Author's note: Struggled with this chapter quite a bit but I think it worked out okay in the end. Darn writer's block!
Tempest in a Teapot
Chapter 29: A Mother's Promise
Gasping hard for breath, Helen arrived at the area she had seen Ashley disappear from and began to desperately look around for the hole, all the while screaming her daughter's name. It was a cloudy, cool day and the dark shadows thrown from the tall wall were making it harder to find the hole among the tall grasses. Loudly sniffing around the air, the Big Guy moved carefully towards one section near the wall and finally stopped to lean down. "Magnus, over here."
As she reached him, he held out a long arm before her as a precaution. Together they looked down into the hole, which was possibly 6-7 feet down, and could just make out the light colored top of the child's shirt. Ashley neither returned her mother's calls nor moved.
"She must have gotten knocked unconscious from the fall," he gruffly said, unable to hide his concern as he searched for a way to get down into the hole. Its width wasn't very wide, certainly not wide enough for either adult to get through.
"We can't make the hole wider without risking debris collapsing down upon her," Helen observed before calling down to her daughter again. The lack of response by the child had the doctor's stomach twisted tight in fear and she wrung her hands nervously.
"What are we going to do? Neither you nor I can fit through the opening to get to her," her old friend said. The child had been unconscious for at least 15 minutes by his estimation.
"I can fit," a boy's voice cut in as he moved forward to look down into the hole. The Sasquatch's arm shot out before the child to prevent him from falling in. The last thing they needed was two children trapped down a hole.
"Henry, you want to go down the hole?" Helen asked as she eyed him. He was lanky enough to possibly fit through the small opening.
He shook his shaggy head. "No, I don't want to… but I will," he said as he dropped a pile of rope and metal clips and aimed his flashlight down the hole. The beam of light moved over the dark bottom until it landed on the form of the missing child. Ashley was lying onto her back and her eyes were closed on her pale face.
"Right," Helen said in mission mode and focused on the ten year old boy. "Let's get you fitted up." She was desperate to get her daughter out of the hole as soon as possible and into the infirmary.
The Big Guy worked the rope and clips into a safe harness in which the boy could be lowered. "When you get to the bottom you need to unclip the harness and put it on Ashley," he gruffly instructed. "You both can't fit back through the hole together, so send her up first and then I'll lower the rope back down to you and pull you up."
The boy looked down into the dark hole nervously as he prepared to be lowered. "It will be alright, Henry," the tall man assured him. "I won't let anything happen to you."
Henry nodded, closed his eyes and began his descent down the narrow hole. About a third of the way down, the hole widened a great deal, helping a bit with the feeling of claustrophobia that nipped at the boy. "I'm a big brave dog, I'm a big brave dog," he chanted to himself.
Above, the two adults looked at one another. "Did he just say he was a big brave dog?" Helen asked with wide eyes as she kept torch's light focused on Ashley. The Big Guy nodded. "Did you…?" she asked. He shook his head. "Did you?"
"No," she answered as she returned her focus downward. How did Henry know that he was a HAP if neither she nor the Big Guy had told him?
"I got her!" Henry yelled back up as he undid his harness and attached it to her. Soon the child was pulled up out of the hole and into her mother's waiting arms.
"Go," the Big Guy told her, knowing she was eager to get Ashley to the infirmary. "I'll take care of Henry."
She walked quickly away, trying her best not to jostle her daughter in case there was a head injury. In the infirmary, she set about doing a thorough exam. Though her small daughter had several bruises and cuts, she was relieved to find no real damage done. The large backpack, which the child had filled with a few pieces of clothing and mostly stuffed animals, had risen halfway above Ashley's head and had probably taken most of the impact when she landed on top of it.
"Ohhhhhh," Ashley groaned, opening her eyes.
"Ashley," her relieved mother cried, hugging the girl tight to her chest. Ashley mumbled something unintelligible, causing Helen to release her tight hold on her only child.
"Ow," she complained. "You're hugging me too tight, mommy."
"Sorry, darling. You just worried me so much that I couldn't help it," Helen apologized, sitting down on the bed as she stroked her daughter's face. "Whatever were you doing wandering out alone like that?"
Ashley looked at her with big, saddened eyes. "You told me to go away so I did."
Helen shook her head at her stubborn child. "I told you to go to your room. I did not tell you to try to leave the Sanctuary grounds. Where were you planning to go to anyway," she asked as she brushed some stray hair out of the girl's face.
"Away," Ashley said softly, looking down at her little hands as she clutched the thin blanket covering her. Her brow furrowed as she recalled everything that had happened since the incident in the library.
"Away where?" Helen asked again. When the child didn't answer, she lifted Ashley's chin with a finger to look her in the eye. "Away where?" she repeated.
"Well," Ashley finally answered, "since you didn't want me here I thought I'd go find my daddy. Maybe he'd want me." She bit her bottom lip and stared down at her hands, afraid to look at her mother and see her anger.
Leaning back, Helen felt as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. She had been completely unprepared for the topic of John to come up. "Oh, Ashley," she said sadly and squeezed her eyes shut. They had had a few superficial discussions about John after the child had discovered that other children had a mommy and a daddy when she was four. But rarely had Ashley mentioned her father.
"He doesn't want me either, does he?" Ashley guessed, peering up at her from half-lidded, sky blue eyes.
"Oh, darling, if you're father were here he would be thrilled to have you. It just isn't possible," she said, her voice faltering as her throat tightened.
"Why?" the child asked, her big blue eyes wet with tears.
Helen's eyes also watered up. "The man that was your father doesn't exist anymore. We lost him a long time ago."
"Daddy's dead?"
"Basically, yes."
Ashley sniffled and swiped at a tear with the back of her hand. "So I have nowhere else to go?"
"You don't need to go anywhere else. This is your home. You belong here… with me." She reached out and took both of her daughter's hands into hers. "I'm so sorry I yelled at you earlier. I shouldn't have done that. But I want you to know that I love you so very much and always will."
Sucking on her bottom lip, Ashley didn't reply except to look up at her mother with sad eyes and then back down at her hands resting in her mother's larger ones. She wasn't entirely ready to make friends with mommy yet.
The scuffling of feet caught her attention as Henry shuffled over to the bedside. "You had us all scared, Ash." Behind him, the Big Guy came to stand beside Helen, placing a big furry hand on her shoulder and giving her a comforting squeeze. They had heard most of their conversation and his heart ached for mother and child. He knew what a difficult subject John Druitt was for Magnus.
"Sorry," Ashley muttered, going to pull her hands free only to have her mother grab them tighter which caused her to look up at her again. Helen squeezed her hands again as the pair stared at one another silently.
Acknowledging the boy, Helen reached a hand over to grab hold of his cheek and gave him a kiss. "You were very brave and saved the day. Thank you."
His cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. Henry was not one to brag about himself but he did love being appreciated. "It was nothing," he murmured demurely while his shining eyes confirmed his pleasure at being praised by the woman who he considered his adopted mother.
The Big Guy smiled down at the boy. Henry held a very special place in his heart. "Speaking of brave, why did you chant 'I'm a big, brave dog' while going down the hole, Henry?"
Letting out a big giggle, Ashley asked the boy, "You thought you were Chuckie, Henry?"
"Who's Chuckie?" the adults said in unison.
Henry's flush spread to his ears. "He's one of the little boys on The Rugrats cartoon."
"Chuckie's the scaredy cat one," Ashley smugly proclaimed. "Tommy's the brave one, and Phil and Lil are the cool ones. They eat bugs."
"I see," Helen said with a soft laugh. "So Chuckie goes around saying he's a big, brave dog, does he?"
Henry shook his head. "No, only in one episode. In the Halloween episode he thought he had been turned into a werepuppy… that's a baby werewolf… and had to go inside a scary haunted house."
"Oh my," Helen uttered as she and her old friend exchanged glances. So the boy still had no idea he was a HAP. They were going to have to have that conversation in the near future. He was getting old enough to understand things. She wasn't sure when the change would start occurring but she did know that he needed to be told before it happened.
Wanting to deflect Magnus's intense stare at him, Henry held up the girl's favorite stuffed animal. "This might make you feel better."
"Max!" Ashley cried, yanking her hands free from her mother's grasp to grab her stuffed dog and crush it to her chest. "I couldn't go anywhere without you."
Helen inwardly sighed. Max was a mess and in need of a wash, but how to get him away from her daughter without upsetting her further? She decided to let it go for the moment. Both Ashley and Max needed bathing so why not kill two tasks at the same time later on in the evening. "Well, I want you to keep in mind… anywhere you and Max go, I will follow and find you," she softly said. "I will always come for you and bring you home."
Hopeful little eyes looked up at her from behind Max's head. "Always?"
"Always," her mother replied. Her eyes were watery as she thought about how close she'd come to losing her precious child today. Ashley was the best thing that had ever happened to her… and was the only good part of John she had left.
Ashley held out one of her little hands. "Pinky swear?"
Hooking their pinkies, Helen sniffed, "Pinky swear," and leaned forward to kiss the child on her forehead, lingering for a long moment. "I will always come for you," she whispered.
Jerking up with a loud gasp, Helen awoke from her vivid dream. Only it really wasn't a dream. It was a remembrance of the first time she'd almost lost her child. Tears were running down her cheeks and her promise to Ashley to always come for her replayed itself in her head. She had promised her child that she would always bring her home and, now that she was back in the past, she actually had the chance to do that. But could she? Would she risk tampering with the timeline to save the child she had waited a century to have? And if she did get the nerve to do it, how would she achieve it?
The churning of her stomach and the pounding of her head pulled her out of her melancholy thoughts. A hand flew up to her mouth as she struggled to untangle herself from the bed covers. The queasiness only seemed to get worse as she fairly flew across the room, flung the door open and rushed to the bathroom, distractedly slinging the door closed behind her. It didn't quite catch, not that she noticed as she dropped herself down on her knees and threw up in the toilet.
After several minutes of being sick, she closed the toilet lid, flushed and weakly rested her forehead on her hands. Her whole body felt overheated and she was about to give in to her need to remove her robe when she heard the faucet turn on and off. Before she could work up the energy to lift her head a cold, damp wash cloth was pressed against the back of her neck. Hissing slightly at the cold, she stretch her neck as the cloth slipped under the collar of the robe she was wearing. The cloth soon moved around to dampen her face and surrounding hair.
At the feel of another hand sliding around her waist to untie her robe, Helen slid her hand to cover it and immediately recognized the large hand pulling her robe apart. "John?" she guessed as a body pressed against hers from behind.
"Expecting someone else?" he teased as he quickly removed his hand from hers to push her robe off her shoulders before he gently, lovingly began to rub her down with the damp cloth. Sighing, she went back to resting her head on her hands, appreciating the coolness against her hot body.
Druitt had been heading down the hall towards her room to check on her when he heard someone being ill in the bathroom. Before he pushed open the cracked door he knew it would be her. It was the early hours of the morning and the rest of the household was asleep. Quietly shutting the door behind him, John headed straight for the sink and the nearest wash cloth. He was quite acquainted with what it was like to be sick at one's stomach after his many attempts at drugging the energy elemental that had possessed him. First one would feel as if they were on fire and want to undress… then after the body had started to recover the shakes would come and one would feel like they were freezing.
Once he had wiped her down to the waist from front and back, he stood up to drop the cloth into the sink and collected two large bath towels. Helen, meanwhile, was starting to shiver as her body's temperature cooled and she pulled her robe back over her body, weakly tying it at the waist just as she felt herself being pulled backwards across the floor. "John," she whimpered. Motion was not her friend right now.
"Sorry, luv," he whispered as he sat on the floor against the base of the sink's cabinet and pulled her into his arms. He felt her sink into him while panting softly as she tried to squelch another wave of nausea in her stomach. Feeling her start to shake, he unfolded the two towels and covered her with them. He then wrapped his arms around her tightly and closed his eyes as they quietly waited for her health to improve.
Helen sighed and turned her head to snuggle into his throat. His head came to rest on top of hers and she sighed again. So this is what it would have been like had he been around the first time she was pregnant with their child. While she had been perfectly capable of having Ashley on her own and had never complained to any one, especially James, there were several times when she wished her child's father was there to care for her. Exhaustion, particularly at the beginning and ending of the pregnancy, would have been less stressful had John been there to help her.
John waited through the subsiding of her shivers until he could feel her breathing even out and become low. "So… can I take this as not just a maybe I'm pregnant or a possibly I'm pregnant but a definitely I'm pregnant?" he asked quietly.
She had almost fallen asleep when she heard him speak. Opening her tired eyes, she quietly answered, "Yes, I think so," and felt him kiss the side of her head.
"We are going to talk about this, aren't we?" he asked as his right hand rubbed up and down her arm. She pressed her nose against his throat and closed her eyes. If he kept that up she would definitely be asleep soon. "Helen?"
Groaning, she agreed, "Later."
"Later," he repeated. "We are going to talk about this," he emphasized, putting her on notice that he would not back down from this request. He knew her well. She had lived over a century doing things exactly her way and he had not been able to be a part of her first pregnancy. There was no way he was going to allow her to cut him out of the second one, not even if it was for something as simple as choosing the color of the nursery.
She groaned again and lightly swatted his hand. Helen knew him well enough to know that he was going to drive her crazy during the pregnancy. He had not been able to be a part of the first one and she had no doubt he was going to overcompensate with the second one. But right now she didn't want to think about the pregnancy. There had been some issues with the first one that he was unaware of and she needed some time to think those through on her own. "Help me up," she ordered as she pushed his arms away and pulled the towels off.
He unfolded himself, helped her stand in front of the sink and backed up enough to give her room to move about. Tossing the still damp wash cloth into the nearby tub before turning the sink faucet on, Helen rinsed her mouth and then thoroughly brushed her teeth and tongue to remove the horrid taste in her mouth. She ended by splashing fresh water on her face and, clutching the sink with both hands, peered at her reflection in the mirror. God, she looked like hell. Her messy red hair was a stark contrast to her blanched skin and hollow eyes with dark shadows underneath. She wouldn't blame him for a second if he high tailed it out of the room. She was anything but the glowing picture of impending motherhood.
Behind her, John moved to flush the toilet one final time before picking up the two discarded towels. She gratefully accepted one of the towels and slowly wiped her face dry. Feeling his hands coming to rest on the sink around her, essentially pinning her against the sink, she lowered the towel and found him staring intently at her reflection.
Leaning his face close to hers, he softly and emphatically informed her that "I'm not going anywhere."
She blinked and clutched the towel to her chest. How did he know what she was thinking? "I didn't say you were," she answered.
"Well, I'm not," he said again. "We made this child together and we are going to have this child together."
Lowering her head, she sighed. She really didn't have the strength to get into this with him right now. "Help me back to bed?" she requested and felt him stiffen a bit. There was a pause, as if he were considering whether to continue with his confrontation or let it go. Finally, he moved away and allowed her to turn before wrapping his arm around her waist and gently lifting into his arms.
"I can walk, you know," she half-heartedly protested as she rested her head against his chest.
He smiled as he moved them back to her bedroom. "And if you were feeling better you would let me know that in no uncertain terms," he agreed and felt her smile against his throat. Quietly shutting the bedroom door behind them, he carried her over to the bed and helped tuck her under the covers.
She watched as he moved around to the other side of the bed, toe off his shoes, and undress down to his shorts. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked.
"Going to bed. It's nearly three in the morning and I'm exhausted," he responded as he slid into the bed and pull her against him, careful to not jostle her bandaged left arm. Giving her a tired smile, he seemed to read her mind yet again. "Don't worry, luv, I'm not going to have my way with you right now… and James already knows I'm the father so I doubt finding me in bed with you will come as a great shock to Dr. Watson. If it does, he's not as clever as he thinks he is."
She smiled tiredly back at him as she settled herself in his arms. She was so weary. "Smart ass," she retorted drowsily.
"A requirement in keeping up with you, my dear," he murmured and yawned. The rise and fall of his chest became rhythmically soothing and both soon drifted off into slumber.
Helen's last, complete thought was recalling her promise to her lost, first born child. "I will always come for you and bring you home."
