Out of Sync Chatper 6
Information is on the first chapter
John was awoken the next morning by knocking on the door. It was actually rather loud knocking. “You should answer that,” Ashley told him, “Tesla doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“Bloody hell,” John murmured. He struggled into a sitting position. “Turn around,” he told his daughter quietly. Ashley obediently faced the window again. John grabbed his pants from last night and pulled them on. Growling, he threw the door open. “Nikola, I swear to god if someone isn’t dead, you will be.”
Tesla raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t we cranky in the morning?” he commented.
“Nikola, either tell me why you are disturbing me at this hour or be gone from the doorway,” John stated. After only about three hours of sleep he was in no mood to deal with the snarky vampire.
“It’s nearly time for breakfast and no one’s seen you since lunch yesterday,” Nikola told him. “We were all worried.”
“The only person you worry about is yourself,” John growled.
“True,” he agreed. “But Helen wondered and I offered to hunt you down.”
“Oh, I just bet,” John sighed. He bit back the other smart retorts that were forming in his head. “Tell Helen I shall be down as soon as I finish getting ready.” Nikola just continued to smirk as he walked. John resisted the urge to slam the door and turned to his daughter. “Were you alright last night?” he asked in a low tone.
“The pain didn’t come back if that’s what you’re asking,” she said still looking out the window.
“Did you…go out of synch again?”
Ashley shook her head. “I stayed here the whole night.”
John pulled out a new shirt and began to put it on. “How does your throat feel now? Still sore?”
“It’s better,” she told him. “A little sore I guess but not too bad. It should be fine as long as I don’t talk much.” She smiled wryly at her reflection. “Not that I have many people to talk to.”
John paused in pulling on his pants. He wanted to give her words of comfort but couldn’t find any. All the promises he could make to her would be hollow and she knew that. In the end he continued dressing in silence. “Do you want to walk down?” he offered.
Ashley hesitated. She was getting a little too comfortable with him. He was the bad guy after all. But he was also the only one that could help her. That didn’t mean he was going to stay nice forever. Fuck forever, she decided. All she had was now and that was all that mattered. Besides, she wasn’t calling him dad yet even in her thoughts so there’s still hope for her. “Yeah I think I will,” she said hopping off her seat.
John held the door open for her with a smile. Even if he could make no progress with Helen, there was always a chance he could reconcile with Ashley. “This is where we part ways,” he said quietly as they reached the dining hall.
“I’ll be waiting up in your room,” Ashley told him. “I’ve got a way to do this right.”
“As you wish,” John agreed. He didn’t like leaving his daughter alone for so long but he had no choice. Anything they would do to save her required that he appear as normal as possible. The most he could do was leave as soon as he could with out causing suspicion and hope she wasn’t lonely in the mean time.
Ashley knew she should go up to her father’s room and wait there for him. She didn’t’ need to be sneaking around causing trouble. The cameras could pick up her actions even if they couldn’t pick up her. But she was the daughter of Helen Magnus and defiant by nature. She would just be a few moments really. If Druitt asked she’d tell him that she had slipped down again.
The first place her feet took her was Henry’s room. She paused at the doorway. It wasn’t right for her to snoop. With a roll of her eyes she phased through the door. “I’m getting better at that,” she praised herself. The room didn’t look much different than when she had left. Still all sorts of geek things all over, not that surprising really. She walked through, running her hands over everything. The buzz of electricity she always felt was beginning to get annoying. She paused as she noticed a picture of them on his nightstand. It was from years ago, when they were both kids. The picture used to sit in her mom’s study. Which meant that Henry had lifted it and put it in here. “Nice to know I’m missed,” she sighed.
Next she found her way to Will’s office. She had never actually been in there before. Well maybe once when he was first setting up shop but that was a long time ago. It was very professional. There were stacks of files on one side of the desk, the computer whirled softly as it ran a virus scan, and there was an open book sitting on the patient’s side of the desk. “Nice,” she murmured. She left that room to head to his bedroom. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for in here but it kept her mind off other things. His room was neat and tidy. The most personal things in it were books. Not too many pictures, she noted. There was one on his nightstand of a woman and a child. Ashley figured it was Will and his mom from before she was killed. She felt a little sad that he had so little to bring in to his new room. It wasn't fair really. She noticed a picture on his desk. It was of her, her mom, him and Henry. She couldn't remember when it was taken but apparently recently. She studied it for a long moment. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She had no idea who she was talking to or really what she was sorry about. But it still felt nice to get it off her chest.
She passed her mother's study and office on her walk. She didn't want to go in either of those two doors again. Her memories might have been a bit fuzzy but she remembered enough to know she had done some real damage and not just to the Sanctuary network. Your mother wasn’t ever supposed to tell you she was scared and especially not of you. The world just didn’t work like that. “It shouldn’t anyway,” she muttered. She didn’t need anymore reminders about how awful she’d been. “Fuck this,” she sighed. This was too much revelation at one time.
She trudged back up to Druitt’s room and flopped on the bed. She covered her eyes with her arm in an attempt to block out the bad thoughts. If they were lucky, she would be back in her own body before too long. But that was only half her problem. The other half was what to do about the family that believed she was dead. What would she say to her mother? Henry? Will? “God, that’s too painful to think about,” she sighed.
“What’s too painful to think about?” John wondered.
Ashley dropped her arm and looked up. “Did you teleport in here?” she wondered idly.
“People will start to talk if I walk everywhere,” he stated, repeating her words from earlier. “Besides I couldn’t take much more of Tesla.”
“Mom always said he was an acquired taste,” Ashley sighed.
John moved to sit next to her. He made sure to put enough distance so that she wouldn’t feel trapped but close enough that he could still reach out if she needed him. “Your mother spoke to you of him?” he wondered. Ashley gave him a look that read, ‘since when does she talk about her past to anyone’. “Then how did you know this?” he asked.
“I heard her talking to Uncle James,” Ashley told him.
“That would explain it,” he agreed. “Does your throat feel better?”
“It’s alright I guess.”
“Any phasing or pain while I was at breakfast?”
“Everything was normal,” she replied.
“That’s good to hear,” John said. “You never did answer my question.”
“It’s not important,” Ashley murmured.
John was tempted to push the subject but he didn’t want her to shut down completely. “You said you knew how to do this right,” he said instead. “What did you mean by that?”
Ashley got to her feet. “The cameras are easy to cheat when you know where they are,” she stated. “Was Henry still at the table when you left?”
John gave her a thin smile. “Most of the table was still there when I left,” he told her. Ashley raised an eyebrow. “I told you I couldn’t take more of Tesla.”
“Clearly,” Ashley agreed. “It’s amazing that you two haven’t toppled the Sanctuary yet, you know?”
“You might be right,” John said mildly. “But that is not what is important here.”
Ashley looked him over for a moment before shrugging. “Like I said the cameras are easy to cheat if you know where to find them. And I’ve lived here all my life.” She scanned the room. “Bring that chair over to the corner,” she ordered. John did as she asked. Ashley climbed on top and reached up to the tiny spy camera in the corner. “Just a little adjustment here,” she murmured. “Aaaannnnd….there.”
“What did you do?” John wondered.
“I moved it around a little,” she explained. “Now if you stay at the head of your bed, it won’t be able to pick you up.”
John gave her a look of vaguely surprised pride. “That’s quite smart,” he agreed. “We won’t be able to start until tonight though.”
“Why not?”
“Because the camera will still pick me up going through the closet,” he pointed out. “We don’t want to alert your mother to this situation before we have proof. As you said, if I get thrown in the SHU we both lose.”
“I remember phrasing it a little differently,” Ashley opined.
“Yes, well, some of us were both raised with and retained our manners,” her father countered.
“Says the man who became a very prolific serial killer,” Ashley stated.
“That does not count,” John told her, settling back on the bed. This time he made sure to sit next to the pillows.
“Oh, hold on there,” she said, climbing up on the bed herself. She sat across from him since the cameras couldn’t see her anyway. “You can’t change the rules half way through the game.”
“And why is that?” John wondered with the hint of a smile on his face.
“Because it’s not fair, that’s why,” she snapped. “I thought you Brits were all about fairness.”
“Touché,” he agreed. “But then we’re not in Britain; we are in the United States.”
“But mom always says that being British means you keep your integrity no matter where you are,” Ashley pointed out.
John smiled. The girl certainly had her mother’s verbal skills, even if she didn’t use them that much. The two spent a good while just verbally sparing until John noticed what time it was. “I need to be off,” he stated. “Can’t have people coming to searching after me all the time. After all, the excuse of losing track of time only works so many times.”
“And we don’t need you thrown in the SHU,” Ashley sighed. “Alright. I’ll be hanging here as usual.” She let herself fall back onto the bed.
John nodded. He was tempted to reach out to her but he held back. “Let me know if you need anything,” he told her. Ashley raised a ‘thumbs up’ sign. “And no teleporting,” he added firmly. “You keep to the slow path.”
Ashley rolled to face him. “I do have some common sense thanks,” she replied. John just smiled at the snipe and teleported out. “Why must I share his genes,” Ashley sighed. She couldn’t look through the journals and she didn’t want to walk around again so she racked her mind for something to occupy her for an hour. She couldn’t come up with much. Ashley shifted restlessly on the bed. She hated staying still for long periods, it made her antsy.
Ashley decided to close her eyes. She couldn’t sleep, per se, but her mom was always trying to teach her how to meditate. It never really took because she didn’t like having to just stay in one place. Whenever she wanted to let off steam she either patrolled or went to the firing range. Obviously neither of those were open to her now. She took deep breaths like her mom had taught her and willed her body to relax.
John wasn’t able to get back to his room until after dinner time. Too many things needed to be done around the Sanctuary and for some reason Helen thought he needed to be included in them. He realized it was probably only so she could keep an eye on him. Still, he didn’t like leaving his daughter on her own. He knew all too well how the mind could turn down melancholy paths when there was nothing to distract it. He wanted to knock to alert her that he was coming but knew it would look foolish. Instead he kept his steps soft so as not to startle her too much. He found her settled near the top of the bed, eyes closed. “Ashley,” he called softly.
Her eyes blinked open. “Hey,” she said.
“Hello,” he answered.
Ashley looked out the darkening windows. “You’ve been gone awhile,” she commented.
“After lunch your mother wanted all of us to meet in her study,” John explained. “The world doesn’t stop just because people die. Then I had to help Tesla with some worthless project he was working on. Your mother insists we try to get along.” He snorted at that thought. “By the time we got through it was dinner time.” Once again he sat down near her. “What have you been up to this time?”
Ashley shrugged. “I was actually meditating, believe it or not.”
“Meditating?” John asked.
“Well, I figure since I can’t sleep why not meditate?”
“I suppose that is a reasonable thing,” he agreed. “How are you feeling?”
“Throats feeling way better,” Ashley reported. “And no pain whatsoever. Best part is I haven’t phased in ages.” Just as she said this she dropped through the bed.
John reached out to grab her but she fell too quickly. With a sigh he realized that there was nothing to do but wait for her to come back up. He went to shut the curtains and decided it was late enough that he could retrieve the journals. The sooner they got to the bottom of this mystery the sooner Ashley would be able to stay in one spot. He rummaged around his clothes until he found the oldest of the journals. Settling in the middle of the bed he began to read.