Summary:
After Nick's death, Helen decides she needs the comfort that only Stephen could give her. And given her knowledge of the anomalies, it's not a big deal for her to jump back to an earlier point in her life, camouflage as her younger self, and have one last roll in the sack with a Stephen Hart who adores her.
It should be a harmless change to the timeline, after all.
(Or Helen forgets that even small rocks can cause big ripples when skipped properly.)
Notes: Part One of "Ripples in Time" series.
A Small Thing
Helen examined herself in the mirror and then smiled. It hadn't been easy getting close enough to her past self to get a body scan that the camouflage tech she'd scavenged in the future could utilize. But she'd managed eventually, during the week she'd spent in the past... her past.
It wasn't easy, seeing the younger version of herself who'd yet to find the proof of her wild theories and still thought her greatest thrill was the secret affairs she had with her students. A different student every year, until Stephen. He'd been special.
Hard as it was to see her younger self with the softer skin and longer hair, it was harder still to see Nick. So recently dead, from her point of view. Both Nick and his clone, dead and gone all in the same hour. She could barely look at him now, so young with bright blue eyes that trusted her completely. Something she'd lost, staying away from him too long. If she approached him now... but, no... that time had passed. There was nothing for her with Nick now and no good to come of changing his timeline. Nick Cutter was destined to die.
It was a little easier to see Stephen. He was only... twenty-three? Or was it twenty-four yet? She couldn't remember. He'd always seemed so much younger than her despite the gap in their ages not being all that much. She'd only been twenty-seven herself at the time.
He used to look at her with stars in his eyes. Helen had been unable to help herself the first time she'd kissed him.
"We shouldn't," he'd said. "Your husband..."
"Nick's so focused on his work he's forgot how to enjoy himself. Please, Stephen, help me remember how to be happy?"
It hadn't taken much persuading, really, to get Stephen Hart into bed. An action she'd been all too happy to repeat. Stephen was a very generous lover. Not her intellectual equal like Nick was, but then... she supposed that she couldn't have everything.
So here Helen was, putting the finishing touches on her disguise as her past self. The clothes looked right, but then she'd stolen the shirt and underthings from her own hamper and bought a new pair of pants in her preferred brand. She'd admired herself naked first before clothing herself. All her scars appeared washed away, her face glowing with renewed youth without the hard lines that her travels had inscribed upon her body; it was almost like being innocent again.
Tonight was the night Helen had left for the Forest of Dean. She would leave after having another argument with Nick about her foolish theories. It would be years before he'd learn just how wrong he was. Helen had already discovered her first anomaly by then, the evidence of the superiority of her theories; she'd seen the creatures of the past run through it, though her first sighting had been so brief and the anomaly closed so fast that she'd questioned what she saw.
Helen hadn't left intending to vanish permanently, just to find proof that would make Nick shut up and listen for once. But once she'd gone through the anomaly in the Forest of Dean, she'd found a second anomaly that, in turn, led to a junction. It had been too much for her let go of. She'd known, standing there gazing at the glittering anomalies... there was no going back for her.
From that moment onward, Helen had started mapping anomalies and had honestly thought she'd never look back. Not until a return trip through the Forest of Dean anomaly for supplies had her hiding from both her husband and former lover. If she'd reached out then, maybe... but she hadn't and watched passively as Nick and Stephen joined the organization that would eventually become the ARC. She'd known, instinctively, the ARC was bad news. But it wasn't until she saw the future they'd create that Helen realized she had to put a stop to them, now, while the organization was still in its infancy.
That was before she'd realized it was humanity itself at fault, not a single organization.
But before Helen had dedicated herself to ARC's destruction, she'd first wanted to use the anomaly researchers to reach the future. She'd thought Nick would help her for sure. He was clearly still in love with her after all those years apart. But he refused her. He failed her.
Yet, as always, where Nick failed Helen, Stephen came through. His naivety was a blessing and his romantic heart blinded him to what Helen knew were her flaws. And Stephen had died trying to be a hero, which was more than Nick could claim. He'd died being an obsessive obstacle and even his clone refused her the solace that surely Stephen would have granted her.
Now, here in the past, Stephen would offer Helen much needed comfort one last time.
After knocking on the door to Stephen's flat, Helen stood back to wait. It didn't take more than a moment before the door opened to his beautiful face. So much younger close up than from afar and, truly, he took her breath away for just a moment.
Stephen looked startled at first, but then smiled at her easily enough. "Helen," he breathed out her name like a prayer and held the door just that little bit wider. "Come on in. I thought you were going to the Forest of Dean."
"I will be. In the morning. Nick thinks I'm headed there already, but I just... needed to see you again before I go." She walked inside as she spoke, swaying her hips a little more than necessary just to enjoy the feeling of Stephen's gaze.
The door clicked firmly shut behind her.
Helen doesn't really think too much, later, on her little visit to Stephen in her personal past. She's too busy learning what she needs to about the sites where humanity's ancestors once lived. If she is going to destroy humanity at the source, as it were, then she has to learn just the right places and times to strike. And she needs to know more about controlling the anomalies themselves. That means living in the hell scape of the future for a while. But Helen is nothing if not a survivor these days.
When she returns to what she thinks of as the present, she's wearing the face of a dead woman who hadn't even been born yet. The ARC is full of bleeding hearts and Helen is certain she can manipulate them long enough to get what she wants.
So imagine her stunned surprise - her utter, heart-stopping shock - when Danny (such a bleeding heart indeed) leads her into the heart of the ARC... and there stand Nick and Steven. Both of them so very much alive and smiling at each other. Joking, like they didn't even know they should be dead.
Which they don't, of course. The only one who knows is Helen and she doesn't understand why they're alive. Her mind skitters in shock, trying to make sense of it. And eventually Helen's mind wanders back to that little trip she took, crossing her own history by seeking out Stephen one last time.
Such a small, innocuous thing. It shouldn't have changed anything... but, somehow, it did.
Notes: This is basically the prologue for the series. The endgame relationship is Nick/Stephen.
What is it about arrogant time travelers who think they know everything but make the biggest mistakes that I enjoy so much? (Helen, Eobard...)