Thanks to Aimofdestiny for the beta.
There was a knock on the door. Sarah looked up from her journal to find Julia smiling shyly at her. "Oh, Jules!" The writer sat up and put her journal on the night stand. "I didn't know you were coming. Paul was going to pick me up in about two hours."
The blonde offered her a quick grin. "Well, he said since he's still grounded, he cannot pick you up from hospital and he also asked me to give you a message. I quote:" The medicine student looked up to the ceiling, holding her index finger upwards like she was about to say something important. "I've kept my part of the deal. Now it's on you, accident.'"
"Oh." Sarah looked at her, her face completely blank. "Well." Nervously, she ran her fingertips over the back of her neck, her eyes darting aimlessly through the room. "Then... well, then you'll pick me up. The doctor already discharged me, but I haven't packed yet. I thought I could use the time I'd spend waiting for my brother to write a little."
The blonde's eyes widened in surprise. She took a step closer to the dark-haired girl. "You're writing the next part? That's fantastic. I'm excited to find out how it's going to work out with Susan and her vampire crush."
The time traveller cocked an eyebrow at her, causing Julia to shrug.
"Or not crush. Your decision." The medicine student held up her hands in defense and took a step back again. "So, you can pack and I'll just wait here for you to finish." Julia suggested, flinging herself into the wheelchair they had to use to bring Sarah out of the hospital. The writer would use her crutches from that point on, but well,... hospital rules.
"Or I could help you?" Julia offered when Sarah opened that bag she had already set up on her bed. The time traveller looked up at her and then shook her head no. "I will do that on my own."
"Then I'll just watch?" The blonde shrugged again. She looked a little lost.
"Or..." Sarah began, slowly taking her journal from the night stand. She eyed it nervously. "You could check on my notes and see if you agree on where I'm going with the plot. While I'm packing."
Jule's simply gaped at her at that offer. "You'd... you'd let me read it? Before it's finished?"
The writer just nodded and held her book out for the other woman. "With pleasure. I'm very interested in your opinion."
Quickly, the blonde reached out her hand and grasped the journal. "I'm gonna take advantage of that offer before you change your mind again like-..." She paused and bit her lip to look up briefly into the other woman's eyes. "Uhm... that..." She whispered weakly while she awkwardly lowered her gaze to the ground.
Sarah swallowed thickly. "Just read it. It's okay." Then, the dark haired woman turned away to fold her night shirts and sweat pants neatly into her bag. She heard Julia flipping through the pages while she was working. Sarah hadn't written much, but she had decided that there was a certain direction she wanted to go with her novel's characters. And maybe, her friend would like it.
When the writer closed her bag's zipper a few minutes later, Julia looked up at her with her eyes sparkling, grinning the brightest grin Sarah had ever seen on her. Well except for that infamous party night after Sarah's first time travel.
"And?" The dark-haired girl asked in anticipation.
Julia took a deep breath. "Wow. 'Kissing Janet, Susan realised that this was one of the things she had wished for most in her life.'? I'm... wow. Finally!"
The other woman blinked. "So you like it?"
"Of course I like it, Bells. That was what I was asking for. Janet! And not that damn Matthew guy." The medicine student nodded profusely. "Thank you." She whispered, her eyes meeting Sarah's for a fraction of a second.
"Good. I'm glad you like it. Now I only have to tell my publisher." Sarah shrugged, feeling rather awkward. "And I don't know how to do that yet."
"It's a wonderful ending." Julia admitted and closed the journal.
The other woman looked briefly at her and then smiled. "It's not an ending. I think it's more like a beginning."
The student's eyebrows darted up. "What do you mean?"
"Well, it's gonna be a longer series, right?" Sarah winked and then held up her bag. "I'm done packing, we can... well, obviously not go, but get out of here."
The blonde stood up from the chair and handed the journal back to her friend, who stood up cumbersomely and flopped herself into the wheelchair. The writer felt Julia's eyes on herself and looked up to her. "Is everything alright?" She asked carefully.
The medicine student licked her lips, and her eyes darted away. Then she took a deep breath. "Will we ever talk?" She inquired quietly.
Sarah's eyes widened, then she lowered her gaze to the ground. "About what?" She murmured hastily. There was a brief pause before Julia replied:
"About the Warehouse. I mean... I know a lot now. But I really want to talk to you about that."
The time traveler looked at her best friend carefully; then she nodded. "Well, we have about two hours to do that in while we're in the car, don't we?" She smirked, while placing her bag on her lap and opening it to store her journal away.
Julia grinned and rested her hands one the handles of the wheelchair. "Well, then... let's take advantage of the fact that you suddenly seem to be very communicative today." She began, causing Sarah to turn in the chair and glare at her indignantly. "What? It doesn't happen that often." Julia shrugged while turning the wheelchair around.
Sarah wanted to reply something, but Julia had already pushed her out of the hospital room and started talking.
"First question: Why exactly does Paul keep calling you 'accident'?" The medicine student demanded to know. The question made her friend shrug before she responded: "For the same reason he calls me 'Ferret' and 'kettle kid'."
"U-huh." Jules nodded profusely in faux-comprehence. "And that means what?"
"Well, there was an accident with an artifact once which led to my mother's pregnancy..." Sarah tried to put the circumstances about her conception into words.
"Let me just guess on that... when you say that you and Paul only share 50 percent of your genetic material, then you imply...?" The blonde asked innocently.
"That I'm a hundred percent made by both my mothers, while he had a sperm donor." Sarah finished her sentence.
"So you're not only H.G. Wells' - who is a woman by the way - daughter, you are also the biological child of two women?" Julia concluded with her eyes widened.
"Indeed."
The medicine student seemed to ponder this. "I'd really like to take a DNA sample."
Sarah was leaning on her crutches with her eyes closed in the middle of Artie's office. She was alone, waiting for something. She had been at home for a few days, knowing that what she had to do could wait until she found the time for it.
The Warehouse family had thrown her a big 'Welcome home' party, of course. They had said they'd already planned on doing that when she'd come home back then, but yeah, they all had been turned into stone. Kurt had lured them into the Warehouse one by one or in pairs by making them believe she was in danger. Of course he had also had the help of an artifact for that. Claudia had been busy over the last weeks, taking apart his company. She'd found out that he had hoarded artifacts.
But now, this wasn't Sarah's problem anymore. It was the Warehouse agents'. The writer had only one last thing to do and then, ...well, yes, then she could go back home. Currently, she wasn't sure if this meant New York or Univille, because actually, the girl wanted both.
Sarah's eyes remained shut: she waited. For the Warehouse. She knew it had already noticed that she was asking a silent question, but currently it was unsure how to react. After all, this entity had always been rather careful in having direct communication with her.
Sarah hoped her silent 'Let me in' would reach the building that had created her but never told her why.
And then, the girl felt it, she felt how time stopped around her and how her body suddenly felt lighter than before. How her leg stopped feeling broken.
Sarah opened her eyes and saw the Warehouse with the eyes of its caretaker. She knew that this connection between them wasn't normal, it was incredibly special and nobody could explain it. Claudia had always tried, because she could sense that Sarah was a part of the Warehouse. But Sarah's connection to the Warehouse was so different from the caretaker's. The Warehouse seemed to consider the writer as something like its daughter. While Claudia was its companion. And maybe Sarah was about to find out what it meant in particular... Well, it wasn't like the she didn't already have a theory.
Now, Sarah left her body behind, walking out of it, no need for her crutches anymore. There was nobody in the office, so Sarah decided to spend some time walking through the Warehouse while waiting for somebody to join her. She actually walked quite a long time until she suddenly - in a certain aisle - heard an old and grumpy voice behind herself. "I already told you the first time you showed up here, and I'm going to tell you again: It's not your time."
The time traveller smiled a bitter-sweet smile while feeling the tears form in her eyes. She spun around.
"Artie!"
The old man nodded. He looked a lot younger now than he had when she had seen him last time. Sarah sighed deeply. "Well, and I remember that you came to me in another person's shape when you told me it's not my time. Her appearance confused me a lot back then."
"Well, I thought this one might be more suitable for you now." Her uncle assumed.
"Actually, no. But that's not important. I'm not here to talk to Artie. I'm here to talk to you." The writer forced her gaze away from him.
"Sarah, I am-"
"No." The girl interrupted the apparition in front of herself. "You're only my memory of Artie. But you're not him. You'll never be him. Not my uncle, not my mothers' friend. You're only the Warehouse pretending to be him." The girl said forcefully.
"I'm as much Artie as you are Sarah." The man in front of her replied slowly.
"You're only everyone's memory of him!" Sarah repeated, indignantly.
"Well, what else are we than our memory of each other?" Artie shrugged, looking hurt.
"It's actually quite interesting that you are saying this." The writer murmured, lowering her gaze to the ground.
"Pardon me?"
"Nothing. I'm here because I'm going to need your help." She looked up at him again, finding him confused. "With what?"
"You have to send a message. And I actually believe you already know what kind of message you have to send." She whispered carefully. "Because time works differently for you."
Arthur regarded her thoroughly with sad eyes. "I won't send a message about the position of the artifact, Sarah."
The girl in front of him shrugged. "We both know that that would be impossible because it would change things again. That would cause another time paradox. I can live with the fact that Kurt Parker was looking for me all my life. What I cannot live with is what you did. Time works differently for you. So you already know what I'm asking for."
The guide furrowed his eyebrows. "So you need Mrs. Frederic to know about the cities in which the element stones have been found so she can suggest them to Claudia." He assumed.
"In fact, there's more to it. Don't deny that you know." Sarah took a deep breath. "We both know that - back then - Helena remembered me. And that she struggles with this, because it wasn't her time. She wasn't ready for it. But we both know you caused it. You're the Warehouse and the bloody artifacts connected to it. Like - ravens." The girl tilted her head, one corner of her mouth curling up.
Artie sighed. "I don't know if I can do what you're asking for, Sarah." But this was only rewarded with an empathetic shake of the time traveler's head.
"No, we know you can do that. And you will do it." Her voice was strict, causing him to glare at her.
"Pardon me?"
"We both know you will do it, because I'm telling you to. Because you want something from me and I agree on doing it if you send this message." The writer pursed her lips. "If I get another 'pardon me' from you, I'll start yelling."
"Me - wanting something from you?" The apparition looked confused.
"Do you really think I don't know that there is a reason you created me? Do you really think I don't know you did that for a purpose beyond wanting to have my parents grow closer to each other and to you?" She narrowed her eyes at him, hissing. "Do you really think I don't know why you are taking so much care of me? Why you want to make sure I'm alright? I had three years to think about this in private. It's because you want me to take care of something yourself. You need me to do this. Because you're helpless."
"Sarah-"
"Do you really think I can't tell why you are always appearing in the shape of dead people?!" She laughed, loudly, bitterly. "Or why it comes always back to this?" The girl pointed at the watch in the shelf next to herself. The watch she had avoided looking at again for so long. "You made sure everything worked out perfectly, you made sure that this artifact exists. Because time works differently for you. It follows different rules for you, just as it does for the watch. I know! Damn it! I know! We both know I'm not going to take care of you!"
Artie just stood there, looking at her carefully. He didn't react.
"I know." Sarah shook her head. "And it didn't take me that long to find out."
The old man looked down at the ground for a short moment, then he dared to meet her eyes again. "We all want to make sure that what comes after us is protected and cared for." He stated with a monotonous voice.
"Yes, and I want to make sure that what came before me is as well." The time traveler replied dryly. "So, we aren't that much different at this point. She's H.G. Wells, Artie. Don't you think you've already done enough to her? I can imagine that somebody once cared about her as much as you care about me now or about Claudia once." She sighed as she watched Artie's eyes glisten. "Like I said: I agree on fulfilling your wish. But for that, you have to fulfill mine."
Artie was silent for a few seconds, then he nodded. "Okay." They glared at each other until the girl bowed her head. "Thank you."
*whispers* ...plot twist! *smiles maniacally*
So this was the last chapter of this part with Sarah in it. I really hope you liked her as a character. I like her a lot. Also: I'm not sorry for all that foreshadowing in this chapter. We need it for the final part of the series which I will start publishing after I have written my BA thesis. We have one chapter and the epilogue of this part left and I know this is really confusing, but it's important. I have a small challenge for you: You're allowed to guess in the reviews on what Sarah and the Warehouse are exactly talking about. The one who is coming the closest to the actual resolution of Sarah's destiny and why she's able to blackmail the Warehouse can give me a prompt for an one-shot. Is that a good deal? You have time until the next chapter comes up. :)