Baby I'll call up a storm, keep you safe from harm
Title: Baby I'll call up a storm, keep you safe from harm
Fandom: Warehouse 13/Primeval
Disclaimer: Warehouse 13 and Primeval are not my property and I intend no copyright infringement with this work, just a bit of fun.
Pairing/Characters: H. G. Wells/Helen Cutter; Arthur Neilson, James McPherson, Connor Temple, Abby Maitland, OCs.
Word Count: 7,092
Rating: PG
Summary: She appears from a crystal ball and saves Helena from jail. Helena discovers that Helen Cutter is just like she was; she wants to destroy the world. And Helena will help her down one path or another, through artifacts and time.
Author notes: written to give more love to the women for halfamoon, damn good fun! Many thanks to bella_farfalla for reminding me of this idea and some lovely betaing. It's all for you dear! (The title is a song lyric by Tom McRea, from "You Only Disapear")
HG Wells sits in the back of a black SUV driving through the latter half of her journey to no doubt some secure prison of the kind where windows are scarce. Her plan, her only plan, her century long plot to destroy the world had failed. As a matter of pure fact the plan fizzled out rather than failed all because of a pair of brown eyes and sure honest hands.
‘It’s always the women,’ she thinks.
So, the Earth survives another revolution and another step in its rotation around the sun. The trident, once so certain in her hands, must have a new place to hang on the wall in the dark vault. Artie is probably kicking up his heels and making star shaped cookies to celebrate. A small part of Helena hopes that Myka at least is mourning her loss.
Helena closes her eyes and imagines Myka sitting cross legged on her bed. Myka holds a glass of wine in one hand and her other hand holds Helena’s locket, the one she left behind. It was Helena’s most prized possession but where she is going nothing comes with. Who better to leave all that remains of her baby to than the woman who stole her heart and saved the world? Maybe Myka clutches the item to her chest, tears in her eyes. Maybe Myka whispers Helena’s name.
Suddenly the car stops.
“We’re here.” One of the black suits in the front seat turns to look at her. “Do not move until told.”
Helena only musters the will to raise an eyebrow. Smiles are beyond her just now. She’s not one normally prone to melancholy excepting in deep memories of happy days with a child in her arms. However, when the plan one was so sure of for 100 years comes crashing down and the new happiness one thought they’d found is consequentially ripped away as well, then… well she’s allowed to brood if she chooses.
“Get out.”
One man holds the car door open while another barks at her. Helena finds herself glaring in his direction but she exits the car. She accepts her new status as prisoner now. Really she has no right to complain. She did try to bring on a new ice age and essentially end the world.
“Well, boys, is this my new home?”
Helena looks up at the square cement building in front of her. She notices around them the world looks pale, shimmery. There must be a perception filter around the building.
“Ah.” Helena nods her head slowly. “Using artifacts to guard your jail? The Atlantis shield, is it? They never would tell me why we had that artifact on file as ‘in the Warehouse’ when it wasn’t in the Warehouse.”
“Come on.” One man with nondescript sunglasses points forward, two new men sliding in behind her like a human paddy wagon.
Somehow the absurdity cracks through her mood and makes her smile. “Aw, four of you to take the dangerous time traveling writer inventor into the shielded Warehouse jail? I’m touched.”
Suddenly, something pops and a large crystal-like ball of energy appears in the air in front of them. All five of them jump back in surprise. The men raise their guns and Helena steps carefully to the side putting two of the suits between her and any potential danger. A woman runs out of the crystal. The men take clear involuntary steps back. The woman shakes her head then takes in the five people staring at her.
“Don’t move!” One man says in TV police fashion.
The woman ignores him and turns around, holding up a square glass device to the crystal behind her. She clicks the surface of the glass and the crystal energy ball changes shape, going… Helena would call it quiet. The woman turns back around, pushing short reddish brown hair from her eyes. She looks at Helena.
“HG Wells, I presume?”
Helena stands up straight and steps to the side out from behind her human shields. She cocks her head. “I was already interested by your crystal ball but now you know my name I am far more intrigued.”
The woman smiles. “As you should be; I am Helen Cutter.”
“Wait just a minute!” One man snaps, stepping forward. “We don’t know what artifact this is but - “
“Oh, shut up.”
Helen pulls a small round device from her pocket and clicks it at the men surrounding Helena. They all suddenly stiffen and freeze. Helena turns her head slowly then walks forward. None of the men follow her or move in response, truly stuck in place. She turns back to the strange woman in front of her. She shifts her arms and turns out her hands as much as the handcuffs will allow.
“Anything you can do about these?”
Helen smiles, walks around Helena, and in less than thirty seconds has the handcuffs lock-picked and off of Helena’s hands.
Helena flicks out her wrists and smiles, “much better, thank you.”
“Well, then,” Helen holds out her hand to the crystal orb behind her, “shall we go?”
------------
Helen Cutter, Helena discovers, is a time traveler of sorts as well.
“I need your help,” Helen says as the two of them stand on the sun-bleached peak of some 100 million yeas ago.
Apparently traveling back through time to the Cretaceous period is right up this professor’s alley. Also, it seems to be the best place to not be overheard when making dramatic soap opera declarations.
“I need your help to destroy the world.”
Helen Cutter, Helena discovers, is just like she was.
A pterosaur flies by, large wigs flapping lazily as it mostly coasts along on the high winds. Helena tracks its progress behind them with her eyes until it brings her gaze back around to the taller woman before her. There isn’t much difference in the view.
Helena crosses her arms and tilts her head. “With toys such as those?” She points to the glass box in her companion’s hand. “But I suppose a Warehouse full of similar artifacts is what you are thinking of?”
Helen smiles with long canine teeth. “You know, this Helen and Helena could get confusing. Shall I just call you HG?”
--------------
Paris: 1919, the shells of the first big war still remain evident in the people’s eyes; loss, disappointment, triumph not as good as having the one you love alive. Apparently Helen never thought in her prior life tramping through the crystals called anomalies to come to some place more recent than the Paleogene period. To Helena, however, this is almost coming home again.
“Warehouse 12?”
“My start.” Helena smiles and scoots the coffee in front of Helen closer to her. “But it’s moved by this time to America.”
Helena imagines that Helen does not spend much of her time eating civilized food or drinking anything other than river water.
“I know you planned on using a trident of some sort, from the Egyptian Warehouse.”
Helena raises an eyebrow, mug of coffee carefully placed to mask any frown or upturn of her lips. “How can you know that?”
Helen puckers her lips slightly and the action comes off more sinister than cute, probably a more common expression on Dr. Cutter’s face.
“Everything sets off ripples, there are always shock waves and even across the ocean the ARC could feel your actions.”
Helena puts down her mug, visions of a large boat with dinosaurs inside passing through her head. She doesn’t ask.
“What the ARC sees, I see, and your three pronged stab wounds in the soil were fairly solid evidence.”
Helena smiles. “Are you playing Sherlock Holmes with me?”
Helen grins and this time it smacks of beauty. “I get my kicks in various ways. I was a professor, research was my trade. Plus, I half guessed, so lucky me.”
“All the more Holmesian for you.”
Helen sits up straight, coffee still untouched. “So, can you help me? Is there another artifact I can use?”
“Why should I help you?”
“It’s just what you wanted to do,” Helen insists, “restart the world, give it a second chance to do it right without the over populated, polluted, hateful mess that humanity has made it.”
Helena looks away out over the Paris street, long skirts still sweeping the cobblestones and men always wearing their hats. Then Helen grips her forearm and Helena turns back.
“I also saved you from jail.”
Helena has to give her point and match for that.
------------
Helena’s former Warehouse coworkers Benedict and Lawrence stand frozen in place, Helen’s little disk of the future at work again. Apparently in the land beyond where she claimed it from the police used it for subduing suspects. Rather a reversal from its current use.
“I am quite sorry,” Helena says to their still forms, “we won’t be a moment.”
Helen sits in the wooden chair in front of the Warehouse 12 monitor. She scrolls through lists, fingers moving unsurely on the old yet modern computer in front of her. For 1900 it hails as a marvel of technology but for Helen it does not have the 3-D she prefers from her future.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Helen glares at Helena, “HG, you could do the looking.”
“You are the one with the mission. I am merely your vehicle inside, repaying a debt.”
Helen stops her frantic fingers and turns in her chair. “You must have some idea.”
“What was yours?” Helena asks.
Helen sighs and rests an elbow on the arm of the chair and her chin in her palm. “To go back in time, of course.”
Helena smiles. “Always millions of years back and hundreds of years forward. Not interested in Ancient Greece or Queen Elizabeth?” Helena shakes her hips. “Swinging 60s?”
Helen laughs and sits up straight. She’s beautiful when she laughs, when the lines on her face change shape from hard edged sandstone to cool flowing satin.
“I always worked with dinosaurs; I taught Paleontology like my husband at university. It was always like going home to travel way back there. I never took much interest in human history.”
“And yet you want to change just that?”
Helen’s face shrinks up again and Helena knows she made a misstep; one forward and two back.
“I thought I knew the right idea, to stop everything at the source.” Helen turns back around to the computer. “But I knew Connor could see, his mind always ticked like Nick’s, and I couldn’t risk failure.” She glances over her shoulder. “Then there came you.”
Helena takes Helen’s hand and pulls her from the chair. “I have an idea.”
---------------
Gun shots fly by them as they run, each one feeling closer to hitting the mark. They slide over Russian streets doing all they can not to fall over patches of ice or their large, bustling skirts.
“Why did we have to steal this item like this?” Helen shouts. “I try to avoid interactions with people in most cases!”
“Oh, your dinosaurs are so much better.” Helena ducks a flying chunk of stone as a bullet hits the wall beside them. “Trust me, theft in transit to the Warehouse is far preferable to breaking in.” Helena flashes Helen a grin. “You’re lucky the Warehouse has always been so organized about archival dates.”
Another gun shot breezes by, slashing through Helen’s skirt making the woman skip and shoot back once. Helena jumps up onto a stone statue and also fires back with her energy gun, green charge hitting one Warehouse agent in the chest so he flies back. The other two agents chasing them don’t even pause.
“Come on, HG,” Helen pulls Helena down off the stone into her arms then rights Helena onto her feet again, “we don’t have time!”
The men behind them shout obscenities and Helena laughs as she hears, ‘Napoleon Bastards’ in heavy Russian behind them.
“We have all the time in the world, time traveler!” Helena cries.
Helen smiles as her hat falls from her head and wind whips through her hair. She shakes her head and hooks her arm through Helena’s to pull them down a side street.
“I hope this artifact is worth it,” Helen shouts.
“You would be surprised at the wealth of destructive objects which began in Warehouse 11. Russia possessed unparalleled lure for artifacts of ill intent. I blame the cold and Russian temperament.”
Helen huffs then gasps suddenly as she slips on the ice. Helen grabs Helena’s arm and they both go down hard. Helena flips over, blood on her chin, and rises to her knees, their pursuers close behind them.
“Give me the glove.”
Helen sits up slowly, shaking her head, dazed.
“The glove!” Helena shouts.
Helen yanks it from her pocket and holds it out. Helena pulls the glove over her hand then holds her hand palm out toward the two agents. They stop dead in their tracks. One keeps his rifle up but she can see it shaking. They stand in stalemate for a moment, staring at each other. Then one man opens his mouth to speak and Helena makes a fist. The two men crash together like magnets. Helena raises her fist higher and the men jerk up into the air.
“Are you…” Helen starts then stares as Helena flicks her hand up.
The men rise higher then Helena opens her hand. The men shout and crash back down to earth with twin crunches, out cold.
Helena stands, removes the glove then holds out her bare hand for Helen. Helen takes her hand and gets to her feet. She glances down at the glove in Helena’s hand and then to the men lying on the street.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
Helena smiles. “Funny little artifact this one, the riding glove of Catherine the Great.” Helena folds the glove in half then slips it into her dress pocket. “Once worn it will allow you to move whatever you are looking at just like the Queen pulled countries under her rule.”
“How historical.”
Helena raises an eyebrow. “I will point out, you are traveling with living history.”
“I never read ‘The Time Machine.’”
Helena purses her lips.
Helen smiles and pulls out her anomaly device. “Time to go.”
------------
Time travel through anomalies is not, as one might expect, a simple one step processes.
Helen clicks symbols on the surface of her glass device. “It’s a path, HG. I can’t control where the anomalies lead but I can find the right path to where we need to go.”
“Taking the train and not a lift?”
Helen frowns. “I don’t think that metaphor works exactly.”
Helena shrugs. “No matter.” She pulls a flower from a street vendor’s stand. “Italy is beautiful this time of year,” she looks up at the bright sun, “apparently.”
Around them the Renaissance flows high and bright with gold thread and harpsichord music and rotten fruit and the heat of an Italian summer. Helen and Helena somehow do not stand out in their trousers among the skirted ladies what with Venice pulling all citizens of the Renaissance world to its carved shores. Helena can think of a dozen artifacts off the top of her head which are probably here right now, one even deep below her feet buried in the sediment of the Venetian canals.
“We should get off the street to open the next anomaly,” Helen says.
Helena touches Helen’s hand on the device, stopping her dexterous thumbs. Helen glances up and Helena holds out the flower.
“Just think for a moment where you are, dear Helen.” Helena takes Helen’s other hand and folds the flower between her fingers. “Look at it!”
Helen’s face colors for a brief moment then she pulls her hand away from Helena.
“Another point in human history.” Helen twists the stem of the flower between her fingers. “And we cannot stay.”
Helen turns away down an alley. Helena touches two fingers to her lips and smiles.
----------
Helen yanks Helena behind a tree as the anomaly closes. Helena can’t stop her breathing as it seems to be racing toward the finish line. Helen holds a knife in her hand and peers carefully around the curve of the tree.
“What is it?” Helena whispers.
“Raptor,” Helen replies, the sort of calm in her voice which Helena finds completely irrational.
“A raptor?”
“It will want to tear us apart with its claws so I would be quiet.”
“You said raptor!”
“Shh!”
Helena whimpers involuntarily and her nails dig into the bark of the tree. Helen places a steadying hand on Helena’s shoulder and slowly moves back to lean against the tree beside her. A low growl emanates from much closer than Helena would prefer.
“Are you sure this was a necessary stop on our path?” Helena hisses.
Helen smiles and the predator slides into place on her face. “Don’t worry, I eat raptors for breakfast.”
Helena gulps.
-------------
Helen and Helena run along side Arthur Neilson and James McPherson, the four of them pursued by a man wearing a dated yet fashionable blue coat in a French military style. Well, to be frank, they are not so much running from him as from the army of ghosts with him.
“You never said anything about ghosts!” Helen snaps at Helena. “Artifacts and ghosts?”
“They’re not ghosts!” Artie grabs James by the collar as the other man trips and nearly falls. “There are no such things as ghosts. They are just projections using the - “
“Shut up!” James and Helena shout together.
“And you still haven’t explained how you know about the Warehouse and -”
“Oh, Artie,” Helena smiles and slaps Artie’s shoulder as they run, “I really did like you, remember that.”
Artie shoots her a confused look. “What?”
Helen chances a look back, grotesque figures with rotting flesh, ripped clothes, and sunken eyes scream back at her, one man in the middle with a smile insane as the visions surrounding him. Helena grabs her arm and they pick up the speed.
“We should split up.” James points to the divide in the road ahead of them. “It’ll force him to choose and the ghosts have to stay with him.”
“We just need to get the coat off him,” Helena says. “He’ll follow the one pair then the other can double back around to get the coat. Once he is no longer wearing it the ghosts will disappear.”
Artie growls. “How do you know that? Who are you?”
Helena stops abruptly as they reach the intersection. She grasps James’ arm and pushes Helen toward Artie.
“You take right and we’ll have the left; who ever wins the ghosts, keep running and the other better plan quickly!”
James and Artie open their mouths to protest but then a ghost catches up and slashes Helen’s arm. She screams in pain and kicks the figure in the stomach. He flies back, solid and real before he conversely disappears into smoke. Blood starts to soak through Helen’s shirt and the pairs bolt in opposite directions. As the man following them catches up he swings right and takes after Helen and Artie. The flood of ghoulish ghosts course right with him. James and Helena stop in their tracks.
“Do you have the Tesla?” Helena asks. “If we stun him it’ll give us a chance to get the coat.” She makes a ‘tch’ noise. “We might take a bit of a beating just getting through to him but I can’t think of anything else.”
James pulls the Tesla from his coat and looks down at her. “Who are you really?”
She only smiles and runs back the way they came. They catch up to the horde in less than a minute. Up ahead they see a ragged ghost jump forward and pull Artie to the ground. Helen whirls around and tries to pull the creature off when another yanks her back by her hair.
“Now!” Helena shouts.
James shoots and the man in the blue coat turns at her shout just in time to take the stun blast in the chest. He falls and the ghosts ripple as if they felt it too. James runs forward, pushing the gray ghosts aside, making a path. Helena runs through and crouches down beside the still man. She slips out the buttons, pulls one arm from the sleeve of the coat then rolls him. She grabs his other arm but a ghost abruptly pulls her back.
“James!” she shouts urgently.
Someone leaps over the man’s still form and tackles the ghost to the ground. Helena sees the flash of reddish hair and feels a hand across her cheek. Helena pulls the man’s other arm from the coat and it’s free. Suddenly the ghosts shimmer like water and vanish. A hand touches Helena’s shoulder and she turns to see Helen’s face, a smile like starlight.
“Arthur!” James shouts and runs past the woman to where Artie lies on the ground.
“I told you they weren’t ghosts,” Artie groans as James helps him sit up.
“The name is hardly relevant, Arthur, especially when they seem able to kill you.”
Artie grimaces. “I’m not dead.”
Helena stands and folds the coat into a square. Beside her Helen pulls her anomaly device out and clicks the surface twice.
“Ah, path ready and waiting for us.” She turns to Helena. “Two out of three now.”
Helena smiles. “Did you doubt me?”
“Certainly not now.”
“Oh, well.” Helena slips the coat into her knapsack and snaps it shut. “I am glad your confidence is improving.”
“Don’t move.”
The women turn at the sound of James’ voice. He holds the Tesla out pointed at the two of them.
“I had suspected you didn’t just turn up accidentally and then you knew so much.” He steps forward. “I’m afraid you cannot have Napoleon’s coat, though.”
“It belongs in the Warehouse?” Helena says. “Never to be used, locked away?”
She sees James flinch but his voice remains confident. “It is a danger and must be guarded.”
Helena walks forward slowly. “Oh, but that’s not just what you think, is it James? After all, these artifacts were made in the world so it must have been for a reason.”
“James…” Artie groans quietly from behind, still on the ground. “What is she…”
“James McPherson.” He stares at her as Helena touches his arm, the Tesla almost against her chest now. “I know you think something is not quite right with the Warehouse, how it’s run, that there must be something better. Well, here it is.”
“Give me the coat.” James’ voice is calm but his eyes are wild.
Helena had always wondered that first time when she awoke in the machine to see James at the controls; how had he known to wake her up?
“You may find me in the bronze section.”
James’ eyes widen and his grip on the gun loosens.
“Helena!” Helen calls and she turns. “Time to leave.”
In a flash Helena is back by Helen’s side. In front of her James’ arm still holds the gun up but it’s gone limp in his fingers, face a mess of confusion. Helena squeezes her hands together and feels some regret. Then an anomaly bursts to life behind them, wind blowing up Helena’s hair and she grins.
“I’ll see you soon, James!” She waves her hand.
Helen’s fingers wrap around her wrist and Helen pulls her back through the crystal shards.
----------
Helena slept through the 1940s. She never saw WWII, never met a Nazi, never hid in bomb shelters during the air raids. Yet it seems fate and time travel have given her the chance to taste the air of the ‘Greatest Generation.’
“I didn’t think the path would take us here.” Helen grumbles as Helena buttons the top of Helen’s dress. “The device may be malfunctioning. I should…”
“You should be quiet.” Helena turns Helen around to face her.
The woman wears a long black dress, a slight poof at the waist, and no sleeves. She looks a vision. Helena walks steadily across the empty ballroom to the stage. She pulls a record from the box and places it on the turn table.
“HG, we don’t have time for this,” Helen insists. “We still have one more artifact to find.”
Helena smiles. “I believe you said you can’t open another anomaly for forty minutes?”
Helen sighs and crosses her arms over the black fabric on her chest. Helena drops the needle on the record and slow band music begins to play. Helena pulls her hair back quickly and ties it into a bun. She pulls the edges of her long blue gloves up her arms then walks back over to Helen. The other woman watches her approach with wary eyes like Helena is one of Helen’s favored prehistoric carnivores. Helena holds out her hand to Helen.
“What?” Helen asks.
“Well, you’re all dressed up and there is nowhere else to go.”
An air raid siren wails overhead and a tremor shakes the building. Helen’s eyes circle up but she does not budge from her spot. Helena steps closer and pulls one of Helen’s hands out of her statuesque placement.
“Come on, Helen.”
“Dance?” Helen gives her a skeptical look. “Now?”
Helena smiles. “There is always time to dance.”
Suddenly, Helen folds, tension slipping out of her body, and she puts her arm on Helena’s waist. She presses close then rests her cheek against Helena’s. It’s as much a surprise as sliding out of the anomaly into the ballroom in the first place.
Helen whispers against Helena’s skin. “Lead on then, Helena.”
This time it is Helena’s cheeks which swell with heat as she turns them to the slow, jazzy tune around the empty ballroom.
-----------
“It’s a cup.”
Helena shakes her head. “The date must have been wrong.”
Helen turns the porcelain cup around in her hand. She sets it down on the ground in front of them and watches to see if anything happens. It does not move.
Helena pulls a small data pad out of the top of her Sari and clicks buttons on the surface.
“To be fair the box did look deceptively small to be holding a sword,” Helen says.
Helena huffs and scrolls down through the paragraphs about Alexander and Warehouse 10. Helen stands up and peers over Helena’s shoulder. She reaches out and points on the surface.
“It says 1701 and we are in 1712. It is already in the Warehouse now.”
Helena groans and glares over at the Taj Mahal as if it is to blame. Helen crouches down low to the ground and picks up the cup. The Warehouse employee charged with the moving of the artifact makes a small noise where he lies beside Helen’s feet. She glances down but he does not open his eyes.
“We aren’t equipped to break into Warehouse 10.” Helena flips the end of her orange Sari back over her shoulder. “We’ll have to try another time.”
Helen smiles. “I can manage that.”
Suddenly the cup in her hand fills up with red liquid. Helen and Helena balk and look at the cup suspiciously. Helen sniffs the edge then takes a sip. Helena makes a face and raises her eyebrows.
Helen smiles. “Wine!”
Helena frowns. “That is not the holy grail.”
“Do you have that?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s quite good actually.” She holds out the cup to Helena. “At least we found something in India; A cup to fill with what you want to drink.”
Helena takes the cup and sips some of the wine. “You’ll make a good Warehouse employee yet.”
“I’m a better thief.”
She clicks her box of glass and an anomaly opens sending a group of eavesdropping children running.
------------
They’re falling, the anomaly opened where they did not expect despite the read out and now they’re falling. Helena hits the ground and Helen hits the ledge beside her, tumbling off the bridge into more air.
“Helen!” Helena shouts.
She jumps up, pulls on the glove, and reaches out blindly over the side. Focusing her eyes, Helena sees Helen suspended a mere foot above the ground below. Helen waves back and Helena unclenches her hand. Helen drops unsteadily onto her feet. Brushing herself off, Helen shields her eyes from the sun and looks back up at Helena.
“Are you all right?” Helena asks.
Helen nods and points up. Helena turns to see the anomaly suspended in air a few feet above her. It’s a strange sight, like some alien creature watching her.
“Do they often do that?” Helena calls over the edge.
“Anomalies have minds of their own at times,” Helen shouts.
Suddenly a large flying dinosaur soars out of the anomaly above them. Helena ducks even though it is far above her and watches as it flies off into the buildings. She hears Helen laugh far below.
“Whoops!”
“Now the anomaly in the air makes sense,” Helena comments.
“Helen!”
Helen turns and there is a young man and woman down on the street level holding guns pointed at her. Helena ducks down behind the edge of the bridge. She hears no shouts of ‘put your hands up’ in her direction so she stays put. It is silent for a moment then Helen speaks.
“Well now, I never knew you to be so quick to get to an anomaly site.”
“Lucky for us,” the man says, “not so lucky for you.”
“Connor,” the woman hisses, “easy.”
“I’m not here for you so I would suggest you just walk away.” Helena can hear the menace projected in Helen’s tone and only because they’ve traveled so far together now can she also hear the tendril of fear. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with us!” Connor snaps.
“Just walk away, Connor.”
“No way; you killed Cutter!”
In the distance the dinosaur calls with a distinctive screech.
“Me or the pterodactyl,” Helen says, “take your pick.”
Helena hears the loud snap of a gun ready to fire.
“Connor!” the woman shouts. “Stop.”
“Abby,” he hisses, “we can’t let her get away, not again.”
Helena searches quickly through her bag; energy gun - no, too far; Catherine’s glove - no, too dangerous with two guns and one Helen; laser cutter, useless. Then -
“Ah ha!”
Helena pulls the retraction rope from her bag, hooks it to her belt and slams the metal spoke of the other end against the cement of the bridge. She clicks a buttons on the handle and it sinks deep into the solid foundation. Another invention of her own creation. Helena jumps up on the edge then leaps over into air. She sees Abby and Connor stare in surprise as she falls. She hits the ground beside Helen, scoops the woman into her arms and they spring back up into the air.
“Hey!” Abby shouts.
A shot fires below but Helena and Helen are already back on the bridge. Helen smiles and kisses Helena’s cheek.
“My hero.”
“Can’t leave a damsel in distress.”
Helena picks up her bag as she hears the two people below running to try to get to them. They won’t be fast enough. Helena unties the rope as Helen quickly clicks buttons on her device, the anomaly above them closes.
“I’ve got it,” she cries and presses a button.
A new anomaly opens to their left and they race through.
---------------
It’s strange but Helena hadn’t realized she missed Warehouse 12 until now she stands right in front of it again. To everyone else walking London’s streets it looks just like a dank, disused court house, not the kind of place one would ever choose to go inside, even a judge. The front doors have beams of wood nailed across and all the windows are shuttered solid. Helena knows that on the inside each window is doubly sealed by brick and the Warehouse security system. The doors are triggered to explode and simultaneously cement solid should any unauthorized person attempt to break in.
“This is your Warehouse?” Helen looks skeptical as she leans against the adjacent building.
“Warehouses cannot look like welcoming places.” Helena pulls a Farnsworth from her pocket and glances at Helen. “It would not do to have civilians poking around; would make for quite a mess in most cases.”
“Of course.”
Helena turns the Farnsworth over. It was a spare, broken Farnsworth discarded by Claudia. She’d said something like ‘I’ll get to it after I soup up the vacuum’ and in it went to Helena’s pocket. She was sure it’d be useful at some point. She’s always been good with forethought.
“I take it we’re not actually going to break in,” Helen asks. “Are we?”
“No, hopefully not.” Helena pulls a wire around and connects it to a hole in the side. She presses two buttons and Farnsworth springs to life. “We are going to make them come out to us.”
Helena walks along the edge of the building, Helen following behind her. They turn down the side street between the buildings until they reach the fire escape. Helena pulls down the ladder and they climb. The building has four floors and they climb by each one until they reach the roof. Helena walks to the middle of the roof, holding the Farnsworth up.
“I don’t know how you managed in these skirts all the time,” Helen grumbles from behind.
Helena glances back at Helen, the other woman fussing with her blue, ruffled skirt. She stomps one heeled boot and pulls at the edges of her corset under her white blouse. She sees Helena grinning at her and sighs heavily.
“As though it was really necessary to dress the part.”
Helena shrugs. “Perhaps not but maybe I like to dress you up.”
Helen’s eyes widen and Helena turns away with a giggle, twisting a dial on the Farnsworth. The Farnsworth was not invented during Helena’s tenure at Warehouse 12; however, there were radio waves. Though radio was not the commercial and entertainment commodity in this era that it was in later years, Heinrich Hertz did some private contracting for the Warehouse.
“I just need to hack in…” Helena mutters, rerouting a wire on the Farnsworth.
Suddenly the device makes a shrill crackling noise. Helena and Helen both flinch and Helena adjusts a knob. The noise settles to a hum and its all set. Helena clicks the red button. Though she can’t hear it she knows that down below the Warehouse radio bell rings through out the structure.
“Oh, please let Philip answer.”
“And who is Philip?” Helen stands close to Helena now, arm to arm.
Helena breathes in slowly and lowers the hand holding the Farnsworth down from the sky.
“He is only a few weeks on the job as of now.” She turns to Helen with a smirk. “And he always does what I say. Fortunately, right now, the me of this period is…” A feeling stabs at Helena’s heart for a moment, an iron bar in her lungs. “The me of this period is home with my daughter.”
“Hello?”
Helena and Helen both perk up.
“Philip!” Helena snaps, sudden urgency in her voice. “I don’t have time; I need you do exactly as I say.”
“Ms. Wells?”
“Now, Philip!”
“Yes, ma’am!” He snaps, the urgency passing into him.
Helena hears Helen beside her suppress a chuckle.
“I am on the roof, Philip, and I need the sword of Alexander the Great right now!”
“What?” Philip’s voice squeaks. “I can’t do that, ma’am! That artifact…. I can’t take it out of…”
“Philip, please.” Helena let’s her voice crack and her makes a noise as if in pain. “There is another artifact and only… oh, wait…. No! No!”
She slams the Farnsworth closed with a shout and cuts off the connection. Helen raises her eyebrows at Helena.
Helena smiles. “How was my performance?”
“I expect to see him scurrying up here soon.” Helen walks away and ducks behind an air vent. “Hope your gamble works.”
Helena flips her hair and stands tall. “It will.”
Less than five minutes later, Philip appears through a door in the floor of the roof, sword in hand. He sees Helena lying on her side, face turned away. Philip runs across the roof and skids down to his knees beside her, dropping the sword next to them. He rolls Helena over and shakes her.
“Ms. Wells, oh, Ms. Wells! Wake up!”
Helena’s eyes snap open and she sits up swiftly, grabbing the sword in her hand. She pushes Philip back, jumps up and holds the sword out between them. Helen appears from her hiding place and stands beside Helena, Helena’s energy gun in her hand. Philip gapes in horror.
“I am very sorry to put you in this position, Philip.”
“What are you doing?” He holds up his hands. “What is going on?”
“We need the sword,” Helen says brightly.
Philip’s eyes bug out. “No, what, no! That sword is… is she making you do this?” He points violently at Helen. “Please, Ms. Wells, you know how dangerous the sword is. You can’t let it leave the Warehouse!”
Helen smiles. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Philip.”
“I just hope you don’t remember anything,” Helena slowly pulls the sword from the sheath, “because it will be rather awkward for me later if you do.”
Helen purses her lips playfully. “Hoping for a good head wound?”
Philip swallows visibly. Then Helena raises the sword in the air and slices down with a clean cut. A sound like metal hitting metal clangs all around, ringing in their ears, and a shock wave bursts forth from the sword’s point. Philip launches up into the air with the force and lands just inches from the edge of the roof. Helen gasps in surprise and appreciation. She touches the handle of the sword just below Helena’s own hand grasping it.
“That is amazing.”
“The harder you swing, the harder the shock wave. The power of Alexander the Great,” Helen slides the sword back into its sheath, “the founder of the Warehouse and a conqueror of the world.”
Helen breathes in slowly and Helena can see a weight lift from her face, fear and tension erasing with the knowledge of power.
“Now we have all three.” Helen smiles as though she cannot believe the feat’s truth.
Helena nods and touches Helen’s hand, “Journey complete.”
----------------
Helen stands on a hilltop outside of London only grass and trees to be seen. She wears the coat of Napoleon buttoned to her neck. Her hand is gloved by Catherine the great and in it she holds the sword of Alexander. She looks like a statue, a martyr, a conqueror of lands. If she would summon fire from the earth then it would come in blazing orange, red, and blue to burn up the sky.
“This is it, now, Helen.” Helena steps back and holds out her arms. “With these three together what ever you would conquer would be yours. If you want to now, then one swing of the sword can bring the world crashing down to your will. That is what these three do together, the combined might of these conquerors obey whatever your desire - whatever your will is.”
Helen stares back at Helena. She could be Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, Boudica, the glory of Queens written in the way she stands. Yet her face is blank, neither triumphant nor glad. She lowers the sword until the point touches the grass.
“No, I can’t do it now.”
“Why not?”
Helen lets the sword drop from her hand. “I don’t want to anymore… I… I don’t want to end it.”
Helena smiles. “What do you want then? The artifacts obey your will and they can give you something else.”
Helen takes off the glove and it falls on top of the sword. She slowly un-buttons the coat and pulls it off. She tosses it aside as well and walks over to Helena.
“I think you know I already have what I want now.”
Helena nods. “Yes, you do.”
Helen watches Helena for a moment, eyes coasting over her face. She tilts her head. “You never wanted to destroy the world, did you?”
Helena shakes her head. “I did once but I changed my mind.”
“When you were helping me, when we were running all through time to find these?”
“No, before that, before you found me.” Helen cocks her head and Helena smiles, folding her hand over Helen’s. “I never was helping you to destroy the world. I was only helping to bring you back to it.”
“That sounds suspiciously like poetry.”
“Only the best for time traveling professors.”
Helena holds out her hand, artifacts forgotten where they lie, and Helen takes it.
(When Artie drives up to the Warehouse the next morning, top down with negligible speed, he might find a box sitting outside the front door. It might be wrapped in bright bronze paper with a big bronze bow on top. He might poke and prod it, scan it over a few times, before he takes it inside. When he opens it he might find a note on top:
‘I was only borrowing them, hope they weren’t too missed.’
-HG
Artie might pull back gold tissue paper to find three artifacts inside. He might freak out and he might also file them away without mentioning the incident to anyone else.
He might also check the bronze section just in case.)
Helen pulls Helena close to her now. Helen’s eyes shine like the crystals she creates. It feels like the future is glowing in her eyes and finally the fire and brimstone has cooled. Helena sees only shining, reflected rainbows of light in them now.
“I’ve never been saved before,” Helen touches Helena’s face, “not like this at least.”
“It wasn’t my first plan but you saved me from jail after all.”
Helen smiles and her hand falls to rest at the small of Helena’s back. “Just repaying the debt?”
Helena leans in two inches to press her lips to Helen’s. “Coming back to life again.”
Helen kisses her back, hand in her hair. Helena hums between them, hands on Helen’s hips and lips pressing hard. She breathes in Helen, the past, the dirt, the earth, the passion of truth and gives back a history, the gold, the brass, the impossible made real.
Then an anomaly opens beside them, wind enveloping them both, time awaiting their travel.
Fandom: Warehouse 13/Primeval
Disclaimer: Warehouse 13 and Primeval are not my property and I intend no copyright infringement with this work, just a bit of fun.
Pairing/Characters: H. G. Wells/Helen Cutter; Arthur Neilson, James McPherson, Connor Temple, Abby Maitland, OCs.
Word Count: 7,092
Rating: PG
Summary: She appears from a crystal ball and saves Helena from jail. Helena discovers that Helen Cutter is just like she was; she wants to destroy the world. And Helena will help her down one path or another, through artifacts and time.
Author notes: written to give more love to the women for halfamoon, damn good fun! Many thanks to bella_farfalla for reminding me of this idea and some lovely betaing. It's all for you dear! (The title is a song lyric by Tom McRea, from "You Only Disapear")
HG Wells sits in the back of a black SUV driving through the latter half of her journey to no doubt some secure prison of the kind where windows are scarce. Her plan, her only plan, her century long plot to destroy the world had failed. As a matter of pure fact the plan fizzled out rather than failed all because of a pair of brown eyes and sure honest hands.
‘It’s always the women,’ she thinks.
So, the Earth survives another revolution and another step in its rotation around the sun. The trident, once so certain in her hands, must have a new place to hang on the wall in the dark vault. Artie is probably kicking up his heels and making star shaped cookies to celebrate. A small part of Helena hopes that Myka at least is mourning her loss.
Helena closes her eyes and imagines Myka sitting cross legged on her bed. Myka holds a glass of wine in one hand and her other hand holds Helena’s locket, the one she left behind. It was Helena’s most prized possession but where she is going nothing comes with. Who better to leave all that remains of her baby to than the woman who stole her heart and saved the world? Maybe Myka clutches the item to her chest, tears in her eyes. Maybe Myka whispers Helena’s name.
Suddenly the car stops.
“We’re here.” One of the black suits in the front seat turns to look at her. “Do not move until told.”
Helena only musters the will to raise an eyebrow. Smiles are beyond her just now. She’s not one normally prone to melancholy excepting in deep memories of happy days with a child in her arms. However, when the plan one was so sure of for 100 years comes crashing down and the new happiness one thought they’d found is consequentially ripped away as well, then… well she’s allowed to brood if she chooses.
“Get out.”
One man holds the car door open while another barks at her. Helena finds herself glaring in his direction but she exits the car. She accepts her new status as prisoner now. Really she has no right to complain. She did try to bring on a new ice age and essentially end the world.
“Well, boys, is this my new home?”
Helena looks up at the square cement building in front of her. She notices around them the world looks pale, shimmery. There must be a perception filter around the building.
“Ah.” Helena nods her head slowly. “Using artifacts to guard your jail? The Atlantis shield, is it? They never would tell me why we had that artifact on file as ‘in the Warehouse’ when it wasn’t in the Warehouse.”
“Come on.” One man with nondescript sunglasses points forward, two new men sliding in behind her like a human paddy wagon.
Somehow the absurdity cracks through her mood and makes her smile. “Aw, four of you to take the dangerous time traveling writer inventor into the shielded Warehouse jail? I’m touched.”
Suddenly, something pops and a large crystal-like ball of energy appears in the air in front of them. All five of them jump back in surprise. The men raise their guns and Helena steps carefully to the side putting two of the suits between her and any potential danger. A woman runs out of the crystal. The men take clear involuntary steps back. The woman shakes her head then takes in the five people staring at her.
“Don’t move!” One man says in TV police fashion.
The woman ignores him and turns around, holding up a square glass device to the crystal behind her. She clicks the surface of the glass and the crystal energy ball changes shape, going… Helena would call it quiet. The woman turns back around, pushing short reddish brown hair from her eyes. She looks at Helena.
“HG Wells, I presume?”
Helena stands up straight and steps to the side out from behind her human shields. She cocks her head. “I was already interested by your crystal ball but now you know my name I am far more intrigued.”
The woman smiles. “As you should be; I am Helen Cutter.”
“Wait just a minute!” One man snaps, stepping forward. “We don’t know what artifact this is but - “
“Oh, shut up.”
Helen pulls a small round device from her pocket and clicks it at the men surrounding Helena. They all suddenly stiffen and freeze. Helena turns her head slowly then walks forward. None of the men follow her or move in response, truly stuck in place. She turns back to the strange woman in front of her. She shifts her arms and turns out her hands as much as the handcuffs will allow.
“Anything you can do about these?”
Helen smiles, walks around Helena, and in less than thirty seconds has the handcuffs lock-picked and off of Helena’s hands.
Helena flicks out her wrists and smiles, “much better, thank you.”
“Well, then,” Helen holds out her hand to the crystal orb behind her, “shall we go?”
------------
Helen Cutter, Helena discovers, is a time traveler of sorts as well.
“I need your help,” Helen says as the two of them stand on the sun-bleached peak of some 100 million yeas ago.
Apparently traveling back through time to the Cretaceous period is right up this professor’s alley. Also, it seems to be the best place to not be overheard when making dramatic soap opera declarations.
“I need your help to destroy the world.”
Helen Cutter, Helena discovers, is just like she was.
A pterosaur flies by, large wigs flapping lazily as it mostly coasts along on the high winds. Helena tracks its progress behind them with her eyes until it brings her gaze back around to the taller woman before her. There isn’t much difference in the view.
Helena crosses her arms and tilts her head. “With toys such as those?” She points to the glass box in her companion’s hand. “But I suppose a Warehouse full of similar artifacts is what you are thinking of?”
Helen smiles with long canine teeth. “You know, this Helen and Helena could get confusing. Shall I just call you HG?”
--------------
Paris: 1919, the shells of the first big war still remain evident in the people’s eyes; loss, disappointment, triumph not as good as having the one you love alive. Apparently Helen never thought in her prior life tramping through the crystals called anomalies to come to some place more recent than the Paleogene period. To Helena, however, this is almost coming home again.
“Warehouse 12?”
“My start.” Helena smiles and scoots the coffee in front of Helen closer to her. “But it’s moved by this time to America.”
Helena imagines that Helen does not spend much of her time eating civilized food or drinking anything other than river water.
“I know you planned on using a trident of some sort, from the Egyptian Warehouse.”
Helena raises an eyebrow, mug of coffee carefully placed to mask any frown or upturn of her lips. “How can you know that?”
Helen puckers her lips slightly and the action comes off more sinister than cute, probably a more common expression on Dr. Cutter’s face.
“Everything sets off ripples, there are always shock waves and even across the ocean the ARC could feel your actions.”
Helena puts down her mug, visions of a large boat with dinosaurs inside passing through her head. She doesn’t ask.
“What the ARC sees, I see, and your three pronged stab wounds in the soil were fairly solid evidence.”
Helena smiles. “Are you playing Sherlock Holmes with me?”
Helen grins and this time it smacks of beauty. “I get my kicks in various ways. I was a professor, research was my trade. Plus, I half guessed, so lucky me.”
“All the more Holmesian for you.”
Helen sits up straight, coffee still untouched. “So, can you help me? Is there another artifact I can use?”
“Why should I help you?”
“It’s just what you wanted to do,” Helen insists, “restart the world, give it a second chance to do it right without the over populated, polluted, hateful mess that humanity has made it.”
Helena looks away out over the Paris street, long skirts still sweeping the cobblestones and men always wearing their hats. Then Helen grips her forearm and Helena turns back.
“I also saved you from jail.”
Helena has to give her point and match for that.
------------
Helena’s former Warehouse coworkers Benedict and Lawrence stand frozen in place, Helen’s little disk of the future at work again. Apparently in the land beyond where she claimed it from the police used it for subduing suspects. Rather a reversal from its current use.
“I am quite sorry,” Helena says to their still forms, “we won’t be a moment.”
Helen sits in the wooden chair in front of the Warehouse 12 monitor. She scrolls through lists, fingers moving unsurely on the old yet modern computer in front of her. For 1900 it hails as a marvel of technology but for Helen it does not have the 3-D she prefers from her future.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Helen glares at Helena, “HG, you could do the looking.”
“You are the one with the mission. I am merely your vehicle inside, repaying a debt.”
Helen stops her frantic fingers and turns in her chair. “You must have some idea.”
“What was yours?” Helena asks.
Helen sighs and rests an elbow on the arm of the chair and her chin in her palm. “To go back in time, of course.”
Helena smiles. “Always millions of years back and hundreds of years forward. Not interested in Ancient Greece or Queen Elizabeth?” Helena shakes her hips. “Swinging 60s?”
Helen laughs and sits up straight. She’s beautiful when she laughs, when the lines on her face change shape from hard edged sandstone to cool flowing satin.
“I always worked with dinosaurs; I taught Paleontology like my husband at university. It was always like going home to travel way back there. I never took much interest in human history.”
“And yet you want to change just that?”
Helen’s face shrinks up again and Helena knows she made a misstep; one forward and two back.
“I thought I knew the right idea, to stop everything at the source.” Helen turns back around to the computer. “But I knew Connor could see, his mind always ticked like Nick’s, and I couldn’t risk failure.” She glances over her shoulder. “Then there came you.”
Helena takes Helen’s hand and pulls her from the chair. “I have an idea.”
---------------
Gun shots fly by them as they run, each one feeling closer to hitting the mark. They slide over Russian streets doing all they can not to fall over patches of ice or their large, bustling skirts.
“Why did we have to steal this item like this?” Helen shouts. “I try to avoid interactions with people in most cases!”
“Oh, your dinosaurs are so much better.” Helena ducks a flying chunk of stone as a bullet hits the wall beside them. “Trust me, theft in transit to the Warehouse is far preferable to breaking in.” Helena flashes Helen a grin. “You’re lucky the Warehouse has always been so organized about archival dates.”
Another gun shot breezes by, slashing through Helen’s skirt making the woman skip and shoot back once. Helena jumps up onto a stone statue and also fires back with her energy gun, green charge hitting one Warehouse agent in the chest so he flies back. The other two agents chasing them don’t even pause.
“Come on, HG,” Helen pulls Helena down off the stone into her arms then rights Helena onto her feet again, “we don’t have time!”
The men behind them shout obscenities and Helena laughs as she hears, ‘Napoleon Bastards’ in heavy Russian behind them.
“We have all the time in the world, time traveler!” Helena cries.
Helen smiles as her hat falls from her head and wind whips through her hair. She shakes her head and hooks her arm through Helena’s to pull them down a side street.
“I hope this artifact is worth it,” Helen shouts.
“You would be surprised at the wealth of destructive objects which began in Warehouse 11. Russia possessed unparalleled lure for artifacts of ill intent. I blame the cold and Russian temperament.”
Helen huffs then gasps suddenly as she slips on the ice. Helen grabs Helena’s arm and they both go down hard. Helena flips over, blood on her chin, and rises to her knees, their pursuers close behind them.
“Give me the glove.”
Helen sits up slowly, shaking her head, dazed.
“The glove!” Helena shouts.
Helen yanks it from her pocket and holds it out. Helena pulls the glove over her hand then holds her hand palm out toward the two agents. They stop dead in their tracks. One keeps his rifle up but she can see it shaking. They stand in stalemate for a moment, staring at each other. Then one man opens his mouth to speak and Helena makes a fist. The two men crash together like magnets. Helena raises her fist higher and the men jerk up into the air.
“Are you…” Helen starts then stares as Helena flicks her hand up.
The men rise higher then Helena opens her hand. The men shout and crash back down to earth with twin crunches, out cold.
Helena stands, removes the glove then holds out her bare hand for Helen. Helen takes her hand and gets to her feet. She glances down at the glove in Helena’s hand and then to the men lying on the street.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
Helena smiles. “Funny little artifact this one, the riding glove of Catherine the Great.” Helena folds the glove in half then slips it into her dress pocket. “Once worn it will allow you to move whatever you are looking at just like the Queen pulled countries under her rule.”
“How historical.”
Helena raises an eyebrow. “I will point out, you are traveling with living history.”
“I never read ‘The Time Machine.’”
Helena purses her lips.
Helen smiles and pulls out her anomaly device. “Time to go.”
------------
Time travel through anomalies is not, as one might expect, a simple one step processes.
Helen clicks symbols on the surface of her glass device. “It’s a path, HG. I can’t control where the anomalies lead but I can find the right path to where we need to go.”
“Taking the train and not a lift?”
Helen frowns. “I don’t think that metaphor works exactly.”
Helena shrugs. “No matter.” She pulls a flower from a street vendor’s stand. “Italy is beautiful this time of year,” she looks up at the bright sun, “apparently.”
Around them the Renaissance flows high and bright with gold thread and harpsichord music and rotten fruit and the heat of an Italian summer. Helen and Helena somehow do not stand out in their trousers among the skirted ladies what with Venice pulling all citizens of the Renaissance world to its carved shores. Helena can think of a dozen artifacts off the top of her head which are probably here right now, one even deep below her feet buried in the sediment of the Venetian canals.
“We should get off the street to open the next anomaly,” Helen says.
Helena touches Helen’s hand on the device, stopping her dexterous thumbs. Helen glances up and Helena holds out the flower.
“Just think for a moment where you are, dear Helen.” Helena takes Helen’s other hand and folds the flower between her fingers. “Look at it!”
Helen’s face colors for a brief moment then she pulls her hand away from Helena.
“Another point in human history.” Helen twists the stem of the flower between her fingers. “And we cannot stay.”
Helen turns away down an alley. Helena touches two fingers to her lips and smiles.
----------
Helen yanks Helena behind a tree as the anomaly closes. Helena can’t stop her breathing as it seems to be racing toward the finish line. Helen holds a knife in her hand and peers carefully around the curve of the tree.
“What is it?” Helena whispers.
“Raptor,” Helen replies, the sort of calm in her voice which Helena finds completely irrational.
“A raptor?”
“It will want to tear us apart with its claws so I would be quiet.”
“You said raptor!”
“Shh!”
Helena whimpers involuntarily and her nails dig into the bark of the tree. Helen places a steadying hand on Helena’s shoulder and slowly moves back to lean against the tree beside her. A low growl emanates from much closer than Helena would prefer.
“Are you sure this was a necessary stop on our path?” Helena hisses.
Helen smiles and the predator slides into place on her face. “Don’t worry, I eat raptors for breakfast.”
Helena gulps.
-------------
Helen and Helena run along side Arthur Neilson and James McPherson, the four of them pursued by a man wearing a dated yet fashionable blue coat in a French military style. Well, to be frank, they are not so much running from him as from the army of ghosts with him.
“You never said anything about ghosts!” Helen snaps at Helena. “Artifacts and ghosts?”
“They’re not ghosts!” Artie grabs James by the collar as the other man trips and nearly falls. “There are no such things as ghosts. They are just projections using the - “
“Shut up!” James and Helena shout together.
“And you still haven’t explained how you know about the Warehouse and -”
“Oh, Artie,” Helena smiles and slaps Artie’s shoulder as they run, “I really did like you, remember that.”
Artie shoots her a confused look. “What?”
Helen chances a look back, grotesque figures with rotting flesh, ripped clothes, and sunken eyes scream back at her, one man in the middle with a smile insane as the visions surrounding him. Helena grabs her arm and they pick up the speed.
“We should split up.” James points to the divide in the road ahead of them. “It’ll force him to choose and the ghosts have to stay with him.”
“We just need to get the coat off him,” Helena says. “He’ll follow the one pair then the other can double back around to get the coat. Once he is no longer wearing it the ghosts will disappear.”
Artie growls. “How do you know that? Who are you?”
Helena stops abruptly as they reach the intersection. She grasps James’ arm and pushes Helen toward Artie.
“You take right and we’ll have the left; who ever wins the ghosts, keep running and the other better plan quickly!”
James and Artie open their mouths to protest but then a ghost catches up and slashes Helen’s arm. She screams in pain and kicks the figure in the stomach. He flies back, solid and real before he conversely disappears into smoke. Blood starts to soak through Helen’s shirt and the pairs bolt in opposite directions. As the man following them catches up he swings right and takes after Helen and Artie. The flood of ghoulish ghosts course right with him. James and Helena stop in their tracks.
“Do you have the Tesla?” Helena asks. “If we stun him it’ll give us a chance to get the coat.” She makes a ‘tch’ noise. “We might take a bit of a beating just getting through to him but I can’t think of anything else.”
James pulls the Tesla from his coat and looks down at her. “Who are you really?”
She only smiles and runs back the way they came. They catch up to the horde in less than a minute. Up ahead they see a ragged ghost jump forward and pull Artie to the ground. Helen whirls around and tries to pull the creature off when another yanks her back by her hair.
“Now!” Helena shouts.
James shoots and the man in the blue coat turns at her shout just in time to take the stun blast in the chest. He falls and the ghosts ripple as if they felt it too. James runs forward, pushing the gray ghosts aside, making a path. Helena runs through and crouches down beside the still man. She slips out the buttons, pulls one arm from the sleeve of the coat then rolls him. She grabs his other arm but a ghost abruptly pulls her back.
“James!” she shouts urgently.
Someone leaps over the man’s still form and tackles the ghost to the ground. Helena sees the flash of reddish hair and feels a hand across her cheek. Helena pulls the man’s other arm from the coat and it’s free. Suddenly the ghosts shimmer like water and vanish. A hand touches Helena’s shoulder and she turns to see Helen’s face, a smile like starlight.
“Arthur!” James shouts and runs past the woman to where Artie lies on the ground.
“I told you they weren’t ghosts,” Artie groans as James helps him sit up.
“The name is hardly relevant, Arthur, especially when they seem able to kill you.”
Artie grimaces. “I’m not dead.”
Helena stands and folds the coat into a square. Beside her Helen pulls her anomaly device out and clicks the surface twice.
“Ah, path ready and waiting for us.” She turns to Helena. “Two out of three now.”
Helena smiles. “Did you doubt me?”
“Certainly not now.”
“Oh, well.” Helena slips the coat into her knapsack and snaps it shut. “I am glad your confidence is improving.”
“Don’t move.”
The women turn at the sound of James’ voice. He holds the Tesla out pointed at the two of them.
“I had suspected you didn’t just turn up accidentally and then you knew so much.” He steps forward. “I’m afraid you cannot have Napoleon’s coat, though.”
“It belongs in the Warehouse?” Helena says. “Never to be used, locked away?”
She sees James flinch but his voice remains confident. “It is a danger and must be guarded.”
Helena walks forward slowly. “Oh, but that’s not just what you think, is it James? After all, these artifacts were made in the world so it must have been for a reason.”
“James…” Artie groans quietly from behind, still on the ground. “What is she…”
“James McPherson.” He stares at her as Helena touches his arm, the Tesla almost against her chest now. “I know you think something is not quite right with the Warehouse, how it’s run, that there must be something better. Well, here it is.”
“Give me the coat.” James’ voice is calm but his eyes are wild.
Helena had always wondered that first time when she awoke in the machine to see James at the controls; how had he known to wake her up?
“You may find me in the bronze section.”
James’ eyes widen and his grip on the gun loosens.
“Helena!” Helen calls and she turns. “Time to leave.”
In a flash Helena is back by Helen’s side. In front of her James’ arm still holds the gun up but it’s gone limp in his fingers, face a mess of confusion. Helena squeezes her hands together and feels some regret. Then an anomaly bursts to life behind them, wind blowing up Helena’s hair and she grins.
“I’ll see you soon, James!” She waves her hand.
Helen’s fingers wrap around her wrist and Helen pulls her back through the crystal shards.
----------
Helena slept through the 1940s. She never saw WWII, never met a Nazi, never hid in bomb shelters during the air raids. Yet it seems fate and time travel have given her the chance to taste the air of the ‘Greatest Generation.’
“I didn’t think the path would take us here.” Helen grumbles as Helena buttons the top of Helen’s dress. “The device may be malfunctioning. I should…”
“You should be quiet.” Helena turns Helen around to face her.
The woman wears a long black dress, a slight poof at the waist, and no sleeves. She looks a vision. Helena walks steadily across the empty ballroom to the stage. She pulls a record from the box and places it on the turn table.
“HG, we don’t have time for this,” Helen insists. “We still have one more artifact to find.”
Helena smiles. “I believe you said you can’t open another anomaly for forty minutes?”
Helen sighs and crosses her arms over the black fabric on her chest. Helena drops the needle on the record and slow band music begins to play. Helena pulls her hair back quickly and ties it into a bun. She pulls the edges of her long blue gloves up her arms then walks back over to Helen. The other woman watches her approach with wary eyes like Helena is one of Helen’s favored prehistoric carnivores. Helena holds out her hand to Helen.
“What?” Helen asks.
“Well, you’re all dressed up and there is nowhere else to go.”
An air raid siren wails overhead and a tremor shakes the building. Helen’s eyes circle up but she does not budge from her spot. Helena steps closer and pulls one of Helen’s hands out of her statuesque placement.
“Come on, Helen.”
“Dance?” Helen gives her a skeptical look. “Now?”
Helena smiles. “There is always time to dance.”
Suddenly, Helen folds, tension slipping out of her body, and she puts her arm on Helena’s waist. She presses close then rests her cheek against Helena’s. It’s as much a surprise as sliding out of the anomaly into the ballroom in the first place.
Helen whispers against Helena’s skin. “Lead on then, Helena.”
This time it is Helena’s cheeks which swell with heat as she turns them to the slow, jazzy tune around the empty ballroom.
-----------
“It’s a cup.”
Helena shakes her head. “The date must have been wrong.”
Helen turns the porcelain cup around in her hand. She sets it down on the ground in front of them and watches to see if anything happens. It does not move.
Helena pulls a small data pad out of the top of her Sari and clicks buttons on the surface.
“To be fair the box did look deceptively small to be holding a sword,” Helen says.
Helena huffs and scrolls down through the paragraphs about Alexander and Warehouse 10. Helen stands up and peers over Helena’s shoulder. She reaches out and points on the surface.
“It says 1701 and we are in 1712. It is already in the Warehouse now.”
Helena groans and glares over at the Taj Mahal as if it is to blame. Helen crouches down low to the ground and picks up the cup. The Warehouse employee charged with the moving of the artifact makes a small noise where he lies beside Helen’s feet. She glances down but he does not open his eyes.
“We aren’t equipped to break into Warehouse 10.” Helena flips the end of her orange Sari back over her shoulder. “We’ll have to try another time.”
Helen smiles. “I can manage that.”
Suddenly the cup in her hand fills up with red liquid. Helen and Helena balk and look at the cup suspiciously. Helen sniffs the edge then takes a sip. Helena makes a face and raises her eyebrows.
Helen smiles. “Wine!”
Helena frowns. “That is not the holy grail.”
“Do you have that?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s quite good actually.” She holds out the cup to Helena. “At least we found something in India; A cup to fill with what you want to drink.”
Helena takes the cup and sips some of the wine. “You’ll make a good Warehouse employee yet.”
“I’m a better thief.”
She clicks her box of glass and an anomaly opens sending a group of eavesdropping children running.
------------
They’re falling, the anomaly opened where they did not expect despite the read out and now they’re falling. Helena hits the ground and Helen hits the ledge beside her, tumbling off the bridge into more air.
“Helen!” Helena shouts.
She jumps up, pulls on the glove, and reaches out blindly over the side. Focusing her eyes, Helena sees Helen suspended a mere foot above the ground below. Helen waves back and Helena unclenches her hand. Helen drops unsteadily onto her feet. Brushing herself off, Helen shields her eyes from the sun and looks back up at Helena.
“Are you all right?” Helena asks.
Helen nods and points up. Helena turns to see the anomaly suspended in air a few feet above her. It’s a strange sight, like some alien creature watching her.
“Do they often do that?” Helena calls over the edge.
“Anomalies have minds of their own at times,” Helen shouts.
Suddenly a large flying dinosaur soars out of the anomaly above them. Helena ducks even though it is far above her and watches as it flies off into the buildings. She hears Helen laugh far below.
“Whoops!”
“Now the anomaly in the air makes sense,” Helena comments.
“Helen!”
Helen turns and there is a young man and woman down on the street level holding guns pointed at her. Helena ducks down behind the edge of the bridge. She hears no shouts of ‘put your hands up’ in her direction so she stays put. It is silent for a moment then Helen speaks.
“Well now, I never knew you to be so quick to get to an anomaly site.”
“Lucky for us,” the man says, “not so lucky for you.”
“Connor,” the woman hisses, “easy.”
“I’m not here for you so I would suggest you just walk away.” Helena can hear the menace projected in Helen’s tone and only because they’ve traveled so far together now can she also hear the tendril of fear. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with us!” Connor snaps.
“Just walk away, Connor.”
“No way; you killed Cutter!”
In the distance the dinosaur calls with a distinctive screech.
“Me or the pterodactyl,” Helen says, “take your pick.”
Helena hears the loud snap of a gun ready to fire.
“Connor!” the woman shouts. “Stop.”
“Abby,” he hisses, “we can’t let her get away, not again.”
Helena searches quickly through her bag; energy gun - no, too far; Catherine’s glove - no, too dangerous with two guns and one Helen; laser cutter, useless. Then -
“Ah ha!”
Helena pulls the retraction rope from her bag, hooks it to her belt and slams the metal spoke of the other end against the cement of the bridge. She clicks a buttons on the handle and it sinks deep into the solid foundation. Another invention of her own creation. Helena jumps up on the edge then leaps over into air. She sees Abby and Connor stare in surprise as she falls. She hits the ground beside Helen, scoops the woman into her arms and they spring back up into the air.
“Hey!” Abby shouts.
A shot fires below but Helena and Helen are already back on the bridge. Helen smiles and kisses Helena’s cheek.
“My hero.”
“Can’t leave a damsel in distress.”
Helena picks up her bag as she hears the two people below running to try to get to them. They won’t be fast enough. Helena unties the rope as Helen quickly clicks buttons on her device, the anomaly above them closes.
“I’ve got it,” she cries and presses a button.
A new anomaly opens to their left and they race through.
---------------
It’s strange but Helena hadn’t realized she missed Warehouse 12 until now she stands right in front of it again. To everyone else walking London’s streets it looks just like a dank, disused court house, not the kind of place one would ever choose to go inside, even a judge. The front doors have beams of wood nailed across and all the windows are shuttered solid. Helena knows that on the inside each window is doubly sealed by brick and the Warehouse security system. The doors are triggered to explode and simultaneously cement solid should any unauthorized person attempt to break in.
“This is your Warehouse?” Helen looks skeptical as she leans against the adjacent building.
“Warehouses cannot look like welcoming places.” Helena pulls a Farnsworth from her pocket and glances at Helen. “It would not do to have civilians poking around; would make for quite a mess in most cases.”
“Of course.”
Helena turns the Farnsworth over. It was a spare, broken Farnsworth discarded by Claudia. She’d said something like ‘I’ll get to it after I soup up the vacuum’ and in it went to Helena’s pocket. She was sure it’d be useful at some point. She’s always been good with forethought.
“I take it we’re not actually going to break in,” Helen asks. “Are we?”
“No, hopefully not.” Helena pulls a wire around and connects it to a hole in the side. She presses two buttons and Farnsworth springs to life. “We are going to make them come out to us.”
Helena walks along the edge of the building, Helen following behind her. They turn down the side street between the buildings until they reach the fire escape. Helena pulls down the ladder and they climb. The building has four floors and they climb by each one until they reach the roof. Helena walks to the middle of the roof, holding the Farnsworth up.
“I don’t know how you managed in these skirts all the time,” Helen grumbles from behind.
Helena glances back at Helen, the other woman fussing with her blue, ruffled skirt. She stomps one heeled boot and pulls at the edges of her corset under her white blouse. She sees Helena grinning at her and sighs heavily.
“As though it was really necessary to dress the part.”
Helena shrugs. “Perhaps not but maybe I like to dress you up.”
Helen’s eyes widen and Helena turns away with a giggle, twisting a dial on the Farnsworth. The Farnsworth was not invented during Helena’s tenure at Warehouse 12; however, there were radio waves. Though radio was not the commercial and entertainment commodity in this era that it was in later years, Heinrich Hertz did some private contracting for the Warehouse.
“I just need to hack in…” Helena mutters, rerouting a wire on the Farnsworth.
Suddenly the device makes a shrill crackling noise. Helena and Helen both flinch and Helena adjusts a knob. The noise settles to a hum and its all set. Helena clicks the red button. Though she can’t hear it she knows that down below the Warehouse radio bell rings through out the structure.
“Oh, please let Philip answer.”
“And who is Philip?” Helen stands close to Helena now, arm to arm.
Helena breathes in slowly and lowers the hand holding the Farnsworth down from the sky.
“He is only a few weeks on the job as of now.” She turns to Helen with a smirk. “And he always does what I say. Fortunately, right now, the me of this period is…” A feeling stabs at Helena’s heart for a moment, an iron bar in her lungs. “The me of this period is home with my daughter.”
“Hello?”
Helena and Helen both perk up.
“Philip!” Helena snaps, sudden urgency in her voice. “I don’t have time; I need you do exactly as I say.”
“Ms. Wells?”
“Now, Philip!”
“Yes, ma’am!” He snaps, the urgency passing into him.
Helena hears Helen beside her suppress a chuckle.
“I am on the roof, Philip, and I need the sword of Alexander the Great right now!”
“What?” Philip’s voice squeaks. “I can’t do that, ma’am! That artifact…. I can’t take it out of…”
“Philip, please.” Helena let’s her voice crack and her makes a noise as if in pain. “There is another artifact and only… oh, wait…. No! No!”
She slams the Farnsworth closed with a shout and cuts off the connection. Helen raises her eyebrows at Helena.
Helena smiles. “How was my performance?”
“I expect to see him scurrying up here soon.” Helen walks away and ducks behind an air vent. “Hope your gamble works.”
Helena flips her hair and stands tall. “It will.”
Less than five minutes later, Philip appears through a door in the floor of the roof, sword in hand. He sees Helena lying on her side, face turned away. Philip runs across the roof and skids down to his knees beside her, dropping the sword next to them. He rolls Helena over and shakes her.
“Ms. Wells, oh, Ms. Wells! Wake up!”
Helena’s eyes snap open and she sits up swiftly, grabbing the sword in her hand. She pushes Philip back, jumps up and holds the sword out between them. Helen appears from her hiding place and stands beside Helena, Helena’s energy gun in her hand. Philip gapes in horror.
“I am very sorry to put you in this position, Philip.”
“What are you doing?” He holds up his hands. “What is going on?”
“We need the sword,” Helen says brightly.
Philip’s eyes bug out. “No, what, no! That sword is… is she making you do this?” He points violently at Helen. “Please, Ms. Wells, you know how dangerous the sword is. You can’t let it leave the Warehouse!”
Helen smiles. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Philip.”
“I just hope you don’t remember anything,” Helena slowly pulls the sword from the sheath, “because it will be rather awkward for me later if you do.”
Helen purses her lips playfully. “Hoping for a good head wound?”
Philip swallows visibly. Then Helena raises the sword in the air and slices down with a clean cut. A sound like metal hitting metal clangs all around, ringing in their ears, and a shock wave bursts forth from the sword’s point. Philip launches up into the air with the force and lands just inches from the edge of the roof. Helen gasps in surprise and appreciation. She touches the handle of the sword just below Helena’s own hand grasping it.
“That is amazing.”
“The harder you swing, the harder the shock wave. The power of Alexander the Great,” Helen slides the sword back into its sheath, “the founder of the Warehouse and a conqueror of the world.”
Helen breathes in slowly and Helena can see a weight lift from her face, fear and tension erasing with the knowledge of power.
“Now we have all three.” Helen smiles as though she cannot believe the feat’s truth.
Helena nods and touches Helen’s hand, “Journey complete.”
----------------
Helen stands on a hilltop outside of London only grass and trees to be seen. She wears the coat of Napoleon buttoned to her neck. Her hand is gloved by Catherine the great and in it she holds the sword of Alexander. She looks like a statue, a martyr, a conqueror of lands. If she would summon fire from the earth then it would come in blazing orange, red, and blue to burn up the sky.
“This is it, now, Helen.” Helena steps back and holds out her arms. “With these three together what ever you would conquer would be yours. If you want to now, then one swing of the sword can bring the world crashing down to your will. That is what these three do together, the combined might of these conquerors obey whatever your desire - whatever your will is.”
Helen stares back at Helena. She could be Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, Boudica, the glory of Queens written in the way she stands. Yet her face is blank, neither triumphant nor glad. She lowers the sword until the point touches the grass.
“No, I can’t do it now.”
“Why not?”
Helen lets the sword drop from her hand. “I don’t want to anymore… I… I don’t want to end it.”
Helena smiles. “What do you want then? The artifacts obey your will and they can give you something else.”
Helen takes off the glove and it falls on top of the sword. She slowly un-buttons the coat and pulls it off. She tosses it aside as well and walks over to Helena.
“I think you know I already have what I want now.”
Helena nods. “Yes, you do.”
Helen watches Helena for a moment, eyes coasting over her face. She tilts her head. “You never wanted to destroy the world, did you?”
Helena shakes her head. “I did once but I changed my mind.”
“When you were helping me, when we were running all through time to find these?”
“No, before that, before you found me.” Helen cocks her head and Helena smiles, folding her hand over Helen’s. “I never was helping you to destroy the world. I was only helping to bring you back to it.”
“That sounds suspiciously like poetry.”
“Only the best for time traveling professors.”
Helena holds out her hand, artifacts forgotten where they lie, and Helen takes it.
(When Artie drives up to the Warehouse the next morning, top down with negligible speed, he might find a box sitting outside the front door. It might be wrapped in bright bronze paper with a big bronze bow on top. He might poke and prod it, scan it over a few times, before he takes it inside. When he opens it he might find a note on top:
‘I was only borrowing them, hope they weren’t too missed.’
-HG
Artie might pull back gold tissue paper to find three artifacts inside. He might freak out and he might also file them away without mentioning the incident to anyone else.
He might also check the bronze section just in case.)
Helen pulls Helena close to her now. Helen’s eyes shine like the crystals she creates. It feels like the future is glowing in her eyes and finally the fire and brimstone has cooled. Helena sees only shining, reflected rainbows of light in them now.
“I’ve never been saved before,” Helen touches Helena’s face, “not like this at least.”
“It wasn’t my first plan but you saved me from jail after all.”
Helen smiles and her hand falls to rest at the small of Helena’s back. “Just repaying the debt?”
Helena leans in two inches to press her lips to Helen’s. “Coming back to life again.”
Helen kisses her back, hand in her hair. Helena hums between them, hands on Helen’s hips and lips pressing hard. She breathes in Helen, the past, the dirt, the earth, the passion of truth and gives back a history, the gold, the brass, the impossible made real.
Then an anomaly opens beside them, wind enveloping them both, time awaiting their travel.