Sanctuary - Brandy and Tears part 6
The air sizzled as her mother continued to stare into John's eyes and Ashley felt like she was intruding on a private moment. Time to remind them I'm in the room Ashley thought."Told you' ya didn't seem all that Ripper'y" Ashley said forcing a smile into her voice hoping to lighten the situation.
Both Helen and John turned to look at their daughter. Helen could barely breath. She was desperate to tell Ashley that John was her father. She was tired of the lies. But their was still so much that Ashley needed to be told.
"Oh Ashley" Helen sighed. Ashley moved closer to her mother draping an arm around her shoulder.
"What is it mom" asked Ashley trying to understand the pain in her mothers eyes.
Helen turned to rest her head on Ashley's shoulder and to look into the crackling fire. "John did come to me over a hundred years ago and told me of the elemental residing in his body." Ashley felt her mother sigh against her. "My John." Helen sighed again. " God Ashley it finally all made sense. The stranger John had become. The murders." At this Helen shuddered and John sucked in a deep breath. "My John was in their Ashley. I had just had to find a way to set him free." Helen paused. "I'm 160 Ashley but there has never been enough time." she whispered. "Because time of course was our greatest enemy as that point." Helen continued fiercely. "Because although John had gained enough control to come to me for help it was only a matter of time before the elemental took full control of John again. And once that happened their was nothing we could do stop him just teleporting away again to God knows where." The frustration and pain she was feeling back then clear in her voice. "No room or chains would hold him. And we didn't have the luxury of an EM shield back then." Helen mocked herself. "There was only one way that we could ensure the creature wouldn't take back over and steal John away again." Helen dragged in another deep breath. "We had to drug him" she painfully confessed.
John took Helen's hand. "It was the only way love" he murmured lost in shared memories.
Helen laughed bitterly "Yes and it worked so well!"
" You can't blame yourself Helen." John told her sharply.
"Cant I?" she him bitterly pulling her hand from his and wrapping her arms round herself leaning deeper back into Ashley.
Ashley squeezed her Mom "What happened?" she asked quietly.
"I made a mistake." Helen said angrily. " I couldn't have been paying proper attention to what I was doing and didn't reconnect John's drip properly. And my incompetence let him and the evil inside him wake up and escape." Helen said shaking her head to try clear some the self condemnation she felt. Her incompetence had let him / it escape. Her John, her love had come to her for help and she'd failed him and it had nearly killed him to gain enough control to get back to her again.
"For god's sake Helen you'd been working round the clock for weeks trying to a cure. Or even just a way to keep me from teleporting. I'm just glad when I woke it was Nikola their and not you. God knows that thing was in a rage. I had no control." John saw Helen stiffen and sit up pulling away from both him and Ashley at his words. He tried not to be hurt by her reaction and couldn't help but castrate himself for bringing her pain again if only by bringing up the past.
Helen slowly turned towards John taking a deep breath. "What did you say?" she asked.
John could see Helen was angry. He knew she had a right to be but was still hurt and confused by her reaction.
He cleared his throat. "I said I had no control over the creature it was in …."
"No not that." Helen almost shouted. Helen took a deep breath and continued more calmly. "Did you just say Nikola was their when you woke up?"
Helen's mask was back in place and John found for once he could not read her. He couldn't understand what she was so angry about. Surely she knew he'd attacked Nikola when he had escaped.
"Yes Nikola was leaning over me and when I came too. I attacked him." He admitted ashamed. "If he'd been human he'd have been dead. God it could have been you" John confessed with self loathing and disgust.
"That bastard" Helen burst out angrily.
John dragged his thoughts back from the horror of himself hurting Helen and looked at her shocked.
"That no good lying rat faced bastard." Helen continued. " I'll bloody kill him."
"Mom what…?"
"Nikola Tesla!" Helen spat the name out. "All these years he let me believe…." Helen broke off as she started to sob.
"Helen." John called her name desperately wanting to reach out and take her into his arms but not unsure of how Helen would react to that so instead he curled his fingers into his palms to stop himself reaching out for her. He had to be content with watching his daughter hold Helen in comfort.
"Mom what did Tesla do?" Ashley asked trying to keep with up with what her mother was telling her.
"That blood sucking scum let me believe I was the one responsible for John's escape all those years ago. Knowing how it tortured me to know I'd failed John. Knowing how I….." Helen choked up again as her anger gave way to tears. She dragged in a ragged breath and continued to explain speaking into Ashley's shoulder. "He never mentioned you'd attacked him John. Nikola was out getting parts for his latest invention when I changed your drip" Helen spat. "If it was down to my carelessness you woke up, you would have been long gone by the time he was back." Helen gulped in air trying to calm herself. "He never told me you had a altercation because he knew I'd know he was the one who had deliberately woken you up." She gulped in another breath as she explained.
"He'd had the idea of using electricity in the walls to stop you teleporting." Helen sighed. "It was a good idea. I knew it would be the best way to hold you once we got it working. But I told him until it was up and running, and we were sure it worked successfully it was too risky to use. Until we were sure it was 100 % effective it was not worth the risk of losing you." Helen choked up again this time shedding silent tears hugging her daughter tight. Her head still buried in Ashley's shoulder to hide her tears.
John couldn't keep up with the emotions swirling inside him. Anger, hurt disillusionment, pain, guilt, heartache! It would be so easy to blame Nikola. Blame him for the creatures continued use of him to cause chaos, terror and misery to all those around him. But truth was that it was John who was weak. Too weak to win the unending battle he had with it every day it was inside him. In the end it had taken John to find enough courage to poison himself and hope that the creature would return him to Helen in time to save him. He would have died had the creature not taken him back to Helen. Either way the result was going to be the same - he would now be free of its tormenting rage.
"As much as I'd like to blame Nikola" John forced himself to say "He is no more to blame than you were. It was I who ultimately let the creature escape." he shamefully confessed.
"No John." Helen lifted her head to look him in the eye. "It was not you. It was that creature, and if not for you keeping it at bay many more would have died."
John laughed bitterly "Yes I did such an excellent job of keeping it in check."
Helen shuddered - if the creature hadn't teleported him back after he poisoned himself she would have lost John forever. Helen shuddered with misery of the thought of never seeing John again. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and hold him. To try to heal the suffering they had both endured. But their was still so much pain and deceit between them. And a lie he may never be able to forgive her for - an introduction to his daughter. Loving John Druitt had never been a problem with Helen. It was trusting in their love again that would be the hard part. "John it was not you. Not the John I knew and fell in love with." she said softly.
John and Helen looked at each both wanting to say more but both frightened of the others response.
Helen broke eye contact. Afraid but mostly thrilled by the unspoken things she read in his eyes. "I'm still planning shoot Nikola when I next see him." she said returning her head back to Ashley's shoulder. Changing the subject and once again trying to regain her composure.
John laughed bitterly. "Yes well that I can sympathise with that. Nikola has a unique gift for invoking everyone's ire. And shooting him would shut him up for a while at least."
John drew in deep breath. She didn't blame him. He read that much in her gaze. He also understood now was not the time and place for that conversation.
Please God she would allow a time for them to have it. He silently begged.
Ashley looked at John her heart aching at the missed opportunities and bad luck that had obviously kept her Mother and John apart. "I'm guessing you only recently got rid of your leech?" Ashley quietly asked John.
John looked at his daughter holding the women he loved and wanted nothing more to wrap his arms round them both and hold them close while he wept. It had been such a long time since he felt at peace.
"Yesterday" he admitted warily suddenly very tired. "Helen finally got that thing out of me yesterday." John looked away from Helen and his daughter drowning in emotions he was struggling to keep in check.
"My God!" Ashley gasped in horror. "You've had that thing tormenting you all this time?" Ashley felt tears sting her own eyes as she finally understood the pain her mother and John had suffered. Ashley lifted one off her arms from mother and reached out and gently touched John's shoulder.
"I'm sorry" she said. "I can't imagine as worse fate then to be prisoner inside your own body." John had flinched as his daughter had touched him. And Ashley felt the tears in her eyes fall as she understood it had been a long time since anyone had touched this man in comfort.
"It's going to be ok now." Ashley said sounding much more convincing than she felt.
Helen drew in another harsh breath and looked up at Ashley's words. The child comforting her parents. She wiped the tears from Ashley's cheeks. "Oh Ashley" she sighed. Their was still so much to tell her but Helen felt exhausted. " Ashley" she began again. "I know this is a lot for you take in but theirs still some things I need to tell you."
Ashley had pulled herself together as her Mom was talking and her words brought back to Ashley the reason she followed her mother into the library what seemed a life time earlier. "Like how the hell you where able to find me tonight? And how you knew their would be trouble?" she asked her mother a glint of defiance entering her eyes and voice.
Helen looked at her daughter and smiled grimily. "Yes I knew you'd get round to that sooner or later" she sighed.