Fic: Time and Turn (Chapter 3)
Title: Time and Turn
Chapter 3: Thread A: 2
Series: Chrysalis
Part: One
Author: NuMo
Rating: Teen and up audiences
Characters/Pairings: Myka / Helena, Myka Bering, Helena "H. G." Wells, OFC, Claudia Donovan, Pete Lattimer, Steve Jinks, Artie Nielsen, Mrs. Frederic
Tags: Post-s4e10, probabyl jossed come April
Summary: So join me for an episode which has women cupping cheeks, familiar tentative sideways glances, mentions of Berlin and Dresden and Germans zooming around in fast cars - oh yeah, and time travel too, but probably not the way you’d pictured it.
(I’m no good at summaries.)
Cross-posted at AO3. WH13 and its characters don’t belong to me, I’m just playing and I promise I’ll return them when I’m done. I do own my own characters, and, as always, I love me some feedback.
Helena watched the scene in front of her intently; not because it was difficult to tear her eyes away from wreckage and gore (she was English, granting the accident privacy should have been second nature), but because she had the irritating feeling that whatever was happening here involved the use of an artifact, and she still considered herself a Warehouse agent.
Of course, her first and foremost duty was to keep the astrolabe safe. Its weight tugged quite comfortingly at the strap of her carrier bag, the third receptacle that held the blasted thing, signifying as many changes of identity. The passport nestled alongside it identified the bag’s wearer as Monika Sander, a legal citizen of Berlin, Germany, who happened to have been educated in London, England.
Not that she had had to tell that story, so far.
After reaching the Balkan tatters of the Alps, she had briefly wondered where to turn next - the idea of going to France had been discarded just as quickly as the thought of Great Britain; Italy with its rampant corruption had its appeals, but she had been in Italy only recently during her research and truly, her German was better than her Italian, if a bit behind the times. Learning German had been the done thing when she had been educated; and just as with modern English, she had not the hint of a doubt that she would quickly adapt to the linguistic changes a century had wrought.
It had been appallingly easy to disappear off the face of the Earth in Berlin, Germany.
But her eyes and mind did not consent to be closed against the things happening around her, and now she was standing a ways off in the shadows, watching a female figure stoop down and cup the cheek of a very severely injured child while ambulance men swarmed around the site of the accident. Where the child had been groaning, at times yelling, only moments before, there was an almost unearthly silence now that the woman held him.
She looked to be at the beginning of her fourth decade, while the child appeared male and nearing the end of his first. Both had dark hair and fair skin, but any further detail or possible family resemblance was lost in the Berlin dusk.
Helena had arrived too late to have seen the accident itself; it seemed to have involved two cars that had held among them at least six people, and a concrete pillar. Men were working on the twisted remnants of one of the cars with heavy-looking implements, others were methodically appraising the figures prone on the ground, yet more were talking to the unavoidable gawkers.
Helena watched as one man knelt beside the woman cradling the boy and, after a short run-down of diagnoses, straightened again. Watched as he touched the woman’s arm and shook his head before getting up and moving, quickly, to other victims of the accident. Triage, she thought bitterly. A death sentence in other words.
The woman, though, stayed with the boy, stroking his hair with one hand while still cupping his face with the other. In the flurry of competent activity, the two of them were a puddle of dark, sad stillness.
Try as she might, Helena could not tear her eyes away nor move any other muscle as she watched the woman finally bow down, touch her brow to the child’s forehead, straighten his limbs with slow and meticulous motions, and get up and walk away.
It was only when the woman turned to head straight towards where she was standing that her nerve tracts finally resumed their working, propelling her into the woman’s path.
*What did you do with him?* she asked, in accented but accurate German.
*I beg your pardon?* the woman asked in turn. The eyes she turned on her interrogator were grey and flat as paving stones.
*What did you do to the boy you just walked away from?* Helena pressed.
The woman’s face closed even more, a feat that Helena would have thought nigh impossible a moment ago. *What needed to be done.* She brushed abruptly past the agent and started to walk on.
Helena took three quick steps that brought her within range to grab the woman’s arm and yank her around. *Did you kill that child?* It was more a hiss and spit than a sentence. But then, the very idea-
The woman jerked her arm free with an almost violent movement. *How dare you!* Eyes that had been cool now seemed to burn with the very pain Helena felt constricting the back of her throat. *How can you possibly-* Then she drew herself up, suddenly sporting a front of composure again that, for all that Helena knew could be nothing but a sham, threatened Helena’s own poise more than the flashing anger had. *I do not kill. I just do what needs to be done, to let them go peacefully.*
*What?* Again, Helena’s utterance was barely more than a hissed breath. *And what kind of euphemism is that, pray?*
The woman laughed, once, a sound utterly devoid of humor. *Fine. Have it your way.* She made as if to turn again, and when Helena moved closer to prevent her from doing so, she found her face grabbed by two strong, too-warm hands and had barely time to deplore falling for what must surely be the oldest trick in any book before-
Loss, above all. Loss and pain and self-reproach, all dark and deep and aching and too much. Helena knew it, of course, knew the huge, bitter, churning broil of what remained of her soul, but she had never before experienced it like… this. And there, at the edges of it, she felt… a presence, stretched thin in its strive to take it all and cradle it in soothing comfort, trying to calm this utter turmoil. She saw herself through its eyes - a roaring sea of anguish and on it, riding in a ship made of nothing more than determination and disbelief, a stuttering spark of hope. Waves, she saw, mountainous swells of blackness, breakers of cold despair that a single touch of a stranger’s soul never could hope to appease, no matter how desperate the waters wanted to not break, to finally, finally be soothed.
They both reeled as they broke apart.
Helena caught her arms wrapping around her midriff in a feeble attempt to contain… anything and everything. At the sound of the other woman clearing her throat, though, Helena straightened instantly, eyes flaring. *What the devil…* Her voice was raw. Small wonder.
*You wanted to know what I did. This is what I do.* The other woman huffed a bitter laugh. *Only it… your pain is…* She broke off, apparently trying to put words to what they had both felt. *I’m sorry,* she finished, shoulders dropping lamely. *I should… I’ll just… I’ll go now.*
She turned and walked not quite quickly enough for it to be a run, never looking back and thus not seeing Helena staring after her with tortured eyes.
Chapter 3: Thread A: 2
Series: Chrysalis
Part: One
Author: NuMo
Rating: Teen and up audiences
Characters/Pairings: Myka / Helena, Myka Bering, Helena "H. G." Wells, OFC, Claudia Donovan, Pete Lattimer, Steve Jinks, Artie Nielsen, Mrs. Frederic
Tags: Post-s4e10, probabyl jossed come April
Summary: So join me for an episode which has women cupping cheeks, familiar tentative sideways glances, mentions of Berlin and Dresden and Germans zooming around in fast cars - oh yeah, and time travel too, but probably not the way you’d pictured it.
(I’m no good at summaries.)
Cross-posted at AO3. WH13 and its characters don’t belong to me, I’m just playing and I promise I’ll return them when I’m done. I do own my own characters, and, as always, I love me some feedback.
Helena watched the scene in front of her intently; not because it was difficult to tear her eyes away from wreckage and gore (she was English, granting the accident privacy should have been second nature), but because she had the irritating feeling that whatever was happening here involved the use of an artifact, and she still considered herself a Warehouse agent.
Of course, her first and foremost duty was to keep the astrolabe safe. Its weight tugged quite comfortingly at the strap of her carrier bag, the third receptacle that held the blasted thing, signifying as many changes of identity. The passport nestled alongside it identified the bag’s wearer as Monika Sander, a legal citizen of Berlin, Germany, who happened to have been educated in London, England.
Not that she had had to tell that story, so far.
After reaching the Balkan tatters of the Alps, she had briefly wondered where to turn next - the idea of going to France had been discarded just as quickly as the thought of Great Britain; Italy with its rampant corruption had its appeals, but she had been in Italy only recently during her research and truly, her German was better than her Italian, if a bit behind the times. Learning German had been the done thing when she had been educated; and just as with modern English, she had not the hint of a doubt that she would quickly adapt to the linguistic changes a century had wrought.
It had been appallingly easy to disappear off the face of the Earth in Berlin, Germany.
But her eyes and mind did not consent to be closed against the things happening around her, and now she was standing a ways off in the shadows, watching a female figure stoop down and cup the cheek of a very severely injured child while ambulance men swarmed around the site of the accident. Where the child had been groaning, at times yelling, only moments before, there was an almost unearthly silence now that the woman held him.
She looked to be at the beginning of her fourth decade, while the child appeared male and nearing the end of his first. Both had dark hair and fair skin, but any further detail or possible family resemblance was lost in the Berlin dusk.
Helena had arrived too late to have seen the accident itself; it seemed to have involved two cars that had held among them at least six people, and a concrete pillar. Men were working on the twisted remnants of one of the cars with heavy-looking implements, others were methodically appraising the figures prone on the ground, yet more were talking to the unavoidable gawkers.
Helena watched as one man knelt beside the woman cradling the boy and, after a short run-down of diagnoses, straightened again. Watched as he touched the woman’s arm and shook his head before getting up and moving, quickly, to other victims of the accident. Triage, she thought bitterly. A death sentence in other words.
The woman, though, stayed with the boy, stroking his hair with one hand while still cupping his face with the other. In the flurry of competent activity, the two of them were a puddle of dark, sad stillness.
Try as she might, Helena could not tear her eyes away nor move any other muscle as she watched the woman finally bow down, touch her brow to the child’s forehead, straighten his limbs with slow and meticulous motions, and get up and walk away.
It was only when the woman turned to head straight towards where she was standing that her nerve tracts finally resumed their working, propelling her into the woman’s path.
*What did you do with him?* she asked, in accented but accurate German.
*I beg your pardon?* the woman asked in turn. The eyes she turned on her interrogator were grey and flat as paving stones.
*What did you do to the boy you just walked away from?* Helena pressed.
The woman’s face closed even more, a feat that Helena would have thought nigh impossible a moment ago. *What needed to be done.* She brushed abruptly past the agent and started to walk on.
Helena took three quick steps that brought her within range to grab the woman’s arm and yank her around. *Did you kill that child?* It was more a hiss and spit than a sentence. But then, the very idea-
The woman jerked her arm free with an almost violent movement. *How dare you!* Eyes that had been cool now seemed to burn with the very pain Helena felt constricting the back of her throat. *How can you possibly-* Then she drew herself up, suddenly sporting a front of composure again that, for all that Helena knew could be nothing but a sham, threatened Helena’s own poise more than the flashing anger had. *I do not kill. I just do what needs to be done, to let them go peacefully.*
*What?* Again, Helena’s utterance was barely more than a hissed breath. *And what kind of euphemism is that, pray?*
The woman laughed, once, a sound utterly devoid of humor. *Fine. Have it your way.* She made as if to turn again, and when Helena moved closer to prevent her from doing so, she found her face grabbed by two strong, too-warm hands and had barely time to deplore falling for what must surely be the oldest trick in any book before-
Loss, above all. Loss and pain and self-reproach, all dark and deep and aching and too much. Helena knew it, of course, knew the huge, bitter, churning broil of what remained of her soul, but she had never before experienced it like… this. And there, at the edges of it, she felt… a presence, stretched thin in its strive to take it all and cradle it in soothing comfort, trying to calm this utter turmoil. She saw herself through its eyes - a roaring sea of anguish and on it, riding in a ship made of nothing more than determination and disbelief, a stuttering spark of hope. Waves, she saw, mountainous swells of blackness, breakers of cold despair that a single touch of a stranger’s soul never could hope to appease, no matter how desperate the waters wanted to not break, to finally, finally be soothed.
They both reeled as they broke apart.
Helena caught her arms wrapping around her midriff in a feeble attempt to contain… anything and everything. At the sound of the other woman clearing her throat, though, Helena straightened instantly, eyes flaring. *What the devil…* Her voice was raw. Small wonder.
*You wanted to know what I did. This is what I do.* The other woman huffed a bitter laugh. *Only it… your pain is…* She broke off, apparently trying to put words to what they had both felt. *I’m sorry,* she finished, shoulders dropping lamely. *I should… I’ll just… I’ll go now.*
She turned and walked not quite quickly enough for it to be a run, never looking back and thus not seeing Helena staring after her with tortured eyes.