Author's Note: This chapter is more focused the relationship between Helen and John which I was inspired to write about after reading the quote from Amanda Tapping recently about John not being dead and that there was interest in delving back into the relationship of Helen and John had there been a season 5 of Sanctuary.
Chapter 17: The Golden Child part 2
The laughter of the children and their escorts, mingled with the cheerful music, filled the crisp night air. The round and round, and up and down motion of the carousel caused the sounds to amplify and bounce in and out. It also caused Helen to experience a strong surge of dizziness and she melded back further into the dark to plop unceremoniously down into the wooden bench. Thank goodness she had declined the carousel ride otherwise things would have gotten really ugly. Leaning back against the back slats of the bench, she breathed in hard and let out a deep breath. "Okay, little one," she telepathetically said to her unborn child, "this is your mother speaking and you are not, under any circumstances, to make me throw up in public, is that understood?" When there was no reply, not that she was expecting one, she added, "Your older sister did that to me and I prefer not to repeat that unpleasant experience."
The mention of that embarrassing incident made her groan. Declan and Will had been very sympathetic about her throwing up on their shoes when the motion of the morning ferry kicked up a fearsome bout of nausea and then John had added to her embarrassment by going all caveman on her and teleporting her back home against her will. They arrived back in their bedroom at the Sanctuary just in time for her to inadvertently shove him hard into the wall and bang his head in her haste to rush to the bathroom to throw up again. The morning sickness she had experienced with her second pregnancy of Ashley during months 2-5 had been exhausting and nothing like the mildness of the first pregnancy.
The second pregnancy with Ashley. Her mind reflected back to that tumultuous time and even now it still amazed her that it had happened at all. And the way it had occurred was even more bizarre.
Eight years ago, a Tibetan empath had arrived at the Old City Sanctuary as part of a visiting delegation. The quiet, soft spoken Choden had politely asked to remain for an additional night when the delegation departed, stating that she was exhausted and needed to meditate to clear her head. Helen, worried about the elderly woman's health, had easily agreed to the request. Later that night, when Helen had gone to bring her a food tray and found the room empty, she and Henry had gone in search of the missing woman. Choden had been found standing alone in the chapel and murmuring lowly as if in the midst of having a conversation with an unseen person. She had appeared almost in a trance.
"Choden?" Helen had tentatively greeted, "are you alright?" It took several attempts before the empathy seemed to realize they were in the room with her.
"You're here," she breathlessly said as she fixed her eyes on Helen. "You're finally here. You can see me." Choden's hands were outstretched and she was swaying lightly. The light glowing around her appeared to grow stronger, causing Helen and Henry to take a weary step backward. "No, don't go," Choden cried out, only the voice that spoke was not that of the thick accented empathy. "Mom!"
"What's going on, Choden?" Helen asked wearily as the hairs on the back of her neck raised up in alarm. The voice that was speaking through the empathy was one she had not heard in six very long, painful years.
"Magnus?" Henry, recognizing the voice as well, exclaimed and moved closer to her. Neither was armed and the young man stared around looking for a makeshift weapon. Only wooden pews, podium, and finely carved candlesticks in sight.
"Mom? It's me. Ashley," the distant voice called out.
Helen's pulse jumped and her hands started to shake. She shook her head. "Ashley is dead," Helen growled back and she and Henry took a collective step back together.
"What are we dealing with?" Henry whispered harshly. "A shape shifter?"
"Since when have shape shifter's been able to produce a glow about them?" Helen hissed back. The empath's body jerkily moved a step forward like a puppet on a string.
"I can't hang on much longer," the distant voice cried. "I'm so tired. It's so hard to hold on."
"My daughter is dead. Stop this. Whatever game you're playing at, stop it right now." This woman had been with the Sanctuary Network for almost forty years. Whoever was doing this wasn't the woman she knew as Choden.
"Help me!" the voice cried as it moved another step forward. "I'm trapped and I can't break free. Help me, mommy!"
"Okay, I am seriously, seriously freaking out," Henry hissed and grabbed one of the hymnals from the back of a nearby pew.
"Keep it together, Henry," Helen grimly instructed him and also grabbed a book. It was the only weapon they had within reach. "Tell me how to help you," Helen addressed the figure as it took another clumsy step toward them.
"I want to come home," Ashley's voice cried pitifully. "Please. Bring me home. I want to come home."
"How do we know you're really Ashley?" Henry demanded, causing Helen to look at him sideways. "What? We need to find out if she's Ashley or not."
"I am Ashley," the voice shrilly cried. "And you're Henry. My Henry. You have a zigzag scar along the bottom of your left heel from a piece of glass you stepped on when you saved me from drowning in the river when I was eight years old."
Henry's head swiveled left to stare at Helen. As far as he knew only she, himself, Ashley and the Big Guy knew about that incident.
The empath suddenly took a deep, loud breath as if she were awakening and the glow about her seemed to flicker away for a second before coming back. "I can't hold on much longer," Ashley's voice cried out in despair. "She's fighting me. I want to come home, mom!"
"I don't believe you are Ashley," Helen countered, growing angrier by the minute at this cruel game. "Ashley is dead. Stop playing games with us, whoever you are." She began visibly shaking when the voice sang three lines of an old English lullaby that Helen used to sing to her daughter when she was a baby. Henry recognized the song too and grabbed Helen's shoulder to steady her when the book she was holding dropped from her limp hand.
"Help me, mom," the voice cried. "I can't hang on much longer. It's too hard."
"How? How do we help you?" Henry replied back. He kept a tight grip on Magnus' shoulder and tried to push away his concern over her paled complexion and shaking by keeping his focus on the female figure before them. The glow around the empathy was growing weaker, as was the voice emanating from the elderly woman.
"You need to do the renewal ritual," Ashley cried.
"Renewal ritual!" Henry yelped. "What kind of renewal ritual?"
"Hurry!" the voice said. "I can't hang on much longer. Help me, mommy!" the fading voice cried as the glow flickered away. The empath's body jerked and she collapsed onto the floor.
Beside him, Henry felt Helen drop as well as her knees gave out and dropped his book as he caught her around the waist before she hit the ground. "Ashley," she sobbed as tears ran down her face.
When the empath had been revived and the frazzled group gathered in the library, Choden told them about the visions she had of a small child talking to her. "The Golden Child," she said kept telling her that she needed to come home and asked for her help. The child wasn't threatening or scary… just frightened and missing her mother.
"What about this renewal ritual?" Will asked. "What ritual does she want performed?" Though he didn't believe it had actually been Ashley that had spoken to them it was obvious that something out of the ordinary had happened.
Choden shook her head. "I know not the ritual the child requires. Only that it must be completed before midnight of the next full moon."
"The next full moon is...," Henry began as he looked up the date on his tablet, "February 15th."
"There was one other thing," Choden hesitantly shared. "She showed me a symbol."
"A symbol of what?" the Big Guy gruffly inquired. He was standing behind Magnus's chair with one large, hairy hand resting on her shoulder. He'd plied her with piping hot tea and had forced her to eat a biscuit and yet she still seemed to be in a state of great distress.
"A red bird with one raised talon and a long tail," Choden said and, asking for paper, drew the symbol for them. There were characters underneath as well. It took a bit of research to discover that the characters were ancient Khmer which translated to read "one is reborn" or "to give rebirth." The bird symbol, on the other hand, eluded them. They discovered many similar looking symbols but not one exactly like the one Choden had drawn on the tablet her last night at the Sanctuary.
For the next three weeks the household tried to carry on normally while they searched for the symbol. James was working on it from his London location and Nikola from Rome. The passing of each day brought more internal turmoil for Helen, who tried to keep up her normal cool, detached façade. She held it together until the evening of February the 14th when she finally began to crack. Attempts to locate the bird symbol had not panned out and, determined to dwell in her pain alone, away from pitying glances and murmurs of sympathy, Helen had ordered the others to go out to celebrate with their loved ones. She'd finally managed to get rid of all of them except her old friend, who refused to leave the house and her alone.
"I have a lot of dusting to do," he gruffly insisted. "And a few episodes of Paranormal on the DVR to watch. I will be around if you need me though" he gently reminded her with a pat on the shoulder before leaving her alone.
And so it was she found herself up in her daughter's room an hour to midnight. The closed off room had been left intact since Ashley's departure. Moving about the large space Helen realized that it was more than just tidy, it was also clean. Her old friend must have been dusting the room on the sly. Not that it mattered if the room was clean she thought morosely as she sat down on the bed. Nothing really matter anymore without Ashley. The tears began to fall and once the flood gates opened she could hold nothing back.
Twenty minutes later he arrived to find her curled up on Ashley's bed and clutching a much loved and raggedy looking stuffed dog to her chest. Her face was red from crying and her eyes bloodshot and swollen. Sitting down on the bed next to her, he peered down at her. They hadn't seen each other in five months. Finally free of the energy elemental, he had quietly left to rediscover who he was and to come to terms with his life and what this meant for his future. Things had been awkward between them before he had left and the time spent apart had done wonders for putting things into perspective.
She finally acknowledge his presence by saying, "James contacted you, didn't he?" She was staring off blankly at the window outside which rain was falling steadily. Occasional thunder could be heard in the distance.
His answer of "Mr. Foss" surprised her enough to cause her to look at him. "Henry called you? Oh God, I must be worse off than I thought," she croaked and began crying again.
"Oh, Helen," he sighed and, lying down next to her, pulled her into his arms.
"My baby," she whimpered into his chest.
"I know," he whispered back. "I'm sorry," he said and rubbed comforting circles on her back.
"It was her voice, John," she wailed softly. "She begged me to bring her home and I don't know how."
"We tried everything we could to bring her home," he gently reminded her. "You used every connection you had to try to track down where the Cabal had her imprisoned and we teleported around the world following those leads. In the end, it wasn't enough."
"I know," she sobbed and clutched at the top of his shirt as she buried her head into his chest. "I should have tried harder. I was her mother. It was my job to keep her safe."
He gave a long sigh. The guilt that they both felt over failing to rescue their only child would never leave them. For himself he wasn't sure he wanted it too. He held onto that guilt as a way of punishing himself for failing his child in every way. But that shouldn't be the case for Helen. By all accounts she had been a good mother and he had seen firsthand how much she loved their child. "Stop punishing yourself, Luv. The only culprits responsible were Dana and her cronies at the Cabal."
"I can't," came the muffled reply against his chest. "I don't want to."
Giving a low snort, he kissed her the top of her head. They were more alike than she would ever admit. "I want you to," he murmured as he stroked her soft, jet black hair.
Tilting her head she looked up at him with wet lashes. "Why?" she asked. "Our daughter died because of me."
"Because I love you," he unabashedly stated. "And I don't want you to suffer over this anymore. You protected her for over 125 years and while she was alive she was healthy and beautiful… and determinedly stubborn and mouthy like her parents," he joked and was relieved to hear her give an involuntary laugh. "And I am grateful that you gave life to her despite her worthless, undeserving father. She was a bright light in a dreary world."
"You're not worthless," she murmured back and locked eyes with him. Their faces were so close that their noses were almost touching and they could feel the other's breath on their faces. They also felt their heartbeats pick up its pace. Her hands had moved further down on his chest to rest right above his waist and one of his lightly skimmed down her spine, causing her to softly shiver, to come to a rest at the top of her backside.
"But I am undeserving," he appraised. "You were both beauty and perfection personified and I am but a bumbling ass in comparison."
She laughed again and reached up with one hand to cup his smooth cheek. "I would never have fallen in love with a bumbling ass, Montague John Druitt. You were eloquent, gentle and sweet and I loved you beyond all reason. It was why I kept our child and went through with the pregnancy. Because you were her father and I loved you."
It was a vulnerable admission on her part and it took his breath away. He had always believed that she had the child because Ashley was theirs but never did he think she would ever admit it anyone, let alone to him. And at this moment they were lying on a bed, tightly pressed against one another and both completely vulnerable.
"Helen," he began and was cut off as she lean forward and captured his lips with hers. Soon their hands were exploring the other's body and their kisses deepened. They both knew they shouldn't be doing this but emotions took over and neither seemed willing, or able, to stop it. And perhaps, for a short time, they could forget their violent past and the loss of their precious child as they passionately engaged in lovemaking for the first time in over a century.
In the midst of their ardent second round of lovemaking they heard a loud crack of thunder move through the sky close enough to shake the structure and seconds later their joined bodies felt a sharp surge of electricity pierce through them as if a bolt of lightning had come through the ceiling and struck them.
