1912
Like the start of any journey, time seems to start off slow and then before you know it, it's almost over. Helen has now reached her fourteenth year reliving the past. She still had another ninety-nine to go until she can rejoin her original timeline, but like most years the older you get, the faster they seem to go by. By now, Helen has purchased a few more residences around the globe, acting as safe houses for her to help hide her agelessness and to help expand her secret operation. Currently, this is only the start of her second week back in the UK and has returned to staying at her first flat for a short time being. After her run in with Tesla a decade prior, she decided to stay in America for a while, touring around the country before making her way up into Canada, then across the pond back into northern Europe, only just now returning to collect on certain investment prospects she left running that she was certain didn't need her micromanaging and would not be affected by her long-term absence. She has been growing ever more aware of the remaining time she can still spend here at this particular location before her abnormal youthfulness becomes increasingly apparent to her neighbors, eventually inciting the same inevitable stares and questions. She planned to sell the flat in less than three months' time, relocating to the new house she just bought in Montreal thirteen months ago as her new semi-permanent residence. She intended to stay there throughout the duration of the 'Great War' yet to come.
Helen turned in 'early' that night, around ten o'clock. She had become accustomed to follow a more standard sleep schedule like most regular people. Since she didn't currently run a facility that needed a lot of attention, staying up very late at night like she had while at the Old City Sanctuary didn't make much sense anymore for her. Five hours later, Helen's restful night sleep came to an abrupt halt when she was jolted awake at three AM by a somewhat terrifying surprise crash in her room. A very large weight had suddenly fallen from midair to land on the corner of her bed, slamming to the floor below at its foot. Helen immediately sprang up out of bed, gripping the handle of the loaded revolver she kept under her pillow in the palm of her right hand. Her heart was racing. It was very close to pitch dark in the room, with barely enough light filtering in from the street lamp outside to give a minuscule outline of surrounding objects. All she could make out was a dark humanoid figure writhing on the floor, accompanied by chaotic scratching noises and a stressed growling sound that filled the air like the creature was confused and in immense pain. The movement started to wane after a minute, and the figure eventually silenced and stilled, gaining composure long enough for Helen to finally get a proper look at it as it sat upright and transposed itself to rest onto the balls of its feet. A momentary single ray of light scattered across the face of the creature staring back at her with large black eyes rimmed with red irises. The brief glance was all Helen needed to know what and who this was.
Helen gasped the instant the recognition hit and dropped her guard at the impossibility of it all. Before she could form a single syllable, the creature sprang forward, slamming her into the wall just four feet behind her. Helen couldn't move. She had been pinned like a star fish to the flat surface, both feet and arms completely immovable as the smaller body pressed itself onto her, pushing her flatter against the wall. Resistance was futile. Helen's wrists felt like they were being held in a metal vise bolted in place and she felt the breaths of warm humid air puff against the skin of her exposed neck just above her right collar bone. Every self-preservation instinct in Helen screamed, as her nerves tingled in anticipation of the impending bite from the razor sharp teeth hovering just millimeters above her lifeline. All Helen could do now was nothing other than say her daughter's name.
"Ashley…"
In early 2009 as Ashley felt control over her mind slip away from her again, the very last thought she ever had was that of her mother and her need to protect her from herself. She knew for certain that the next time the Cabal reclaimed her that that was going to be it; that her body was going to kill her mom right then and there without a single ounce of hesitation or mercy. As difficult as the next decision was to make, Ashley felt it in her gut that it was the only option left for her to be able to choose. Ashley steeled herself and teleported out into the ether, sacrificing herself along with the other Super Abnormal she held in tow. She didn't have an actual destination in mind. All she had focused on was the immense feeling of heartbreaking regret and betrayal she had at being forced to harm her mother against her will and at also being made to destroy almost all of her life's work.
On the other end of the teleport, when Ashley miraculously beat the odds and rematerialized, she felt like she got hit by a cement truck travelling down a highway. Where ever she was she couldn't see and whatever she landed on was hard and flat, her side clipping something during her surprise fall as she felt the world suddenly disappear out from underneath her and then just as fast come rushing up to greet her. The impact hurt. Every cell in her body cried out in shock, her skin felt like it was on fire, and her bones ached as if all 206 had fractured simultaneously. Her head throbbed as her brain traveled into three separate directions all at once. The Cabal 'noise' that overwhelmingly clouded her mind for the last month and a half had subsided into nothingness, her human mind frazzled into a stupor at the new environment she now found herself in and was scared of what just happened to her, and her vampire side just exploded like a bomb had gone off. With the sudden instant calmness and fear of the unknown thrust upon her, her vampire instincts kicked into overdrive for self-preservation, like the gate to a cage had been opened, allowing it to finally run free of any restraints or inhibitions. Without a clear mental compass, the vampire in her took over, trying to regain some semblance of control and a proper sense of surroundings and balance. That's when she noticed she wasn't alone where ever she was. Exactly that of a scared animal confined in an unknown space, she wasn't comfortable with the eminent presence of another being suddenly so close to her. Her default instinct was that this person was a threat to her survival: "danger" it told her, telling her to crouch into a more defensive stance. Eyeing the being opposite her, she saw a flash of emotion cross over its face (was it fear?) and relax into to a less defendable posture. That simple slight movement triggered her fight or flight response, launching her forward without any more thought. She restrained her opponent against the flat surface of the wall and leaned in, her desire to protect herself and kill the danger swirling around in her head. As her human side hesitated against a blind kill and her vampire side savored the rush of the attack before advancing to execute the next move, her senses picked up on something. As she breathed in the scent from the person's hair and skin, it gave her a strange sensation of warmth and security, a familiarity that filled her to her core with maternal safety; trading her feelings of fear with that of love and protection. And that's when she heard it, that all too unique lilt of the voice of her mother saying her name.
Helen felt her daughter's body start to relax against her, slowly releasing the tight grip on her wrists, allowing their arms to fall down towards their sides. The pressure of her back against to the wall also began to lessen as Ashley stopped fighting her and instead moved more into the comfort of her body, wrapping her arms around her chest and inhaling her scent deeply with her face pressed against the crook of her neck. Helen unquestioningly reciprocated the unexpected hold, returning the long-sought-after hug from the one person that Helen thought she would never get to hold ever again.
Ashley's vampire side relented into contentment, allowing her human self to breakthrough. That was when everything hit her, all of her memories and emotions flooding her like a massive tidal surge from a hurricane. Uncharacteristic to her usual nature to cover up her emotions with a mask of bravado, she unleashed all of it in front of her mother as she broke down into body racking sobs, pleadingly crying out, "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Mummy, I'm so sorry…!" into her shoulder over and over again, tears dropping everywhere as she clenched even more of the fabric of the back of her mother's nightgown in her closed fists.
Helen increased her grip to keep an even tighter hold of her distraught daughter, replying softly and reassuringly with, "It's all right, Darling, it's all right. It wasn't your fault. Everything's going to be all right. You're safe now. You're with me," as she applied a nuzzle and a kiss to the top of her daughter's head as her own tears started to flow down her cheeks as she too began to cry. Not very long later, they both inevitably sank to the floor as Ashley's weight leaning on her grew heavier and her convulsions abided into a calmed stillness. From all the recent mental trauma in the last few moments, Ashley's mind had slipped into a serene unconsciousness blanketed by sleep to finish sorting out all that had happened to her in such a short time span. When Helen noted the limpness of Ashley's body and her lack of response to the calling of her name, Helen carefully laid her daughter out on the floor, moving quickly to examine her to check and see if she was indeed all right and still breathing. That was when it finally became apparent to her that Ashley was barren of any clothing what so ever; the Cabal uniform nowhere to be found and her long blonde hair was spilling loosely all over the floorboards absent of the tightly keep style it was in the last time Helen had saw her. While the mother side of her was slightly surprised to suddenly find her adult daughter completely naked in front of her, the doctor side of her found it preferable as it made it easier to perform a physical exam. Plus, it also meant that Helen didn't have to worry about having to destroy the future garment. By now Helen's eyes had adjusted to the dark and she gave her daughter a quick once over, checking her vitals and anatomical functions. Overall, Helen concluded that Ashley was perfectly fine physically, just asleep and that her skin was a bit warm to the touch. Helen went to her dresser and grabbed a light nightgown to slip over her daughter, before carefully heaving her up and over to rest on the top of the bed. While Helen loved the girl with all her heart, she was pretty much all muscle at this point and Helen cursed lightly under her breath at having to pick up her one hundred and twenty-four pounds of solid dead weight. Once Ashley was settled comfortably, Helen sat back and stared at her, still not fully believing what she was seeing. Her broken heart finally felt whole again at having her daughter back in her life as she rightfully should be. The universe has unfathomably seemed to have given Helen an impossible new life full of second chances and opportunities, not only letting her repeat time, but also giving her a new beginning with her daughter whom she had thought she had lost forever. Helen reached forward and tucked Ashley in, finishing with a light kiss to her forehead before laying down next to her. She stayed awake for a little while longer before the excitement and adrenaline finally filtered out of her system just enough for her to join her daughter in a peaceful sleep.
Helen woke about three and a half hours later just before seven AM. She reached over to the still sleeping form next to her and lightly cupped the side of her daughter's face; lovingly stroking her thumb over her cheek, caressing the soft skin as she brushed a small rogue strand of light blonde hair back behind her ear. After the small moment of motherly indulgence, Helen made her way out of bed and got dressed for the day. With one last look, she headed to the kitchen to start a pot of tea before setting out to make breakfast. When she checked in on Ashley at eight AM, she found that her daughter had finally awakened and was sitting upright in the bed.
When Ashley awoke to the scent of familiar foods, such as the Earl Grey tea her mother preferred to drink occasionally, she had found that her mind seemingly had been reset during the night, feeling very much like a rebooted computer. She had no idea where she was or how she got in the bed the way she was. She also didn't notice that her eyes had changed and that her claws were out as well. Her mind became distracted with her new surroundings, slightly oblivious to her mother showing up in the doorway not far away.
Helen noticed Ashley's appearance and cautiously observed her daughter's inquisitive behavior as she moved to get out of bed, to stand and slowly stalk around the room taking everything in. It wasn't until the third time Helen softly called her name that she got Ashley's attention.
Ashley's head lightly snapped away from the object of interest on the night stand as she turned to face the voice talking to her. "Mom?" came the bewildered address.
Helen couldn't help but give a warm smile at hearing the title reserved especially for her by her only child, replying softly with, "Hello sweetheart, how are you feeling?"
After spending a lifetime of being prompted by that phrase from her mother, she began to answer, "I feel…," but her standard conditioning to say "fine" got distractedly cut off and swarmed by a mountain of questions. "Where am I? What is this place? What are you wearing? Why are you blonde?" A perplexing look swept over Ashley's face, clearly emphasizing just how much she didn't know.
Helen walked a few steps forward and took her daughter's hands in her own. The contact reverted Ashley's physical appearance to that of her natural self, revealing the bright blue eyes that she inherited from her father. Helen gave a small sigh. "It's been a long time. A lot has happened since you've been gone. I'll tell you about it over breakfast. Come with me, you must be hungry after last night." Confused at what her mother just said, Ashley simply nodded as a response. With that, Helen turned and led her to the kitchen table where she had set out a small spread of food for the both of them to enjoy.
As they sat down and began to eat in a palpable silence, Helen couldn't help but look at Ashley and Ashley couldn't help but stare back at her.
Ashley felt that this whole situation was very foreign and weird, like she was in a strange dream in some past era. "What did you mean by 'It's been a long time'? I just saw you in the Sanctuary," she questioned.
Helen set down the scone she was was eating and reached for her tea, taking a sip before returning the cup to its saucer. She honestly didn't want to break the ice with a sledgehammer, far from it, but she knew that she also couldn't sugarcoat the world-bending news she was about to give her. "For you it was instant since you last saw me, which is part of the reason as to why you're confused by the way I look right now. For me though, it's been sixteen years since that moment down in the lower level."
Ashley froze in confusion. That what definitely NOT something she could have ever expected to hear.
"That night you teleported out of my life and I never saw you again, until today." Helen's eyes had glistened a bit as she recounted the memory.
Ashley's jaw dropped. "What?" she said, unbelieving. "Today? What's today? Sixteen years? This doesn't make any sense. What is going on?!" The more she talked the more Ashley started to feel frustrated emotions begin to build up around her. She didn't like this unsettling game that her mother was trying to play on her, and it was starting to make her feel uncomfortably on edge.
Helen quickly realized that her initial idea of a gentle approach of telling Ashley about her new reality just went right out the window. So, she changed tactics and played it hard ball. "Ashley, what year is it?"
This seemingly random question sidetracked Ashley; the distraction causing her to start to calm down. "2009," she said with confidence.
Helen shook her head 'no'. "It's not 2009."
Ashley looked at her sideways. "How would it not be 2009?"
Helen didn't answer the question and kept pressing. "Try again."
Ashley huffed. "Fine, if you want to play, I'll play." Ashley felt foolish adding the sixteen years. "Is it 2025?"
At that answer, Helen responded with her classic tilt of the head and raised an eyebrow at her. "Does it look like it could be 2025?" she countered, lifting her arm to offer up the room around them.
Ashley made a sheepish admittance of "No." Being in the past was something she had already innately picked up on when she first woke, and now she felt a bit stupid for even suggesting that future year.
Helen took some pity on her. "Okay, for a moment, forget about what I said earlier, we'll get back to that later. What year do you think it looks like, no matter how illogical it may seem?"
Ashley felt like she was grasping at straws, but went with it. "Um, I don't know. Like a century ago, I guess. How...?"
Helen then let out the preposterous. "Time travel," she admitted, cutting straight to it.
"Time travel?" Ashley slowly repeated.
Helen nodded. "For you, I'm not sure how you did it, but you somehow teleported back to here and now. As for myself, two years after I thought you had 'died' I ended up going through a time portal that sent me back to the year 1898."
Ashley's eyes widened in disbelief.
"As of right now, I've been stuck in the past for the last fourteen years and we're sitting in my flat in South London. It is currently late February 1912, sixteen years to the day that I last saw you." Helen sniffed and reached up to the side of her face to toy with a loose strand of hair that was dangling by her ear. "As for my hair currently being my natural blonde color, my younger counterpart living through this era is also blonde and I sometimes have to impersonate her. Also, hair dyes during this time are still very rudimentary and not the best." Helen gave a slight grimace at that.
Ashley sat dumbstruck. She knew her mother never outright made things up, but this was wilder than any of the stories she's ever been told. She continued to just stare at her mom, desperately searching for a tell that this was all just a cruel joke. Ashley couldn't find one.
Helen knew that what she just told her daughter was a lot to take in, judging simply by the fervent look that was now displayed on her face, so she gave her daughter undeniable proof. "If you don't believe me, you can take a look for yourself out of any one of the windows. If that's not enough, we can take a tour of the city if you'd like. You'd have to wear proper attire first, of course. We'll maybe even travel up to the port in Belfast so you can see the Titanic in the final stages of being furnished in its fitting out." Helen got up from her chair to retrieve the newspaper that was out in the parlor, returning back to the kitchen to hand it to Ashley so she could read it for herself. Front page center was an article discussing the ship's progress along with it displaying a large black and white photograph of the vessel. If the timeline held true, the soon-to-be infamous ship would sink in just less than two months' time in an unforgettable dramatic fashion. Reminiscing about the accident still gave Helen chills.
"This can't be real," Ashley sputtered, furiously rereading the document and all its pages three times over. Her brows were furrowed and her eyes were full of unshed tears that were on the verge of spilling over. Ashley wasn't sure if she was going to cry, scream out of frustration, or do both. Her reality has seemingly fallen out from underneath her again and it really didn't bode well with her to have had her world completely turned upside down for a second time within a month and a half.
"Unfortunately, it couldn't be any less real," Helen relented. She too knew how devastating the initial shock of being stuck in the past was for her, and she even knew ahead of time of what she was getting herself into. She couldn't imagine how alienated Ashley must feel right now, being not only stuck back in a time so far away from her own, but also in a time that she has never even lived through before and has no first-hand experience of; with several eras in-between that are vastly different from when she left.
Suddenly an important thought popped into Helen's head. "And before you get any funny ideas, no, we can't interfere with the sinking of the ship." Ashley gaped up at her in surprise, but Helen just shot back a knowing look. "Just as a reminder, my other self is set to board the Titanic at the port of Southampton not too long from now. Interfering with my other self in anyway can potentially cause both of our futures to drastically change. I'd prefer it to still be a future in which you are born."
That last statement sent a jolt down Ashley's spine. "Wait, so I won't exist?!" she squeaked.
Helen shook her at the dramatics. "No, you already exist in this timeline. You are currently a frozen embryo sitting in cryogenic storage in the basement of the London Sanctuary. What I meant was that if we interfere, it may put my other self on a different path, possibly changing when or if I have you at all, or cause one or both of us to die for various reasons somewhere along the timeline before your birth."
Ashley put her head in her hands. "Oh, that doesn't sound good," she moaned. Hearing about that possible reality made her feel very uneasy, like she was suddenly walking a tightrope.
"It's not all that bad though. On the bright side, unlike me, you don't have to worry about running into your other self, at least not yet for a while," Helen supplemented. "You have seventy-two years left to create another life without that worry hanging over your shoulder."
"Seventy-two years!?" Ashley huffed. "That's a lifetime! I'll be extremely old by then or dead!" she puffed.
"Actually, you won't be. You'll stay twenty-four for the rest of your life. Just like I'm stuck at thirty-five." And with that, her mother knocked all of the wind out of her.
"How can you be sure?" she questioned, uncertain.
"I ran several tests on you after you were born. The results showed similar abnormal genetic markers compared to my own; markers that were separate from the teleportation genes you inherited from your father. After running tests on the other dead super abnormals laying around the Sanctuary, I found traces of your DNA in them carrying the exact same longevity genes in them having had been activated in comparison to the same dormant genes in the blood sample you provided for me to use to try to create an antidote to the Lazarus virus."
Out of all that news, what Ashley got stuck on wasn't that she was going to possibly live forever, it was the teleportation she got from her dad. She looked at her mother with sudden wide panicked eyes, "My father! After he could teleport he went crazy and turned into a serial killer! Is that what's going to happen to me?! Am I going to turn bad like him too?!" She was very upset about the prospect of losing control of her mind again and becoming another monster that kills people.
Helen instantly quelled that fear. "Your father's mental instability is not genetically transferable. What happened to him I am certain will not happen to you, as long as you take precaution. Almost a year after you disappeared, we learned through an unfortunate incident that his insanity was actually caused by a murderous energy elemental inhabiting his body. We surmised that not long after he had gained his ability that he must have picked up the elemental during one of his teleports. So feasibly, until there's a way to make sure that you don't somehow also get a hitchhiker like him, I would recommend not teleporting anytime soon or preferably not at all if you can help it."
Not being able to teleport kind of made Ashley a little happy and sad at the same time. Also the fact that she could teleport made it certainly undeniable as to whom her parentage was. That was something she had still been irrationally holding the slightest denial about even though her mother confirmed it was true and that she could see a resemblance between herself and her father when looking at her reflection in the mirror. At least now she knows she won't turn into a psycho killer hunting people, save for her vampire half. As much as Ashley didn't like being genetically experimented on against her will, she did have to admit that being a vampire was actually pretty cool. It wasn't like how she had initially imagined. With the drugs the Cabal had been injecting her with currently burned out of her system, she felt fine, just with heightened senses and enhanced reflexes.
With vampirism on her mind, she addressed the situation to her mother. "So, what are we going to do about this?" she said, transforming her left hand to display her jet black talons to her mom, wiggling her fingers back and forth before letting them return back to normal.
Helen let out a sigh. "That, unfortunately, I don't think we can do anything about, sadly," she said accompanied by a small frown. "Genetic testing and modification the way we know it doesn't exist at this point in time and won't for the better part of the century. Even then when we do get back to our time, I'd rather not try to further modify your DNA. I don't have a clue as to what they did to you and I don't want to chance doing something to reverse it that may ultimately end up killing you by accident." Helen gave an emphatic smile. "As much as I loathe what the Cabal did to you and forced you to become, there is a slight comfort for me to know that you can heal quickly, making it almost impossible for you to die on me now. Are you okay with that?" she asked with kind eyes.
"Being stuck this way with you forever? I guess I don't have a choice but to be okay with it," Ashley said half-deflated, but also acceptingly.
"I'm sorry it's not exactly what you wanted to hear. How are you feeling?" Helen comforted.
Ashley shrugged. "I feel fine."
Helen probed a little further specifically. "Do you have any vampiric cravings?" she wondered.
"If you are asking if I need to drink blood, the answer is 'no'," she waved off with a barely-there roll of her eyes, followed shortly after by a tilt of her head and the furrowing of her brows. "I don't know why, but I remember being the only one out of the group of super soldiers who didn't have to. I mean I can, but it wasn't necessary for me to like it was for them."
Helen found that to be an interesting insight and gave her thoughts of a possibility as to why that may be the case. "It might have something to do with the fact that all of the other Super Abnormals were Montana test subjects," she offered hypothetically.
Ashley narrowed her eyes in confusion. "What do you mean? What 'Montana test'?" she questioned. As far as Ashley was aware, the Cabal had only done to the others what looked to be the same procedure that they had put her through. All six of them (herself included in that number) had come out with the exact same abilities in the end. Had she missed something?
Her mother explained. "Project Montana was an off-book genetic experiment created by MI6 in the mid 1980's. The others were orphaned children who had their DNA altered by a scrubbing procedure that had removed any and all imperfections from their genetic code. The classified files detailing this operation were located on the storage drives the Cabal had you steal from an Interpol data farm in Montreal."
Ashley at that moment briefly looked down, feeling a slight twinge of shame at getting called out about her past less-than-honorable actions that she was forced to commit.
Helen continued to elaborate. "Their stripped genomes made it easier for the Cabal to overwrite it and to fill in the gaps with whatever they wanted. This scrubbing procedure however also made them completely unaffected by the Source Blood as it had nothing dormant to activate."
Ashley quickly put the pieces together. "And that's why they needed me," she guessed.
"Yes," Helen nodded. "They targeted you as you were already predisposed to its effects by being the offspring of two Source Blood altered parents. Predisposure was beneficial as it meant that you would most likely not reject further exposure, making you the perfect candidate."
"Great," Ashley sighed morosely.
A convenient notion came to Helen as she reflected back on events. "That might have been your saving grace, actually," she offered hopefully.
Ashley wasn't completely following. "How so? You just said it made me their greatest asset."
Helen responded in her typical fashion; providing an obscure analogy to convey her train of thought. "While you were their key, you were on some level also their Achille's heel."
While Ashley got the gist that she was a linchpin, she was still lost in knowing the science behind it.
Helen could see her daughter wasn't fully catching on. "Since you didn't have any gaps in your DNA, it would have made it harder for the Cabal to tweak and add in all that they wanted, potentially making you less of a vampire overall. It may have also been the reason behind something else that made you different from the others. I noticed during the attacks on the Sanctuary Network that they were more feral than you were in behavior. You seemed to more methodically hang back and were toying around with me unlike the others who just blindly launched themselves at anything and everything."
Ashley massively inwardly cringed as her mother recounted her horrid behavior; her mind briefly flashing to those sick taunting moments as she hunted her own mother down in their home with a predatory glee; the Cabal capitalizing on her vampire instincts and excellent tracking ability, pushing mental control over them out of her reach. As uncomfortable as it was to revisit those memories, Ashley decided to continue forward with the discussion to add in something that Helen probably didn't know about it. "They were drones."
Her mother nodded in acknowledgement, "We did notice your telepathic communication between each other…" but before Helen could continue further, Ashley cut her off with a shake of the head.
"Not exactly. While it was telepathic, it wasn't real communication. We weren't having conversations with each other like the two of us are now. The others were just hollow shells sending and receiving signals, like robots. There was literally nothing there. No personality, no thought, no emotion, just orders from the Cabal. While I was trapped in my head wrestling back and forth for control of my body, fighting against those signals, I tried talking with them. They didn't exist as people anymore, just programmed vampires following a script," Ashley frowned.
Helen gave a sympathetic nod. "I saw you fighting. It was how I knew you were still in there," she said softly, yet determinedly. As she continued, she briefly cast her eyes aside to look down and away as she remembered those trying moments, before looking back up at her daughter. "Will thought that I was crazy, that I was only seeing what I had wanted to see; believing that I was blinded to your condition because I am your mother. He also thought along those same lines while I was searching for you afterward; that I was chasing your ghost. It doesn't matter though, as through it all even to this day, I still carried hope with me no matter how small the odds were. Turns out, I simply just had to wait for the 'right time' to finally come along to be able to find you." A relived smile had spread across Helen's face, touching her bright sparkling eyes as she leaned forward to briefly reach out to lightly squeeze one of Ashley's hands resting on the table; brushing her thumb over her knuckles a few times before she released her daughter's hand back to her.
Learning that her mother never gave up on her brought a sense of reassurance and warm comfort to Ashley's heart that helped to dull the pain of betrayal that was currently taking up a significant amount of residence there ever since her forced abduction. At hearing her mother recount Will's cynicism, it caused Ashley to involuntarily chuckle a little. "Will thinks everyone's crazy, not just you. I can't even begin to recount how many times he's objected to things, even if they were just standard procedure." She had a moment of short reflective pause as she thought about her current situation. "Strange to think that he doesn't even exist yet, not for another two generations or so. Same goes for Henry," Ashley softly pined about her adoptive brother and the fact that she won't be able to see him again for the next ten decades.
Helen felt this moment was the perfect opportunity to also mention another important detail about traveling through time. "Ashley, aside from possibly interfering with my past self that can potentially derail the timeline of your gestation and subsequent birth, you also can't interfere at all with the relationships of other people either as it may jeopardize their births as well, changing entire family trees. Unfortunately, even though it may not seem difficult now, it means that you, as well as I, can't have any romantic or sexual relations with anyone for the better part of the next century."
Ashley's face fell.
"We also can't save people from dying, by trying to interfere with wars and other terrible tragedies. We have to be very careful about what we do. Anything we do could set history down a different path. Even small things like taking advantage to cash in on the stock market. Considering temporal theories, we may or may not be taking the spot of another person who should have originally been involved with something, such as getting tickets to a concert or owning a certain property…. Somehow we may inadvertently affect how people interact with each other and the decisions that they ultimately end up making for one reason or another. You may accidentally bump into one of your friend's grandfathers making him miss the moment he originally meets their grandmother. We may end up causing an unintentional trickle effect leading to important influencers in culture and history, such as eliminating Elvis from the timeline, etc. We just don't know the scale or scope of our impact at this moment. What I do know is that the more time that passes, the less of the ripple effect. So while we may be somewhat very restricted now a hundred years out, it will eventually get to the point where we can have more and more liberties."
"Time travel doesn't seem very fun anymore," Ashley pouted and slumped in her chair, picking up a spoon to swirl the remainder of her tea sitting on the table which had cooled to room temperature by now.
Helen returned the sentiment. "It's certainly not. To be honest, it feels like a never ending chore, always having to triple check that I don't accidentally tamper with or wander into something that I shouldn't have. Just keeping track of my other self is hassle, and on top of that I have to also try to avoid running into the other members of The Five, distant family members, old friends, and colleagues. It's immensely difficult and one of the reasons why I've haven't been in the entirety of England for the last decade until now. I only returned a week ago to close out a matured account. London is one of the largest cities in the world during this time and has over sixty thousand streets and passageways with millions of people inhabiting it, and yet within hours of arriving in 1898 I ran into your father who teleported into the same random back alleyway I was in. The odds of that happening should have been astronomical. Luckily, he was inebriated during that altercation and I was able to deter him away from me without much questioning."
They had been sitting for a long while now and Ashley shifted in her seat. She readjusted the nightgown she had somehow gotten into and decided to ask her mom about it. "So, what happened to my clothes?" she asked, looking down and picking at the thin cotton fabric for emphasized effect.
Helen gave a cheeky grin. "Oh, you weren't wearing any when you arrived. I gave you one of my lighter weight nightgowns to wear as you were quiet warm last night."
Ashley was stunned for a quick second and then blushed as the realization hit her.
"Not to worry, I can take your measurements in a little bit and pick up a few garments just to get you out of the house for the day. We can then both go out and buy you a full wardrobe and hire a seamstress to tailor your outfits. You may be a little dismayed to know that pants are not very common for women to be wearing these days, at least outside of America. You may want to stick to mostly skirts and dresses for a few years as we are trying to blend in." At Ashley's look of dismay, Helen decided to try to inject a bit of humor. "Sadly, long away are the days of head-to-toe black leather," she chuckled, which caused Ashley to let out a laugh.
As they finished the last of their breakfast and their heavy conversation found a natural pause, Helen stood from the table and led Ashley out into the parlor where the light was best. She wrote down all of the measurements she needed and instructed Ashley to stay in the flat until she returned.
When Helen returned about two hours later, Ashley was shocked at the size of the pile of multiple different fabrics items that were brought back. "Mom! I thought you said were only going to get me a few things for the day!" she gawked at it all.
Helen looked up and let out a small huff as she began unpacking the small haul of clothing. "I did. As much as I love some of the styles of clothing of this era, it's certainly a pain in the arse with how many layers a woman has to wear. Each proper outfit has anywhere between five to seven layers. What I brought back is enough for one day and one night, as well as some other essentials. It's one of the reasons many affluent households had hired help present just in order to get dressed. Men didn't have it too much easier."
Ashley had no clue as to where to start with the bundle of fluff in front of her, but Helen sorted it all out on the bed. She explained each piece and its role and then, leading her step by step, Helen taught her along the way of how it was applied. Ashley wasn't a huge fan of the corset, but decided to tolerate it. Eventually, the clothing portion of being a middle-upper class lady in this era was finished and they soon moved on to pinning up her hair and applying a light layer of makeup.
"There, all done," Helen let out a proud sigh of accomplishment. Her daughter looked quite beautiful in the dark sea green colored dress.
Ashley stood and turned to face the full length mirror as Helen moved to stand behind her. "Wow…." Her formal appearance left her almost speechless. She had never looked so much like a proper woman before. "This looks amazing," she appraised. "Sucks that it takes forever to do though," she said as she rotated to inspect her sides and back.
"With time and practice you'll get faster at it. You may actually like having fun with it, especially in the clothing eras to come," Helen smiled and stepped forward to lean into her daughter's back to embrace her and give her a peck on the cheek, resting her chin lightly on her shoulder. As they both continued to stare back at themselves through their reflection, Helen asked, "Do you feel up to going out?" Her voice clearly laced with more than just a hint of mirth behind her words.
"Of course! Where are we going?" Ashley beamed excitedly, spinning around to look directly at her mother's face and into her eyes.
"I was thinking we could take a ride just across the river to Westminster and then make our way over to Hyde Park for a late afternoon picnic. It should be enough traveling for today, but before we leave, you need to know and be aware of all of the mannerisms and socially accepted behaviors of the day. It shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes of quick practice. Most of it I've been trying to instill in you since you were little, so at least some if it will be familiar to you."
After the quick mini etiquette lesson, they made their way outside the flat. Ashley was more than surprised at what she saw not even a few blocks away as they rode in the cab. As they crossed the Thames it finally fully sank in that she was literally experiencing a completely different world and that it was very much real. This certainly wasn't a dream and it couldn't be faked. Helen smiled as she watched her daughter take in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. She thought about how coincidentally ironic it was that Ashley is almost the same age now in 1912, albeit just older by two years, than if she had originally been born when she should have been in the early summer of 1889 had Helen not removed her embryo in mid-November of 1888. Helen indulged herself in that fact as it seems Ashley too got a second chance at living a life she initially missed out on.
Ashley caught her looking at her. "What is it? What are you so happy about?"
Helen couldn't help but smile brighter at that. "Oh nothing, just thinking about how this would have been your life had things worked out differently than they had. You would have celebrated your twenty-third birthday in the next several months of this year."
"Really? Ashley asked, fully intrigued.
Helen nodded. "Instead, you'll now be turning twenty-five at the end of June. I had your re-implantation scheduled and performed on the same day and at the same time as your removal almost a century prior. Whether or not your day of birth would have been the exact same in 1889 as it was in 1984 I am unsure of, but it's very possible to have been," she shrugged.
Thinking about ages got Ashley curious. "What will you be?" she inquired innocently.
"I'll be 175 this August," Helen said straight up. "I got sent back to 1898 over half a year before my 161st birthday."
"Damn," the younger woman let out accidentally as her eyes widened at the news.
Her mother gave her one of her 'looks' accompanied by the tilt of her head. "Watch your language. Remember what we talked about earlier just before we left," she admonished.
"Sorry, Mom. I'll try to catch myself next time," Ashley apologized.
"It's all right, I know it'll take some time getting used to. Even I had trouble curbing my tongue when I arrived back here. It's one of the things that gave me away to your Uncle James as not being from this time period anymore," Helen smirked.
Ashley was slightly shocked. "He knows about you?"
Helen kept her voice low, as the carriage had just slowed it's pace a tad which lessened the overall protective noise buffer they were using to converse under. "He does. He practically figured it out all on his own right after my arrival. He's secretly been helping me ever since, especially in the regard of my issue of trying to avoid my younger counterpart. He sends me discretely encoded telegrams every now and then to remind me of my, her, current activities and travels."
The rest of the short ride was spent in amicable silence, as Ashley was again taken by the sights outside the carriage windows. Once they arrived at their destination a few minutes later, the pair spent a good deal of time touring around the area before they made their way up and over to Hyde Park not too many blocks away. The weather was thankfully exceptionally good that afternoon and it made it a perfect setting to enjoy the local festivities going on. Ashley especially enjoyed the outing as even though she had been to these exact same places before in the late twentieth century, the entire experience was completely different now as compared to the modern world overrun with cars. The culture was also very different as it was just after the end of the Edwardian period.
Helen and Ashley eventually settled down on a blanket in a nice grassy section of the field with a small parcel of a few fruits they purchased from a produce cart. They were just far enough away that they were out of ear shot of other people who were casually strolling by on the nearest walking path. There, Helen decided to reveal to Ashley her plans for the future of the Sanctuary Network.
"Ashley, there's more for me to tell you about my time here in the past. I know that I told you that we can't interfere with the past as it'll alter the future, but I've been working on a way to change the future of the Sanctuary in secret by deciding to make a new one hidden underground."
Ashley looked up at her mother from people watching. "Are you serious? Why underground?"
"Well for starters, I can't possibly build anything in the past out in the open as people would be able to see it. Also, after you left, things at the Sanctuary started to go downhill and got more bureaucratically complicated. Within a year I was removed as the global head of the Network twice," Helen said thin-lipped.
Ashley was taken aback. "What? Why?" she asked concerned.
Helen sighed. "The first time was technically my doing. I thought it was a fabulous idea to stick an ozone beetle up my nose and fake murdering the Big Guy to call in the Triad."
Ashley almost gagged on the grape she just popped in her mouth, and spit it back out into her hand.
Minor coughing reaction aside, Helen continued. "I had noticed a series of information leaks and had a suspicion that it was one of the triad telepaths. During the investigation, per charter rules I was temporarily replaced by Declan. I used information regarding Big Bertha to draw out the culprit. My suspicions were right and Will and the rest of the team were able to figure it all out in the end. In the meantime, I quite literally lost my mind and started having seizures, eventually being placed in a medically induced coma until the bug was surgically removed from my brainstem."
Ashley just stared at her with her jaw hanging. "Oh my God, Mom! You stuck a hallucinogenic red-lister up your nose?!" She couldn't believe it.
Helen brushed off the quip. "The second time was a year after your disappearance. It relates back to the first incidence as it involved Big Bertha getting loose and forced to make new land by a billionaire eco-warrior who thought it was a good idea to try to recreate Pangaea. Wexford particularly didn't like the fact that I lied about killing her and basically committed mutiny in the process. He caused Bertha to set off a giant tidal wave that sank part of the fleet of Sanctuary ships and wiped out some of the Indian coastline in the process. We were eventually finally able to get Bertha back under control and avoided complete disaster with the help of other hyperspecies abnormals to stop the rest of the wave. Thankfully, the other Sanctuary heads rescinded Wexford's position and reinstated me."
"Sounds intense," Ashley said before asking, "There are other hyperspecies besides Bertha?"
"Quite a few actually. Because of that incident, we ultimately found out about Hollow Earth." Helen said nonchalantly just before taking the last bite of her juicy apple, savoring its flavor.
Ashley wasn't sure she heard that correctly. "Wait, 'hollow' Earth? As in this Earth, but hollow?" That didn't seem possible to her based on what she knew of the planet.
Helen made a sly grin. "What if I told you that for over the last eight thousand years the Earth has had these giant hollowed out caverns in its crust and in those caverns have resided an entire scientifically and technologically advanced civilization full of people and abnormals?"
"I'd say you've spent too much time reading Jules Verne," Ashley offered dryly.
Helen cracked a laugh at the witty retort and then comfortably settled down. "I'm being serious. The main authoritative city-state is called Praxis. In that city is an avatar chamber in which council members can communicate and basically control hyperspecies. My father reached out to Will using the chamber to send a message to me, and as a result, the Sanctuary team and I managed to find a way to visit the city. Apparently your grandfather had been a resident living there as a highly respected citizen for at least sixty-five Praxian years. It explained where he's been since he disappeared on his expedition to Mecca and how he was able to have lived for as long as he has."
Ashley got excited to hear about the incredible city and wanted to hear more. "Really? That sounds so cool! What else was it like there?"
Helen flat out grimaced and shook her head. "Outside of the technology, it's not a place where you would ever want to take a vacation. Just stepping foot in their city without permission led to the four of us being executed for trespassing; myself, Henry, Will, and Kate, a new member that joined the team. You may remember her as being the one who shot you with the RPG launcher just before you teleported."
"Yeah, when we get back, remind me to thank her for that," Ashley supplied. "So, they went straight to execution? That's harsh," she reasoned as her brain clicked away. "But, if you were to be executed, then how are you alive and here now?" she questioned.
Helen nodded. "We were executed, yes. Their judiciary system we were told was reserved for citizens only. They electrocuted us immediately without letting us give any explanation as to why we were there. It was like they were a civilization back in the Dark Ages," Helen frowned. "'Death' in Praxis is a form of ion suspended animation; it's how their prison system works. I'm currently alive as they had to revive me in order to interrogate me about the whereabouts of a former college I knew named Adam Worth. He had apparently found the underground city about a year before my father did. When issues with Kanaan, one of the other hyperspecies abnormals, arose during my interrogation with Praxis' leader Ranna Seneschal, I had them reanimate the rest of the team to help aid the situation. I don't recommend their smoothies." Helen wrinkled her nose at remembering how god-awful the protein shake she was made to drink tasted. As much as she hated coffee, she hated that concoction a hundred times more.
Something still didn't quite make sense to Ashley. "I'm confused. How where both Grandpa and this Adam guy allowed into the city without issue but not you?" Ashley wondered.
Helen tried to make a very brief summary. "Well, it stems back to what Adam did with their technology. Around the early 20th century he came across an anti-matter Kellorem device. He had the idea to start experimenting with the notion of time dilation in an effort to create a time portal to go back in time to save his daughter Imogene from dying."
Hearing this reminded Ashley of something that she had wanted to ask her mom about earlier, but forgot. "Time portal? Is he how you got sent back to 1898?"
Helen nodded. "He is. I'll get to that a little later though. After a few failed continuum experiments, one terrible incident in particular that had destroyed a whole section of the city, Praxis finally arrested him around the year 1935. He had been in their prison system until early 2010 when he escaped and fled to the surface. In order to resume his continuum experiments though, he had to have the Kellorem device. For him to get back into the city to retrieve it, he needed a Keystone which could only be found using a Praxian holomap. I apparently had one in my possession that I didn't even know I had until my father sent Will a message about it. Adam eventually showed up a few weeks later trying to get to it."
Helen took a pause and saw Ashley was listening pretty intently to her story. Helen decided to spare Ashley's feelings and intentionally skipped over the part about her bout of radiation sickness. She felt Ashley didn't need to know how dire the circumstances were for her to get into the city.
"To answer your question as to why we were treated hostilely upon our arrival into the city, it was because they didn't trust any surface dwellers anymore after Adam's betrayal and escape. They thought that we were in collusion with him. It didn't help that my father also broke the rules by breaking into the avatar chamber to send us a message. A lot of stuff happened while the team and I were down there, but to make a long story short and to tie into your previous question about the time portal, Adam had eventually snuck his way back into the city and stole the device before going into hiding in the surrounding tunnels. It took a little under a year to find him again. Your father and I eventually came across him in a small alcove near Praxis; unfortunately we were too late. Adam had finally perfected his machine and opened a successful time portal. And that's when I went through to the past, following mere moments right after Adam crossed the event horizon. I have no idea as to what anarchy is going about on the surface as we learned that Praxis was completely destroyed from a previous attempt that Adam had made to power up the machine, possibly killing my father and resulting in rogue factions of Hollow Earth abnormals running loose on the surface and governments clambering all over the place quell it."
"Bloody hell…," was all Ashley could say in response. What her mom just told her made what the Cabal did look like child's play. "So what happened to Adam?"
"I killed him," she admitted point blank. "He wanted to completely change history and take over the world. I ended up vaporizing him with one of the Praxian energy weapons that he had brought with him. He's just a pile of dust now."
"Good. He was starting to sound like a cockroach you couldn't squash," Ashley deadpanned.
Helen chuckled a bit at her daughter's response and then decided to get back on track. "If only you knew the half of it. Anyways, returning to my plan for the Sanctuary's future, I intend to consolidate the entire Network back into a single facility again. No more facilities spread all over the globe, with the possible exceptions of Old City, New York, and London outside of the new Underground facility I intend to build. I'm throwing out the charter and getting rid of all the head of house positions and protocols and such. I'm tired of the Sanctuary being what it's currently like, following the model of a company being run by a board of several other people. I want to bring it back to its roots of being a true private family run facility without any government involvement and all of their red tape and invasive sanctions. I want freedom and anonymity again. That is the reason behind every action I have taken thus far on my trip here though the past."
Ashley couldn't help but agree with that. Over the years, she saw firsthand how much her mother began to loathe being turned into a government side piece. "You said 'family run', what did you mean by that exactly?"
Helen spilled out the truth and looked straight at her daughter, "Ashley, I not only need you, but I want you to be my partner in this. Completely. I want you with me every step of the way, much like how you should have always been. With you, I'm no longer alone in this massive undertaking and it's going to take the both of us in order to get this done. I can see that now. You'll be an invaluable asset in the days and years to come."
Ashley eyed her mother with a bit of hesitation. "Are you sure? You let me run missions before, but this is a whole other level I'm not used to."
"Absolutely," Helen replied without an ounce of doubt or regret. "I've hidden things from you before, and it was a mistake. Neither of us can afford to keep things from each anymore if we want to get through this and make this work."
Ashley felt the sincerity and honestly of her mother's words sink in, and it truly meant a lot to her. "Thank you for that," Ashley appreciated. "What do you have planned to do next?"
"Currently, I had planned to stay here in London for the next three months and then sell the flat, moving into the house I just bought in Montreal for the next decade or so."
Ashley was a tiny bit sad that they wouldn't be staying longer. "Why sell the flat in three months and move to Canada?" she asked genuinely.
Helen got a bit cheeky with the simple answer. "I've had this flat for fourteen years now, and the new house is larger with more bedrooms. Plus it would be ideal to live in a location that is not directly involved in a World War," she finished with a cock of her head and a raised eye brow.
Ashley sharply inhaled as her face filled with sudden realization of the major historical aspects of the time period she was now living in; future history that she will now have live through. "OH…. Yeah, there is that," she breathed out. She then admitted a new fear that had internally creeped up on her with a detectable amount of worry filtering her voice, "I keep forgetting, that for me, these events aren't just words on a page, photographs, or old video clips anymore... that it's now part of my literal reality that can affect me; that none of this is a 'distant past' anymore, but the actual present."
As her mother, Helen could all too well directly relate to what Ashley was now faced with and lamented on that fact. "Looks like my decision to continually delay carrying you to term to avoid all of this turmoil seems to have been all for naught, as you are still having to live through all of it anyway. This was one of the many things I didn't want for you to have to experience," she heavily sighed. "I do however find comfort in that at least neither of us will have to go through all of this repeat time alone. We have each other now, just like how it always should have been," Helen consoled.
"When you finally told me that you had kept me frozen for nearly a hundred years before having me, I had initially thought about the drawback that I had missed out on living through a lot of fascinating culture, but at the same time while looking back, I did prefer the benefit of being born past all of this, which was something I have always wanted to thank you for. No one but Fate could have predicted time-travel actually being possible and both of us getting sent back to re-live this time together like a partially twisted chance do-over." Ashley put forward and shrugged.
Helen in turn gave a hum of acknowledgment as she looked away. "The course of life does seem to have a wicked sense of humor at times," she said gazing off distantly across the field at nothing in particular as she thought back through her many memories. "At least in my history it does," she clarified plaintively as she looked down briefly to pick a single blade of grass. "Sometimes I feel like I'm being punished for defying the natural order of things by living for far longer than I should. Other times, like now, I see my longevity as a blessing as I get the chance to experience things I wouldn't have been able to with a normal lifespan." Helen then turned her head to look back at her daughter. The next statement she said had an inflection of sadness in her voice and a look of relief behind her eyes as she reached over to grab her daughter's hand in a firm grip, almost like she was afraid Ashley was going to suddenly slip away from her. "I get to have all this time with you."
The somber tone in which Ashley heard this revelation and noticing that her mom had continued to circle their conversation back around to the theme of "togetherness" between the two of them, mentioning it for the third time now, gave her all the context she that needed to understand her mother's current train of thoughts and it broke her heart. What she said next, she looked her mother straight in her eyes, unwavering. "The loneliness... believing you were going have to relive all one hundred and thirteen years alone... on top of what you've already originally lived... I can't imagine how devastating that outlook of life has been for you," she said heavily empathetic and filled with sorrow.
At hearing her daughter's words, knowing that she finally knew her true feelings that she's covered up for several decades throughout the last half of her life, Helen's façade to shield her emotional vulnerability simply fell away as she closed her eyes and broke down and cried, nodding her confession. Ashley wordlessly moved closer to envelop her in a warm supportive embrace as Helen opened up her heart to her.
"By the time I had you, I had been sooo lonely for such a very long time and had come to see my longevity as being a type of curse, forcing me to watch everyone that I love and care about die around me. Outside of tirelessly waiting for a better world for you and better socioeconomic factors for single mothers, that's the real reason for why I had you when I did. I just couldn't bare it any longer. When you where finally born, I had imaged this long full rich life with you... and then when you suddenly died in almost a blink of an eye, your life cut so short... I... I felt like I was destined to live a life all alone. When I arrived back through time in 1898, when I thought about what I would change if I could, my first thought was that hopefully at least only the next one hundred and eleven years of my life would have to be spent by myself. I won't lie and say that when your time of death eventually came around again in early 2009 that I wouldn't have interfered with the EM shield to let you pass through it, to save you, because that's honestly the only thing that has been keeping me going for the last fourteen years. In the first two years of you being gone, at least twice I've considered ending my life."
With that, Helen had finally revealed to Ashley the haunting desire that has loomed above her for the last unknown amount of time, the desire to just 'end' that lingers in the back of her mind like an ever present background noise. Without her, Helen had seriously thought about never returning to the life she had left behind in the future until James reminded her that she "can always go home, it just might a while". As people say, 'home is where your heart is', and her heart is forever linked to be with her daughter which gave her a want to come back, at least up to a certain point in time. If her plan to save Ashley had failed, well... it might have come down to something as simple as a coin toss on whether or not to keep going. Luckily, her life would never end up going down that road, as her daughter fortuitously is with her right here and now.
For Ashley, that powerful admittance was the last piece of the puzzle about her cemented place in her mother's life that she hadn't fully understood until now. She had always known that her mother loved her, but she didn't realize by just how much of an extent that she was in essence a linchpin, that she was the very reason for why her mother continues to live her very long life. When Ashley first learned that she wasn't actually conceived when she thought she naturally was, that instead her mother had intentionally removed her from her womb, putting her life on pause for almost ten decades by keeping her frozen in a cryochamber, she did initially form some dark doubts that during all that time that she may have been lain forgotten in some unseen catacomb somewhere as just another item collecting dust among a sea of mementos her mother had packed away. That her mother just saw her as some 'maybe kid' she might not ever have, considering who her biological father was; the very real possibility that Helen may have feared that she would spawn the next Jack the Ripper, a fear that could have led to her never being born. This however, was far from the actual reality that her mother just told her. That she was always wanted and that it pained her mother greatly to have to wait for so long to have her and to live a life without her in it. Ashley didn't know how to respond to any of the truths her mother had just revealed to her other than to continue to hug her mother deeply and to cry along with her.
By now, the day had mostly past; it was getting quite late as the afternoon had shifted into early evening. When Big Ben struck on the hour, alerting the two women to the passage of time, they decided it would be best to wrap up their trip and to head home. Helen hailed a cab for them and they made their way back across the river to her flat. She had made a small dinner for them, but they both barely touched it, eating at most half of the prepared food due to their emotional exhaustion. Rather than try to finish their meal, they opted instead to place it in the icebox and to go to bed early snuggled up beside one another, waiting for a new more joyous day to arise tomorrow (depending on if it rained).
After about a week of having more little adventures around city, Ashley suddenly and inevitably came to her mother one morning in the kitchen with an important question in which the topic revolved around the personal matters of women of this era. She had to ask how she was supposed to deal with getting her menstrual period. Helen held a deep sympathy for the girl and showed her what to do, and what she herself preferred. Going through menstruation monthly was an annoyance beyond anything else that truly sucked about being in the past. She too missed the modern day conveniences that made it immensely less of a hassle to deal with. It was one of the aspects of time travel that Helen really didn't like having to relive and was one of the main reasons why she was hoping the next few decades would go by more quickly. Only a thousand plus cycles to go before this trip through the past was over.
