disclaimer: I own nothing

Author's Note: This is an Out of the Blue story, but with a definite twist! Out of the Blue is one of favorite Sanctuary episodes. It was also the very first episode I ever saw (imagine how confusing that was!). This started out as a one-shot, but due to size it now multi-chaptered. I'm going to be one of those authors whose stories cascade down to the page, due to the amount of ideas I have and the fact the archive is so seldom updated. This story will be updated, though probably slowly. Special thanks to my beta for reading this so quickly!

The day was bright. Sunny. A cool breeze sent bright green leaves fluttering on the trees. A beautiful day. The kind where families went to the park. Children ran around and laughed. A day where people came out into nature, where they belonged.

Helen Druitt was spending the day sitting in her backyard, staring at the terraced plants and feeling wrong.

She couldn't say why she felt wrong. Or even what might have triggered it. But anything she had tried to do today hadn't come to fruitation. Painting, reading, even sleeping. Nothing had worked. So she sat outside, staring at her yard, trying to figure out just what was wrong.

Helen couldn't work it out. She rubbed her wedding band absently, trying to somehow look inside and pull out what was wrong. If she could pull it out, bring it into the light, and examine it in the daylight, she might be able to figure it out. It was a pity that it wasn't possible. She would have liked to see what her insides looked like.

That made a laugh snatch its way out of her throat. Mostly because she remembered the things her father would speak of after his days of working at the hospital where he'd been a surgeon. She knew very well what her insides would look like. She knew what they looked like now, though Helen had chosen to pursue art rather than medicine. What she wanted to excavate from inside herself were things that could not be touched or seen, but were very much there. The world would be very different, Helen reflected, if people were able to so clearly look inside themselves. It might be a better place.

Helen lay back and stared at the sky. She'd had strange dreams the night before. Very strange. She couldn't remember them very well, but she knew that there had been blood and teeth and claws and all manner of monstrous things. It was strange, mostly because she hadn't found it all that strange to begin with. It had felt right. Thrilling, even. That bothered her. But since she had woken up, things had felt wrong.

There were times in her life where things felt wrong. Many times, actually. Everyone on Earth must have felt the same way at one point or another. But this was different and she didn't know why.

The sliding glass door slid open and footsteps approached. A moment later, John's face entered her field of vision, blotting out most of the sky. He looked amused as he stared down at her.

"What ever are you doing, Helen?" he asked.

"Reflecting. Care to join me?"

He probably wouldn't, but she would extend the offer anyway. Things in their marriage had been shifting lately, in a way that Helen did not like. The shifts were subtle, but if there were enough of them, cracks would appear. She didn't want cracks. She stared at John and frowned slightly. There was something wrong about him as well.

She sat up before he could accept or deny her offer and stood, tilting her head as she studied him. There was nothing unusual about John's appearance. His suit was impeccable, even after a long day of work. He had been gone before she'd woken up. He didn't even look tired. He was wearing, she was touched to see, the brightly striped tie that she had given him as a gift three years earlier and that she had thought he hated.

John tilted his head at her as she had at him, looking slightly puzzled.

"Is something the matter?" he asked.

"No. I..."

She had the brief flash of blood and dark and lamp light on stone. Of John and herself. It shook Helen more than she would have liked to admit. She stared at John, standing in the sunlight looking mildly concerned.

She took a breath and cleared her throat, pushing the image aside.

"Tea?" she suggested.

It certainly seemed better than telling him that strange flash that had probably come from her dream.

John nodded and put a hand on the small of her back, guiding her inside. She allowed him to do so, feeling reassured by the touch of his hand, though it left when she busied herself with the teapot.

"How was your day?" John asked, standing on the opposite side of the island from her as they waited for the water to boil.

Helen faltered at the question, wondering if she should give an honest answer or somehow come up with a lie. Her faltering was probably answer enough. John frowned slightly at her, the look somehow conveying concern.

"I couldn't focus. I tried..." She gestured towards the living room, which John had willingly given over to her painting years before.

"Was it because of your dreams?"

Helen stared at him, surprised.

"How did you know?"

"You were restless. Breathing hard, gasping a bit. I thought it best not to wake you, considering how you've been sleeping as of late. Were they bad?"

"Not...not truly. Confusing." she decided.

"How?"

Helen described what she could remember. John laughed at her.

"Perhaps one too many horror movies." he suggested.

Helen had to laugh herself. She didn't often watch movies -she didn't often have time for them- but she did tend towards the dark and macabre when she did.

"Perhaps." she agreed.

That didn't explain how she felt, but for the moment Helen chose not to mention it. She didn't want to worry John. He had enough on his mind with the cases he was working. She didn't need to add to it.

They settled with their tea in the living room, John loosening his tie and draping it over the arm of a chair.

"We should go to the park." Helen said abruptly as she sipped her tea.

John looked at her, seeming curious at the suggestion. Helen dragged her fingertip around the rim of her mug, not certain where that had come from. But it was a nice day and she had been thinking about it before. And she and John had spent so little time together lately. Perhaps it would be nice. Perhaps it would make her feel normal.

"Right now?"

"Not right at this moment, no. But today. It would be nice."

John indulged her with spur of the moment ideas like this. Especially since her anxiety had become a diagnosable problem.

"As you wish."

She smiled at him.

XXXXXXX

The park was just as lovely as Helen had imagined it would be. It was also lovely to walk with her husband, hand-in-hand. They'd had so little time together lately, a fact that she constantly reminded herself but did nothing about. She would have to, however. Marriage and communication were a two-way street and at least one person had to try before it could work.

Children ran by them and Helen smiled, though for a brief, fleeting moment she did feel a pang. she and John had never had children. That had never really mattered to them, but every once and while, she did wonder what it would have been like. Another strange flash nudged at the edge of her mind, but Helen firmly tucked it away.

"We should do this more often." she told John.

He made a noise in the back of this throat, though it was impossible to tell if it was agreement or not. She sighed lightly. So much for trying to communicate. Things had been different, once upon a time.

Helen would like to say that the problem was the Ripper case, but she knew that was only part of it. Somewhere along the line, they had started to drift apart. Recently. She couldn't pinpoint the moment or the day it had happened. She wanted to. Because then she might be able to fix it.

"Would you like me to wake you if have more dreams?" John asked her.

Helen considered. The dreams had been strange, but not frightening. She was rather curious to see where they went. She wanted to know, even if they made her feel wrong.

"No. Not tonight."

They walked a little longer, speaking idly. It wasn't the best conversation, but Helen told herself that it was something. That any conversation was good. They eventually sat on a bench by a massive green space in the park, where plenty of children and families were playing or sitting.

Helen watched the children with some unexplainable longing in her chest. She had never been that bothered by not having had a child before, she didn't think. It had never happened. She and John had tried and failed. They had made their peace with it. At least, so she had thought. Now she was thinking about it, spurred by the wrong feeling.

"Do you ever regret it?" she asked John.

He looked at her, arching an eyebrow in question.

"Do I ever regret what?"

"Not having children."

Helen knew that he wasn't going to like her suddenly bringing it up. It was something that they hadn't talked about in a very long time. She herself hadn't even thought about it in quite some time. But today everything was tilted strangely and thoughts were creeping their way in.

"No. We have each other, darling. That's always been enough."

John kissed the back of her hand and then dropped it, clearly deciding that the conversation was over. He wasn't being mean, not truly. He was mostly being a man.

"It may be possible for me..."

John looked at her.

"Do you want a baby?"

"I don't know."

"Then why bring it up?"

"I don't know. I just...I feel rather off today."

"Ah."

John didn't seem too bothered by it. They sat beside each other for a while. Helen tipped her head on to John's shoulder. He allowed her, which was nice. They were quiet on the way home.

Helen was getting out of the car when she noticed movement across the street. Their across the street neighbors, the Zimmermans, were in their driveway as well. They were a younger couple and hadn't lived in the neighborhood too long. Helen suspected they were newlyweds, especially considering how they were greeting each other. Laughter and kissing and arms flung around necks. She and John had been like that once. She couldn't remember the last time she had greeted him like that when he had come home.

She followed John into the house. He went to do some work in the spare room while she decided to make dinner. Helen fussed more than she really needed to with the meal, more to have something to do. She glanced towards the paintings that she hadn't been able to focus on, promising herself that she would work on them after dinner. She did have a deadline, after all.

Since she had cooked the meal, John did the dishes. Helen sat in the living room, studying her paintings. Henry leapt up on to the sofa with her. She ran her hand along the cat's spine. He purred and arched his back into her palm.

"Good boy, Henry." she said as he twisted to go back the other way. He leapt up on to the back of the sofa and lay in her hair, kneading at it.

John joined her in the living room. He had changed out of his suit before dinner and looked as casual as he ever got. When he sat beside her, Henry mewed at him. John eyed the cat warily.

John hated Henry, ever since the cat had scratched him in the face when he had gotten jealous. Helen had insisted that it was normal cat behavior, but she was fairly certain the two males had held grudges towards each other ever since.

"He's not going to do it again." she told him.

"He's your animal, Helen. And he knows it."

They shared some wine and John went back to work. Helen untangled Henry from her hair, set him on the floor, and turned on her music. She twisted her hair back and stabbed a paintbrush through it to hold it in place. Then she faced her painting. Her method was to work on several at once, since there were corresponding colors across many of them and it was bloody hard to replicate something mixed on a whim.

She fell into the rhythm of it, turning up the music, wondering why she hadn't been able to do this before. The wrong feeling was lingering, but she was able to tuck it away for now. That was good. That she could handle.

She had been at it for several hours before Henry interrupted her. He brought her a mouse and set it in front of her, clearing wanting to show it off. Helen smiled and crouched to be closer to him.

"Well done, Henry."

She scratched his chin, eliciting another purr from the cat. A strange flash went through Helen's mind at her own words.

"Well done, Henry!"

Why did that sound familiar? She had never complimented her cat in that tone before. Henry lingered for a moment longer, then took his mouse and went back outside when he realized that she wasn't going to give him any more attention. Helen stayed where she was, rubbing at her forehead. What was wrong with her? She had no idea.

She stood up and went back to painting, telling herself that everything was fine but not truly believing it.

XXXXXXX

The dreams returned that night, but Helen couldn't truly remember them when she woke up. She lay in bed, trying to hold on to them, but she couldn't. She rolled over to face John, but his side of the bed was empty. Helen stretched her fingers out to touch the sheets. Cold.

There was the possibility that he was downstairs, but Helen doubted it. He had been rising before her and leaving before she even opened her eyes. He was absorbed with the case. Helen tried to pretend that didn't bother her.

Henry was on her head again, playing with her hair. Helen reached up and scratched his chin. He rasped her fingers with a rough tongue and then went off somewhere else. Helen stared at the ceiling for a few moments before getting up. She pulled her robe on and headed downstairs.

John wasn't there, as she had predicted. Just Henry, standing patiently at his food bowl and waiting for her to fill it.

"You can wait until I get the tea going, darling." she told him.

Henry mewed and batted at the bowl. Helen sighed, but indulged him, topping his cat food with some leftover chicken. Henry purred and grabbed a hunk of the chicken, running off with it. Helen put the teapot on.

She felt as she had yesterday. Wrong. Out of sorts. She had no idea why. She felt that the dreams were the reason, but she still had no idea why. She couldn't hold on to them. But the dream seemed important. She had no idea why. There had to be some explanation that she was missing. Something that was causing this. She wasn't certain that she believed John's theory.

Helen was making herself breakfast when Henry jumped up on to the island counter. She wet her fingertips and went to flick the water at him. Neither she nor John tolerated the cat on the counter. It wasn't sanitary. Before she could get him wet, the cat sprang to her shoulder with a pitiful meow.

"It doesn't hurt you, you silly furball." she said as he rubbed his cheek against her own.

Helen wiped her hands on her robe and picked him up, staring him in the eyes. A flash went through her mind.

"Moors and mist and missing family."

It took her a few moments to realize that she had said that out loud. Why had she said that in the first place? She had no clue. Henry squirmed and she released him. The cat ran off. Helen rubbed her forehead. Where had that come from? And why? She had no idea. It wasn't usual. it wasn't right. But there had been a flash attached to the name Henry.

Helen felt a pang. Henry had been a name she had always liked. She had thought to name a boy that, once upon a time. But children hadn't been in the cards. Not for lack of trying. She had told herself yesterday that it hadn't mattered. They had gone into it as not trying. If they had a baby, that was fine. If they didn't, that was fine as well. Four positive pregnancy tests and gushes of blood later, they had agreed that it just being the two of them was enough. She felt the loss deeply today, for some reason. The life they'd never had.

Never. Never had.

A headache started to build up behind her eyes. Something was pushing at her mind, but she didn't let it in. She didn't know how. It was building up behind a dam and that dam would spring a leak before the flood came.

The tea pot whistling made Helen jump. She turned to pour it, facing out the kitchen window as she did. She stared out the window. The Zimmermans were in the driveway again. She didn't know what the wife did, but she fairly certain that the husband was a doctor. She had introduced herself when they had moved in. She was pretty sure that the word 'doctor' had been in there somewhere when they had introduced themselves.

Helen watched them for a bit. They were young and in love. She and John had been like that once. Back in England, they had probably been far too sappy for their friends. They had been teased for it, but it had light teasing of men that hadn't yet experienced love like they had. She missed that. She would need to talk to them again.

Helen froze at that thought. James. Nikola. Nigel. Suddenly, she wasn't certain of the last time she had talked to any of them. She couldn't. Could she?

Little images slipped through. James, smiling at her and putting an arm around her. James, lying on the floor, horribly aged, breath wheezing away one more time. Nigel, smiling broadly at her wearing absolutely nothing aside from that look. A grave marker with his name on it, a young woman with his eyes and attitude. Nikola, shocking her with a wire in a lab when he had been accusing her not paying attention. Nikola, eyes black, teeth bulging, nails like claws, approaching her with a smirk.

Helen staggered a bit, confused by the images. No. No, that wasn't right. That wasn't right at all. She rubbed her head. But the images bothered her so much she couldn't focus. She picked up the phone and called John, though she knew that he would hate her disturbing him.

"John Druitt."

"John."

"Helen."

Helen could imagine him sitting up straighter at his desk, concerned but perhaps not entirely bothered yet. Just curious.

"Is something wrong?"

"Are James, Nigel, and Nikola all right?"

"What?"

She heard the incredulous tone in his voice. He couldn't believe that she was bothering him at work for this. She shouldn't have been, she knew. But it was suddenly very, very important to her. Helen couldn't why to herself. She couldn't explain it to John.

"Are they all right?"

"Of course they are."

"How do you know? Where are they?"

John heaved a sigh. Helen heard his chair creak. Heard him say something to someone else. Her cheeks heated when she realized he must not have been working alone. And he was taking the time to answer her strange questions.

"James is in London. Nigel, New Orleans. Nikola is still in New York, as far as I am aware."

Yes. That was right. Why had she worried? Helen's chest loosened and she let out a shaky sigh of relief.

"Yes. That's right."

"Perhaps you should call them."

"Yes. Yes, I will. I..."

"Helen?"

"Yes?"

"Perhaps some of your medication would not be remiss?"

Helen felt small at the suggestion. She hunched her shoulders. She hated the pills. She had told herself she wouldn't take them unless she absolutely, positively had to. John's suggestion made her feel horrible. Being told that you needed to take your medication was humiliating.

"Perhaps." she whispered, clutching the phone tightly.

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Goodbye."

He hung up. Neither of them said I love you. Helen wasn't certain she would have meant it if she had said it at the moment. She set the phone down. She walked to the cabinet above the refrigerator where she kept the medication bottle. It was still mostly full. She had told herself that she didn't need it. That she shouldn't need it. She didn't want to need it. But needs and wants were two different things. And she was balanced on the edge of both of those things. She wanted to be better. She didn't want to take the pills. But they had been prescribed for a reason. She fingered the bottle, then slammed it down on the counter harder than she really should have. She would have her tea and her breakfast and then decide if she needed a pill. And if she needed to call her friends.

Helen had been isolating herself. She knew it. She tried to pretend that it was okay. But little by little, even before her anxiety had become diagnosable, she had been. She spent more and more time inside. Ignored people. She even let John handle the bloody errands if she could get away with it. She told herself that she was fine with being inside, with her paintings and her cat and that there was nothing wrong about that. She hadn't told John or anyone else for that matter that the thought of being surrounded by people, alone in the crowd, made her anxious lately. She had no idea why. Perhaps it was some pathetic codependency on John.

They had been together for so long now. She'd spent more than half her life with him. He had always been there. They had always been together. Through school. When they had decided to take the leap and move to America together, even though England was all either of them had ever known. Through the miscarriages. The rainy days and the sunny ones. Now she was losing him and she didn't know how to hold on.

For better and for worse. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish. Till death did they part.

They weren't really living up to those vows, now were they?

The shifts were partly her fault, Helen thought, as she scrambled an egg. The cracks that were coming were easily laid across both her and John's shoulders. She couldn't blame him without admitting her own part in it. He couldn't blame her without doing the same. So they didn't talk about it, even though they needed to. Both she and John had their pride, after all. Sometimes it was a contest of who could hold on to theirs the longest, raise it up and use it as a barrier against the other. But the shields had never been in place for so long before. It was no longer a contest of pride. It was more of a contest who be the most stubborn ass.

Helen would have liked to think that John was winning, if only so that she didn't have to admit that her own flaws ran so deep. The orange bottle on the counter told her just how deep they ran. The fact that John had suggested she needed to take some of the medication drove that point home. Helen's hand shook at the thought, wondering if she was just being resentful and petty because she was angry with her husband. He meant well. But meaning well did not always guarantee that the intention was correct or well received.

She finished cooking and ate her solitary breakfast with her tea, Henry sneaking in to see if she had added anything to his food bowl. She hadn't and he mewed indignantly at her. Helen ignored him, looking around the room, thinking about the things that she needed to do. She would need to go shopping -the refrigerator was very bare. She perked up a little at the thought. Not because she wanted to go to the store -that would be anxiety inducing on its own- but because it meant that she could delay taking the medication. She knew it was her pride that was preventing her from just breaking down and taking it now, but the label said take as needed. She decided when she needed it.

Helen had managed to firmly put her dream in the back of her mind, but she couldn't shake the feeling about James, Nigel, and Nikola. She would call one of them, she decided. Nigel was always willing to take time out of his day for a friendly chat, so he was the rather obvious option. Nikola would be too busy in his lab to bother to answer the phone and would call her at an absurd hour once he realized that she had called in the first place. James might have been at work for all she knew. But it was James that she needed to talk to the most, she decided. He was the one that knew her the best. He was the one that would let her vent and rant and go in depth about things without being overly concerned or trying to make it better, as Nigel would have. Nikola, on the other hand, would have scoffed at her emotions and probably told her that she was being ridiculous. James it was.

Helen picked up the phone and dialed the number, putting it on speaker as she picked up some brushes and paint and faced her largest painting of the moment. She really needed to get some work done on it. She listened to the phone ring. Just as she was starting to believe that James was too busy to answer it, he picked it up.

"James Watson."

"James." Helen couldn't stop her relief from leaking into her voice at the sound of his. Despite what she had known, what John had said, something inside of her hadn't really believed it until this moment.

"Helen." There was a smile in his voice. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

She hadn't thought of explaining her random call and Helen wondered whether or not to lie as she mixed some paint. She decided not to. In part because James knew her well enough to know when she was lying.

"I was worried about you." she admitted.

"Worried? Whatever for?"

Helen hesitated. Then she let out a breath. She explained about her dreams and the strange flashes and how it had rattled her badly and everything else. James was silent for a long moment and Helen was afraid that he was just going to automatically agree with John.

"How long has this been happening?" James asked instead.

"Two days. That I remember."

"Hmmm."

"That's all the great detective has for me? Hmm?" she asked, feigning lightness.

"Nightmares may just be nightmares, Helen. You do have a rather vivid imagination."

That wasn't really what she had been wanting to hear. Hoping to hear. Helen wondered if she needed to go to a psychiatrist. She didn't want to a professional saying that she was having weird dreams and strange flashes that made her question real things and made her feel wrong. She would probably be put on more medication than just the lorazepam. She didn't want to delve into that.

"It feels like more than that." she said quietly.

"How so?"

"I don't...it feels so real." She didn't dare tell him about what she had said to Henry. That was too much.

"Things often do."

Helen realized that she wasn't going to get what she wanted out of this conversation. She knew that it wasn't James's fault, but it still didn't make her happy.

"Do you think that something is wrong with me?" she asked quietly.

"No. Absolutely not, Helen. And you know better than to allow anyone to make you feel that way."

"Hmm."

She dabbed more paint on the canvas, not wanting to get into it.

"Has John made you feel that way?" James asked sharply.

"No. Not...not intentionally."

James sighed heavily into the phone. Helen knew that James sometimes did not approve of the way that John treated her or acted. She had no idea why, exactly. John and James were best friends. She often wondered if John would treat any wife that James had the same way that James treated her. She didn't think so.

"Speak to him, Helen. He may not realize that what he's doing is hurting you."

"I never said that he was hurting me." Helen said immediately, tracing the outline of tree against a sunset.

"Making you feel that there is something wrong with you is akin to it."

Helen wanted to roll her eyes. Sometimes she felt that James was too old for his years. And had been born in the wrong century. He was a true English gentleman, albeit from a different era than the one they were living now.

She and James talked for a while longer, but due to the time difference, James had things to do. Helen felt a small pang when he hung up. That conversation had made her feel normal. Had made her feel like herself. She needed to feel like herself. She wanted so desperately to feel like herself. Things had changed so much when she had been told that her anxiety was so bad, the best thing for her was to treat it. Like it was a disease. Like she was sick. The pills were an enemy, in Helen's opinion. But the enemy was starting to look more and more like an ally as the time dragged on. An ally in this was something that she needed. Helen ignored it. Tried to. But her hands were becoming a little shaky the more she thought about it and her lines squiggled on the canvas more than she would have liked.

It was the power of suggestion, she told herself as she clutched the paintbrush tighter, forcing her hand to be steady, telling herself that her mind was steadier than her hand. She was thinking about her anxiety. She was telling herself that she didn't want it to happen. That she wanted it go away. She needed it to go away. So the more she thought about, the more her body and mind remembered the patterns that they had been falling into so often. That was all it was. She was not crazy. She was not damaged. She was not so emotionally and mentally damaged that she needed to pop a pill to declare that she was fine. Helen had always been an independant woman, able to take care of herself or fall on John when she had no other choice. Being told that she wasn't okay, having a scribbled prescription handed to her before being dismissed by a person that was supposed to help her be better, had shaken her deeply.

Helen didn't give it much thought, but her skittishness on her diagnosis and her view on the pills, was due to her generation's education about mental health. Having a problem was not acceptable. It was not something you shared. If you needed a doctor for your mind, then you had failed. You weren't good enough. It was a problem that needed to be dealt with quietly and discreetly, less there be embarrassment on the entire family. Hold up your head and smile, young lady. You're fine. You're being hysterical. Why on earth are you talking about this? We don't talk about this. It's not proper.

Helen paused, tilting her head, thinking about it. That didn't seem quite right, but what else was she supposed to think? Someone had told her those things along the way or she had simply picked them up, because they were in her mind. She shoved those thoughts aside, trying to do the same with image of the pill bottle in the cabinet. She was not going there. She was going to listen to her music and paint and be fine. She was going to be normal. She was not going to think about her dreams or her anxiety. She would paint. She would go grocery shopping. She would come home. That was it. She was not going to leave any room in her day for anxiety. She was going to pretend she had a choice when it came to.

She managed three hours straight of painting and listening to music. She finished one painting and was nearly done with another, stroking paint over a stubborn bit of canvas that kept bleeding through in white speckles no matter how many colors and coats she put over it. It was frustrating, an imperfection that no one but the person painting the canvas would even notice. Helen was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to this sort of thing.

The phone rang.

That disappointed Helen a little, because she was in a good space with her work. She thought not to answer it, but the focus she'd had was already shattered. She might as well answer the bloody thing so that it didn't ring again and again. She picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Helen."

It was John, something that surprised her. She hadn't been expecting to hear her husband's voice on the other end of the line, especially since she had called him earlier in the day. If things had been different, she might have smiled for her husband to be calling her in the middle of his work day.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, because that seemed a reasonable question to ask.

"Nothing." John paused for a long moment. "Other than I'll be home later than I anticipated."

"Oh." Helen honestly had no idea how she felt about that. She gazed out the window at the garden as John kept talking.

"I was thinking that I might bring home dinner so that we could eat together."

"Yes. Yes, that would be fine." she murmured, mind drifting with her gaze.

"Do you have preferences?"

"No."

"Then I'll surprise you."

John had liked surprising her, once upon a time. Helen wondered if he still did. He was making an effort, she realized. Maybe he felt bad about earlier. Maybe James had called him. Helen didn't know, but she supposed that she should return that favor.

"John?"

"Yes, darling?"

"How are you?"

John chuckled. She could tell by that sound alone that the question pleased him.

"I'm well." He paused. "I apologize for earlier."

"Oh, John. You don't need to. I don't know what's gotten into me."

"Helen..."

"Please. Let's talk about something else. How...are things all right?" she nearly whispered the question, stopped herself from doing so. She doubted that John would notice that she wanted to ask that question in a different way.

"Everything is all right, my love. I promise."

Helen's mind was slipping into those cracks again and something bled through.

"In this reality. In another you hollow my chest and I make you bleed with luck that went two ways." she whispered.

"Helen?" John sounded alarmed. "Helen, are you all right?"

"I...I don't know. I...I think I dozed off." Helen barely managed to keep her voice from shaking, but she didn't want to alarm John more, even though it felt like her stomach and heart had dropped from her body.

"Oh." John heaved a sigh of relief. "Another dream?"

"Yes." No.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. It's just...it was confusing. I didn't mean to alarm you."

"It's all right, my love. As long as you're all right."

Helen forced her voice to be stronger than it had been before, confident. Mostly because she was scaring herself and she didn't want John to know.

"I am. I'm just tired. Perhaps I will take that nap."

"Good. I'll see you tonight."

"All right."

John hung up.

Helen set down the phone and hugged herself, taking a breath and letting out slowly. This was more than anxiety. She knew that. She was afraid that she was going insane and she didn't want to tell anyone in case she was right. She couldn't tell anyone until she had a better idea of what was going on with her.

She painted for a few more hours, remembering to eat lunch mostly because Henry batted around his food bowl, drawing her attention to food. Once she had finished painting, it was nearing evening and Helen was washing her brushes in the kitchen sink.

The entire front wall of the kitchen was a window spanning the length of almost the entire counter, offering her an almost complete view of the yard, driveway, and the house across the street. And the dog that was currently lifting his leg to the tire of her car. Again.

This annoyed Helen. That wasn't anywhere near the worst mess the bloody creature had made, but she was getting sick of it. She went out the front door to chase it off again.

Before Helen could even yell at it, it dropped its leg and went across the street. Seeing that the male Zimmerman -damn, what was his name?- was getting out of his car, Helen followed.

"Excuse me." she called as the dog ran up to him and bounced around him in excitement.

The wife was coming out now.

"Can I help you?" the husband asked, bending down as he greeted the dog. "Hey, Monty. Hey."

"Your dog keeps coming on to my property and-" Helen started, ready for a rant, because she needed to vent her emotions.

But she broke off when the man straightened up and she got a look at his face.

Images cascaded through Helen's mind, flashing by so quickly that she couldn't get a handle on them. But knowledge, things stuck out to her.

"You died." she said, staring at him.

Both the husband and wife stared back.

"What?" he said.

"You died."

"No. I didn't."

"When the spider dies and the waters rise. You-" Helen managed to stop herself there, quite literally staggering back a step because of what was going through her mind.

And the realization that what she was saying sounded insane.

"I'm...sorry."

Helen turned and fled back across the street, heart pounding wildly, body shaking. What was wrong with her? What was going on with her? She slammed the front door and locked it, breathing fast, heart pounding. Her vision was starting to go strange.

She was having an anxiety attack. Helen gave in to the battle. She surrendered and staggered into the kitchen, fumbling with the pill bottle. She downed a pill and went into the living room, collapsing on the sofa and curling into a tight ball. Helen closed her eyes and covered her ears, desperately wondering what was happening to her.

Author's Note: Magnus's strange speech about what is 'bleeding through' was inspired by the character Whiteout from Wings of Fire, by the way, so expect more of that.

Side note: My story 'Bird Cage' also heavily features characters from Sanctuary and will have more, going forward, so please check it out in the Stargate SG-1 archive.

Any comments, thoughts, and questions are welcome. Questions will be answered at the top of the next chapter if any come in. Please review!