lying on her bed with the Praxian hard-drive next to her, or resting on her stomach, or in her manicured hands. It was a brown square box made of a pretty light alloy unknown to the surface but commonly used in Praxis. It was beautifully carved to let its inside show- an intricate system she had yet to crack, made of some material that really looked like glass, although she doubted very much it was indeed glass. Its dark blue color was soothing to look at though. Had Helen been certain Ashley was dead, she would have thought that device made for a beautiful urn.

That night, when her fingers touched it to get it out of her treasure chest, the artifact lit itself up, glowing blue like a soft nursery light. She frowned. She didn't know it could do such a thing. She sat on her bed and took a close look at the device before setting it on the nightstand. As soon as her fingers got away from it, the darkness fell on her again. She swallowed hard. She didn't have to rack her brain to find a plausible explanation- The baby had some control over the Praxian hard-drive. Either its abilities developed with its body, or, as she had been oblivious to her pregnancy, they had remained dormant so as not to betray the fetus' presence.

"You must be kidding me..." She sighed, shaking her head softly.

Those abilities would for sure be a problem on the long run, but if the baby was so powerful, maybe they could both get into the device and stay longer than a few seconds. She had to try it. It could be her only chance of ever getting to talk to Ashley.

It took her a couple of minutes to plug the material and get comfortable on the bed. She was used to traveling inside of computers by now.

Before she closed her eyes to plunge into the virtual world, she put a hand on her belly. She wanted to whisper a few supporting words to explain what she expected from the fetus and get it to cooperate, but she felt it was ridiculous, so she said nothing.

When she closed her eyes at last, feeling a mix of anxiousness and apprehension, she heard the sound of waves. That was probably a good sign, although she couldn't understand why Ashley's mind would pick an oceanic type of environment for itself. Helen focused on her own breathing without realizing it, something she did unconsciously every time she was near an important source of water.

"Ashley?" She asked tentatively.
When no one answered, she opened her eyes. She was on a beach, the sun was rising, and she felt very cold and naked. It all seemed oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite say why. She tried to call out for her daughter again, but she found she had no power over her own body, or its virtual equivalent to be precise. She felt a surge of panic when she saw a wave roll closer and closer toward her whereas she couldn't move to get away from it. She couldn't even close her eyes to try and erase the thought. She was awfully sad but she didn't know why. The wave stopped its course mere inches from her face, and in a flash, she found herself on a bridge. Brooklyn bridge. She was crying and the wind was blowing her tears away. She was feeling helpless. The beach again, in a flash. A succession of images assailed her, images that she did not have time to analyze, even though she felt things.

Sadness, guilt, powerlessness, surprise, love, arousal, despair, loss, a lot of loss, more loss.

"Well, I've been waiting for you. You look terrible." Long blond curls and smug smile.

"You look terrible too. But still better than what I feared." relief found in familiar banter. A shared look, silent agreement about not crying for what could have happened. Longing. Fighting the urge to hug the damn woman.

Vertigo, cold, Venus, Titanic, HELEN RESCUED. STOP. WILL BE IN NEW YORK IN 3 DAYS ON BOARD OF THE CARPATHIA. STOP. Grains of sand playing around in the less convenient of places, pale moon, the smell of seaweeds and newlyweds. A shiver, soft skin waiting to be kissed, a silent 'O' painted on a beloved face triggering a spiral of pleasure, a muffled groan and...hunger. Hunger for something special...

It came as a flash when she saw herself, naked on the beach. Vienna in springtime. She was Nikola... Well, not exactly of course. But she was in his memories. She could feel what he had felt during those three days between the sinking of the Titanic and the arrival of the Carpathia. It was a strange thing, being there in his shoes- or lack of them as it turned out, while a version of herself was lost in the Atlantic ocean and the other was trying to contain a chuckle, naked and cold (she remembered being cold even in the midst of their lovemaking), barely two feet away from herself...Himself... Oi, that was a very bad trip. She felt the urge to touch her stomach, and Nikola's hand flew to her other self's flat tummy. Helen was appalled. She wanted to wake up. It was the worst nightmare she had ever been through.

At least that was what she thought.

But it got worse when she heard, or rather when Nikola heard-for it was way too loud to be her normal hearing- a crack she knew by heart. She or he or even they turned just in time to see the last reddish flutters of light flying around. She had expected to see John there, freshly arrived from hell. But no. Another Nikola was there. Not as young as he had been in 1912, but just as desperate. He was fully vamped-out, and Helen felt the need to protect her exposed body from his sight... Which resulted in Nikola's hands covering Venus' nudity. Helen wanted to slap herself. That was preposterous.
"When were you going to tell me, Helen?" The vampire asked, his black eyes set on his younger self.
Helen wanted to cry. She felt exposed, betrayed, and she didn't know if what she felt were her own feelings or Nikola's old feelings. Could feelings fade in time just like memories? Because everything was as vivid as her present-reality.

"You know what's funny? You want to bring Ashley back using a vampire... Between your dear daughter and a powerful sanguine vampiris, who do you think is going to survive the transfer?" He asked, a fist on his waist while his other hand was on his face, emphasizing his question.
She shook her head.
"No, no you don't understand!" She tried. She couldn't go further as she suffocated.
Nikola smiled wickedly and she regretted not being able to shoot him.
"The more you try to come here, the faster you kill her."

Her? Ashley? She couldn't understand anything beside the fact that she would die if she couldn't breathe, now.

Suddenly, Nikola fell to his knees, and transported himself in a loud crack again. Helen breathed in, and out, before he came back, in the same state as herself.
"Why are you doing this to me?" He yelled, looking distressed, gazing at something only him could see.

Helen couldn't breathe. It was as if Nikola was holding her throat, and someone was holding his...

She felt a hand touch her shoulder, and realized the hand belonged to her own self... the one from Nikola's memories, the one she/he/they had just made love to, albeit in a flash. Just then, the agonizing vampire turned to them and stared intently at her younger self.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
Helen felt torn between running away from the man who was frankly scary as hell and running to him to shield him from whatever it was that hurt him so much. She couldn't do any of those. She was still suffocating. So she stared at that Nikola, the one she had created, fragile, vulnerable, broken. Just like herself.

Then everything started to blur again, and all she could see was Nikola's eyes, human again, not really his either.
"Think about me."
This time, she closed her eyes, and everything was quiet again. She gasped for air and was glad to feel her lungs being filled.

She was on her bed again, and despite being dressed, she still felt the coldness of the Atlantic wind bite into her flesh. She threw away the patches connecting her to the hard-drive in a hurry to get rid of the connection, and sat up before bursting into tears. How could Nikola interact with her through the device? It didn't make sense. And she didn't really think it through, she was too shaken to think about rationality. That little trip inside of Nikola's memory had been a traumatic experience, both because of what he had felt during those three days not knowing where she was and whether she was alive, and because it was all so unnatural, confusing, and malicious. Everything had been so intense... She felt a shiver run down her spine when she realized the depth of Nikola feelings. She had always thought he was way more sensitive than what he let on, but she had never imagined he was living by a whole different dimension of sensitivity that was his own. Sharing that secret had left her tired. Tired and remorseful. She felt a strange but acute sense of guilt for having unwillingly invaded Nikola's memories and feelings, his own secret garden. Helen wanted to forget about it all. Especially that weird experience of worshiping herself through her oldest friend's intermediary.
She was trying to control the flow of her tears when there was a knock on the door. She fell completely silent, hoping whoever was behind the door would go back to sleep and leave her to calm herself down. But a few seconds later, there came an insistent knock again.

"Helen?"
She froze. After that little trip in Tesla's head, she could not only detect but also feel the concern in his voice. She wanted to ignore him, but he would not go away. Nikola worrying for her was the worst kind of Nikola. Helen thought for a second. She didn't really have a choice. She could either ignore him and he would probably come up with a way to force the door open to check on her, or go to the door and see why he was asking for her in the middle of the night. She sighed. If any of the children had told him about her pregnancy, she would kill them all.

"Give me a second." She said. She didn't shout. She knew he could hear her every move.

She dried her tears, left the bed, hid the Praxian device and all her traveling-inside-of-virtual-worlds paraphernalia in her nightstand and covered herself with her favorite robe to go to the door, which opened to let Helen see her night-visitor.
To her utmost surprise, he didn't look any better than she did. If she didn't know him better, she would have thought he had run a marathon. He looked exhausted and afraid, and suddenly the brunette wanted to pat his back and kiss his face to try and make whatever bugged him go away.
Yet, she didn't move. She eyed him coldly instead.
"What's going on, Nikola?" She asked, trying to mask the anxiety that was gnawing at her.

He eyed her as if counting her bones to be sure she wasn't missing one, and closed his eyes for a split second, and Helen raised an eyebrow. He was worried about her health...

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
When their gaze locked, Helen knew instantly that whatever had happened to the genius was not a coincidence. She stepped aside to let him come in.
"Try me." She said, inviting him inside.