disclaimer: I own nothing
Author's Note: My contribution to Helen Magnus's birthday on 8/27, since I wrote one for Nikola's. Written on day of posting (which is 8/27/23 my time, despite how it might be labeled in archive), not beta'd.
Enjoy!
It was only because of the newspaper that she realized what day it was.
Really, Helen ought to have known well before she saw the paper being sold on the street, but she'd had other things on her mind.
She had to stop and stare at the paper, picking it up and staring at the front page. Right there, under the name of the paper, was today's date.
August twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-three.
Helen had to stare at it, do math in her head, even though the evidence was right in front of her. She hadn't thought of it, even though she knew it was that time of year. That time of year hadn't truly crossed her mind either, because it was so cool.
August was winter here and Helen usually associated heat or humidity with her birthday, so that may have had something to do with it.
The boy selling the newspapers cleared his throat and Helen paid him for the paper, taking it with her as she continued walking, breathing in the salty air blowing off the ocean.
Helen wasn't certain why it mattered, really. She hadn't celebrated her birthday in decades. She had not truly celebrated it long before she had pursued Adam into the past. It shouldn't have mattered now. But, for some reason, it did.
Because it reminded her of Henry and Ashley.
When they had been children, they had insisted on celebrating her birthday with slightly sloppy, homemade cakes her old friend had helped them make and homemade gifts that were, in the future, still stored in a drawer in her room.
Helen's heart ached as she thought of her children, the memories rising to the point where she could taste the frosting and see their eager and pleased faces.
Tears burned her eyes. She pressed a hand over them and let out a deep breath.
Two hundred and twenty-six years old and she was about to be crying in the street. Sixty-five years since she had arrived back in the past. So much time alone.
Oh, she had done things in that time. Met people, established things, earned degrees. But it had always been at a distance and her heart ached as she thought of the people she had left behind. People that hadn't even been born yet.
Sixty-five years out of one hundred and thirteen. Sixty-four birthdays.
Helen started walking again, her shoulders curling slightly as she did.
Birthdays didn't matter, but time did.
Helen knew that well. She'd had far more than her allotted time on this Earth.
She felt sometimes that she was being punished for it.
She recited the names, conjured their faces, as she walked. It was a habit Helen had developed. Due to the Source Blood and what it had given her, she had a very remarkable memory for how much was in her mind, but she was terrified she would begin to forget.
She needed to hold on to these things or going home would be so much harder.
Helen made it back to the small house-really, it was barely more than three rooms-that she was living in on the edge of town. Streaky Bay was a small town, but she was always afraid that she was taking the place someone else would have needed. Should have had.
She was altering things for the future, but she was terrified of altering things in the past.
Helen sighed heavily as she walked into the house. It was nearing evening and she needed to do some shopping.
Even that was risky business, filled with doubts of what she should and should not do, because she was an extra person. Someone who shouldn't have been here.
Helen gathered some more money and headed out.
She had had to leave Bolivia earlier this year. She had established what she needed to establish and things had been unstable for quite some time. It had been time to move on.
So she had come to Australia and, honestly, Helen wasn't certain what to do with herself yet.
As she shopped, Helen's mind was on her past birthdays with her children. She was almost tempted to make herself a cake, just to try and capture the memory, the love, but she knew it would just hurt her more.
She did indulge herself slightly, however, purchasing some freshly made short-bread and tea.
Whether she cared for birthdays or not, two hundred and twenty-six was something hardly anyone had-or would-reached.
She found a package, slightly battered from the journey it had taken, had arrived from James. He did that sometimes. He kept track of her, to make sure to guide her younger self away. He always seemed to know when she might need something to cheer her up.
He'd send her little things, meaningless really, but a slight indulgence in a busy life that sometimes didn't leave room for her herself. He'd laugh if he saw what she was considering a luxury on her birthday now.
Walking 'home', she continued to recite the names and imagine their faces.
Ashley.
Henry.
Her old friend.
Will.
Kate.
Declan.
Nikola.
The list went on, but those were the people she would see again.
Others she would never see again, in this life or in the future.
Nigel had died just months ago.
A sob escaped Helen's throat as she reentered her temporary home, tears welling. She had known the date and it hurt all over again, as if it had happened again. Because it had.
She put her groceries away, opened the package, and drew herself a bath, placing James's gift in the water.
Perfumed rose petals.
Expensive and a definite luxury, but they reminded Helen of times long gone. And better yet, they didn't smell like melting wax or sugar sweetened vanilla and they did not bring forth memories of other people.
Helen slid her body into the hot water and closed her eyes.
Closing her eyes brought forth images that she didn't want in her mind. In her mind's eye, Ashley died again. Will, as a child, screamed for his mother. Nikola's face as he became human all over again.
Tears rolled down Helen's face.
She was weary. Bone and soul tired.
She still had so far to go before she could go home. Before her plans could come to fruition.
Helen was sick of it.
And it wouldn't end when she finally went home.
Oh no. Things would be hard in a different way. Her Sanctuaries needed her. Her family needed her. So many people would need her.
She would still have to go on.
More birthdays lay ahead of her, stretching infinitely. She didn't know when it would stop. She didn't know if it could stop by natural means. She just knew that she had to go on, for as long as she walked the earth, she had a duty.
The tears spilled faster.
In truth, the tears were the indulgence, not the perfumed petals.
Helen was a woman that hardly ever let herself cry, even in private. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried. Not in this lifetime.
Her heart throbbed. Her throat ached. The sobs escaped her throat unbidden.
Helen had taken on the mantle of responsibility. No one had forced it on to her. But sometimes, especially in her second lifetime, it stretched too far and weighed too heavily for her to feel all right.
Sometimes it suffocated her.
It had more and more lately, so alone and waiting her meaning, her duty, to come back to her.
Today just made it worse, reminding her of how much time was gone and how much still lay ahead of her.
The tears stopped and a part of Helen was tempted to just stay in the water. Give up, somehow.
But she never could.
Helen soaked in the scented water until it was truly dark outside, until the water was cold. She hadn't used all of them and she supposed she had something to look forward too now.
She lit a candle because the electricity was finicky in the night, made herself some tea and bit into one of the cookies, savoring the sugar-and-butter taste of it as she skimmed the newspaper.
Nothing of interest, not truly. Helen was trying to settle her mind and her emotions. Crying had left her feeling wrung out, but better, somehow.
She paused on a small piece about Coober Pedy and its mining. How remote it was and how the people there struggled to procure the basic things they needed, how it was overpopulated for what it was currently able to sustain.
It was unlikely the problem would be resolved, due to the attraction of the opal mines.
Hmm.
Images were already conjuring themselves in Helen's mind. Of what could be done to help those people, because things wouldn't just go away. Of how useful it might be to be in such a place.
Coober Pedy, Helen decided, was worth a trip out. It wouldn't be hard to procure land, not with the funds in Helen Bancroft's name.
Despite herself, Helen found her mouth twitching towards a small smile.
She had been feeling lost and alone on her birthday, thinking of how much time still stretched ahead of her, but somehow a solution for the now had presented itself to her. Perhaps the day still meant something after all.
It was late now, however. Coober Pedy and whatever it had to offer could come tomorrow.
That small smile on her lips, Helen set the paper down, leaned forward, and blew out the candle.
Author's Note: I'm of the mind that Helen wouldn't enjoy her birthday after so long (I know I'm disillusioned with mine, even though I'm a fraction her age) and that it would be painful for her when she's in the past.
This story led me down a rabbit hole of Australia and trying to figure out what it was like in the sixties and what towns would bet there.
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