Chapter 6 - Ashley's Gone
Right now she was even more protective of her daughter than ever before, even though she knew that Natalie was more than capable of protecting herself. She didn't want to risk the chance of anyone finding out at something bad happening again. That fear only worsened a few months later someone used her other daughter Ashley against her, Ashley was now lost to her the cabal had taken her and changed her their own little abnormal solider and using her to make copies and create and army of powerful soldiers
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It was now late February 2009, one of the worse things that a parent would have to deal with just happen to Helen Magnus. Helen had lost one of her daughters, Ashley had died trying to teleport through the Sanctuary's EM shield. The one splice that Magnus can take away from this was that Ashley did this as herself and not what the cabal had turned her into, Ashley sacrificed her self so that the Cabal could no longe use her to destroy all the work that her mom and all the other members of the Sanctuary had accomplished. It had been a week since the incident and Magnus was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that Ashley was gone, she had locked herself in her office for the entire week which left Will and Henry to deal with sorting out all the things to get the Sanctuaries around the world back up and running again. Will was starting to get concerned with the way that Magnus was behaving so he decided he needed to check on her. He made his way up to her office where all the door were closed he try to opened them and get through but the Big Guy wouldn't let him telling him that he needed to give her some time. Upon hearing the argument that was happening outside her door Helen get ups and goes to it knowing that Will was on the other side, she opens the door and greets Will telling him to come in while also telling the Big Guy that it was ok.
In her office Helen apologises to Will having left him to deal with the restorations, but she explains to him it is because she believes that Ashley didn't die the week before. She goes on to say that there was a fluctuation with the EM shield right at the time Ashley tried to teleport, and she believes that Ashley didn't die but somehow bounce back within the field and is hurt somewhere needing their help. Will doesn't believe that this could be true but goes along with Helen as he thinks she needs to do this to come to terms with the truth. For the rest of the evening he goes between dealing with things for the Sanctuary and helping Magnus on her quest to find Ashley alive, at one point while talking with Henry about the new arrivals Will explains to him that he is worried about Helen and isn't sure what to do. Upon hearing this it brings a memory to Henry of when Ashley told him that if he was ever worried about mom and she wasn't accepting anyone's help that he should call Natalie, as she was the only one to be able to get through to mom and make her see clearly something that Ashley was always jealous of her sister for but understood that it was because they were so alike, Natalie understood their mother in a way that she could never figure out. Seeing something going through Henry's mind Will asks him,
"Do you know of something that could help Henry?"
"I don't know of something but I do believe I know someone that could help, Ash once told me that I should call her if I ever thought that Magnus needed her help."
"Who are you talking about Henry?"
"You're not going to like this but."
"But what?"
"We need to call Natalie, she'll know what to do."
"Are you kidding me? How the hell could she be the only person that could possible help, she doesn't even seem to be that close to Magnus."
"That's where your wrong Will, she is probably the only that is as close to Magnus as what Ashley was. You may not know who she is but Magnus does and what you don't see is that they probably talk to each other more than what we do."
"Ok fine call her, hopefully this means this time I might actually find out why she is so special."
With that Will stormed off back to organising things with the contractors they had working fixing things.
Once Henry had finally finished sorting out all the new intakes they now had, he got the chance to make the phone call he never believed he would need to make. He dialled her number quite surprised at how quickly she picked up the phone,
"Hello H, what do I owe the pleasure of your call." Natalie answered.
"It's Magnus, she needs your help."
"Oh I see."
"Yeah she's not doing so well, with all that's happened over the last month."
"Yes I know all about what's happened mom's kept me informed, but I haven't heard from her for the past week. I thought she just needed space with Ashley being gone."
"See that's the thing she doesn't believe Ash is gone, she thinks she could still be alive somehow. Will's worried and so am I, she's locked herself in her office dying to find out where Ash could be."
"That's not good, look I'm already on my way there as I hadn't heard from her I needed to see her and check see was all good, but by the sounds of it that's not the case."
"Do you think you can help her?"
"I can only try H, I should be there in a few hours. I'm going to look into what she's doing while here on the plane then when I arrive i'll go from there. Sound good."
"Yeah sounds good, see you when you get here."
"See you then, but Henry don't tell Will that I'll be there. Until I sort things out with mom he must think I'm only talking with her on the phone ok?"
"Ok I'll do my best."
With that Natalie hangs up the phone, she gets her laptop out and logs onto the Sanctuary Network she needs to see what her mother is doing. After going through what her mother has being looking at she is pretty sure there isn't a way that Ashley could have survived, knowing this she would be now able to show her mother and bring her to the same conclusion then help her deal with the loss of Ashley.
When she arrived at the Sanctuary she saw that everyone was busy dealing with things, Will still following up with contractors and other heads of houses, Henry with Kate trying to capture the baby Steno that had escaped. With everyone busy that made it easier for her to sneak through the Sanctuary to her mothers office without being seen, walking through the doors of the office she saw that sight of her mother frantically searching through the he possibilities of where Ashley could be on her computer. She reaches her mother at the computer and notices that her mother is so into the work she is doing that she hasn't notice her presence, she speaks to get her mom's attention,
"Mom?" There's no reaction from Helen, she tries again.
"Mom?" This time her mother turns around, and by the look of it at first her mother thought she was Ashley it wasn't until she speaks again that Helen realises it's her other daughter instead,
"Mom, are you ok?"
"Natalie? What are you doing here?"
"Well Henry called me, Will and him are very worried about you. So am I you haven't replied to any of my calls or messages all week."
"Oh I so sorry honey, I've been a little distracted recently."
"Yes I know Henry explained what you've been doing, so on my way here I looked into what you've been looking at."
"And you can see what I do don't you?"
"Unfortunately no mom, I'm sorry i went through want you went through and then tried my own ideas as well. But mom I couldn't find anything that proves that Ashley could have possibly survived teleporting through the EM shield."
Helen looked shocked, she could tell that Natalie wasn't just saying this to try and get her to give up on saving Ashley. She knew that if Natalie was sure there was no way then it had to be true, she starting to tear up the thought of her daughter really being gone finally hitting her.
"Mom look at me, I understand this is a lot to take in so please go look after yourself, have a shower get some sleep. I'll be here to deal with the Sanctuary, when your ready call me and we can talk ok?"
"I can't ask that of you, and Will will know something is up if all of a sudden I'm not frantically searching for Ashley anymore."
"Don't worry about Will, I'll sort it out he wont have a clue."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes mom, now go you've been through a lot these last two months go take care of yourself. I can handle all this." Natalie says waving her hands around to show she's talking about the Sanctuary. Helen nodded making her way out and up to her room for a shower, right now she was thankful that her oldest daughter looked so much like her usually she would disapprove of Natalie pretending to be her.
About 10mins later Will comes into Helen's office, not surprised to see her still at the computer.
He goes up to her side to see what she is currently working on, Natalie sees him and goes onto explain another possibility of how Ashley could still be alive. She runs the program on the computer to look for Ashley's brainwave pattern in the computer mainframe, she then get up and heads to the couch to go through some files that were sitting there. Will takes the now empty chair at the computer to keep an eye of the running program wanting to be there when the results came in, luckily Natalie was right any he wasn't able to tell that she was not Magnus. The results came in just a few minutes later, Will looked over to Natalie and said,
"Magnus you need to see this." Natalie walked over to the computer to see the results that she already knew what they were going to say,
"I'm so sorry Magnus, is there anything you need me to do." Will asked.
"No thank you Will, I believe I can take care of the rest. Please tell everyone the funeral will be tomorrow." Natalie said this, not confirming this with her mother but she believes her mom will not want to put it off much longer seeing as it had already been a week. Will nodded his head and went back to getting some work done.
On his way back to where they were having some work done Will bumped into Henry,
"Hey Henry did you have a chance yet to make that call?"
"Yeah why do you ask?"
"Oh I was just going to say that if you hadn't yet that you no longer needed to, I believe the evidence has finally show Magnus the truth."
"Really?" Henry asked.
"Yeah, Magnus has told me to tell everyone that the funeral will be tomorrow. So it turns out we didn't need Natalies help after all."
"Seems so." added Henry. Henry had his suspicions that I was all Natalies doing that Magnus is now seeing the truth, but he doesn't dare say anything to Will because he seems to dislike her quite much. This Henry doesn't understand because he doesn't even know her, but it will be funny when he does finally meet her and realises the truth. Henry then goes to give Will the run down on what happened with the baby Steno and how they came to capture it again, while finishing up their conversation they see Magnus coming towards them, neither of them knowing that it was really Natalie.
"How's it going boss, everything alright?" Henry asked.
"Yes Henry everything will be alright, I'm sure Will told you about tomorrow?" She asked while glancing a look at Will.
"Oh yes he did, is there anything we can do to help?"
"No that's alright I have everything sorted, I just came down to see the progress on the repairs since I haven't really been helping."
"We all know that you had other things you needed to be doing, so don't even think of apologising for that." Will states.
Natalie nods to Will to show that she thanks him for all he has done and his understanding. She can now see first hand why her mother has put so much trust in this man, she thinks to herself that she needs to talk to her mom to talk her into telling this man the truth he deserves that.
"Look don't worry about all this, you just go and look after yourself and I'll keep going with this and then after tomorrow I'll be more than happy for you to take the reins again ok?"
"Thank you Will I really do appreciate it."
Just then one of the worker came to speak with Will, he needed Will to have a look at something and tell them what he would like them to do, so just like that Will was off, work needed to be done. Now that he was gone Natalie turned to Henry,
"I need to thank you as well Henry." She had gone back to speaking in her normal voice and not her mothers so Henry realised he was right, Natalie was the key to helping Magnus.
"What? Natalie? Is Helen ok?"
"Yes Henry mom's ok, she off taking care of herself I told her I would take care of things around here until she was ready to talk."
"So she understands Ash is gone right?"
"After I had shown her all the outcomes of the theories she was working on she couldn't deny the truth. She's taking it hard but she'll be ok she just needs some time."
"Ash was right, you were the person that Magnus would need."
Natalie nodded, she knew that her sister didn't it like at times with how much closer she could get with their mother but she always understood why that was and would always put the best interest of another before her own.
It was an hour or so later that Natalie received a message from her mother asking for her to join her in her room, she was ready to talk. Natalie headed straight there seeing as she really had nothing else to be doing seeing as Will was taking care of everything that was needing to be done. Once there they started talking and organising the funeral for Ashley, Natalie was right with her assumption Helen did want to have it the next afternoon. After talking all things Ashley, Natalie decided there was something else that needed to be discussed,
"Mom I know that this probably isn't the greatest time to bring this up, but I think you need to tell Will the truth."
This shocked Helen, and she wasn't entirely sure why her daughter would be bringing this up now,
"Why do you say that?" Helen asked.
"After seeing him today and all the things he's been doing around here, I trust that he would be able to know the truth without it changing things. But I also believe that if you leave it to much longer he's going to dislike the idea of me more and more.
"I suppose your right, he really should know, and I do trust him to keep it to himself. It would make having to hide you so much easier with his help."
"So we agree, you'll tell Will."
"No we'll tell Will." Helen stated.