Fic: Relics 2/4 (Sanctuary)
Mar. 30th, 2011 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityMeta and Notes
Teaser and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
1895
“You’d read it if Helen had written it,” Helena argued.
From the doorway of the sitting room, Caleb flinched. Fortunately, his two years of practice allowed him the dexterity to react to the overflowing emotions in the room without spilling anything off the tea tray. He settled for hoping to get in and out as quickly as possible, and back to the kitchen where it was both quiet and calm.
“Helen would never write such a thing,” James retorted.
“You didn’t have a problem with Mr. Doyle,” Helena said. “But I suppose he rather appealed to your ego, what with immortalizing you in print and all.”
No one had asked him, but had they done so, Caleb would have been forced to admit that the days following one of James’s interviews with Doyle were terribly amusing for him. Dr. Magnus would always hover on the edge of mirth, fighting very hard to suppress all signs of it and maintain polite conversation, while Dr. Watson was very nearly insufferable. It was like walking along the edge of a steep slope, and if one of them pushed the other even slightly, the resulting hysteria would overwhelm his empathic senses. It was something of a rush.
“Holmes will be used to train an entire generation of young minds to think properly,” James said.
“Young male minds, you mean,” Helena sniped, just as Doctor Magnus entered the room.
“Is there another kind?” Watson said, not having seen her.
“Why James, what a thing to say,” Helen said. “I’m quite offended.”
“Helen, you know I – ” James began, but Caleb knew the great thinker was lost.
“You’ve wounded me, James.” Helen feigned great drama. “And the only way to make it up to me is to read the book.”
James glared at her, but conceded the point and took the proffered manuscript from Helena with no degree of gentleness.
“I shall be witheringly honest,” he said darkly.
“I should expect nothing less,” Helena said, quite happy now that she had her victory. “I want it to be nearly perfect when I let Helen read it.”
“Nigel tells me he thought it was quite good,” Helen said, settling into her chair and taking the cup that Caleb handed her. “Though he told me nothing of the story itself.”
“Which is as I bid him,” Helena replied, taking her own cup. “Thank you, Caleb.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Wells,” Caleb said, already preparing for the reply he knew was coming.
“Helena, please,” she said, as she always did. “We’re of the same station after all.”
James muttered something that sounded a great deal like “socialists” under his breath, but was already several pages into the manuscript and it was clear his attempt was more of habit than of any real conviction. He took his tea without even looking up, and then paused.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “Why did Nigel get to read it first?”
“Are you jealous, Dr. Watson?” Helena said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, taking a biscuit off the tray. He returned to reading.
“Will there be anything else, Dr. Magnus?” Caleb asked. Suddenly he was much less eager to quit the room. He knew that his report of how Watson really felt about the book would be almost as useful to Helena as anything Watson might actually tell her.
“Thank you, Caleb, no,” Helen said, but she winked so that he knew he could stay if he liked. “But at some point before it gets too late, would you tell the cook that Dr. Tesla will be joining us for dinner?”
At that, both Helena and James bristled, and Caleb felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped several degrees.
“He promised me a decade at least,” James said. “I suppose it was too much to expect him to keep his word.”
“To be fair, Helen did offer me a job,” Helena said with a reluctant grin. “Just not yours. And Nikola had no way of knowing I was already spoken for, because I hadn’t told him.”
“I trust you’ll all manage to be civil,” Helen said. She didn’t look particularly optimistic. “And anyway, I thought you and Nikola parted on good terms, Helena.”
“Oh we did,” she said. “But I’ve since learned that he had the gall to name the weapon I helped him invent after himself, and quite shut me out of any credit I might have otherwise got for the designs.”
“Whyever would you want your name on a gun?” James said. “It seems a dreadfully American thing to do.”
“That’s probably why he did it,” Helena allowed.
Caleb marveled at how easily the two of them moved back and forth between outright hostility and pleasant agreement. Then again, Doctor Tesla tended to provoke a united front.
“Whatever the case, you know you’ll only make him more insufferable if you complain,” Helen said. “But if it makes you feel any better, you can report to your superiors that he also sold me a prototype, and has been working to improve it so that it will stun something larger than a person.”
Helena’s grin was wicked.
“Is that where that monstrosity in the lab came from?” James said. “I should have known.”
“I think we’ll have to abandon the memory loss function in order to get the kind of power we need to take down a larger abnormal,” Helen said conversationally. “But I don’t think memory loss in abnormals would be necessary anyway.”
“He’d never admit it, but it was a side effect of the device itself,” Helena said. “It was never in the plans.”
“God spare us from the accidental inspirations of Nikola Tesla,” James said fervently, and Caleb found himself in emphatic, though silent, agreement. The vampire was going to invent something someday that would be the death of him. “Now, will you please either be silent or leave me alone so that I might finish my book?”
Neither Helen nor Helena laughed as they quit the sitting room, but as he followed in their wake, it was all too apparent to Caleb how badly they wanted to.
+++
Present Day
If there was one thing that Will Zimmerman knew with complete certainty, and there might, he admitted, only be this one thing, it was that he was completely normal. Smart, yes, and not bad looking, but mind-numbingly normal. He didn’t get feelings, he didn’t get hunches. He noticed clues and put pieces together. He had no special powers at all. Well, not on his own anyway. After India, he was a bit more open to the idea, but he still knew himself, and knew that he was normal.
It was with some alarm, therefore, that he found himself standing inside the door of the Sanctuary knowing, absolutely, that something was wrong. Nothing appeared different. Nothing was dirty or covered in blood. There was nothing pungent enough for him to smell. But something was wrong, all the same, and he was starting to get a little bit uncomfortable.
“Jet lag?” Henry said from behind him. He shifted his backpack.
“Henry, we didn’t leave the time zone,” Will pointed out.
“I know,” Henry said. “I just couldn’t think of another reason why you’d stop dead in the door way when we clearly, clearly both need showers.”
“Do you smell something besides us?” Will asked.
“No,” Henry said after a few experimental sniff. “Should I?”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Something seems off.”
“Definitely jet lag,” Henry said, pushing past him into the foyer.
Will followed him up the stairs towards the residential wing. He was probably wrong, anyway. If there had been a problem, Magnus would have called. Or someone would have met them in the foyer. Or something would be on fire. Instead, all was quiet and nothing seemed untoward. It was probably just left over nerves from the mission.
When he got to his room, he took a few moments to just relax in the blessed quiet. Henry was a great guy and all, but he talked a lot, and Will was grateful to have some time alone with his thoughts for a change. Eventually, though, he concluded that he really did need a shower, so he went into the bathroom.
At last refreshed and feeling like himself again, Will checked the clock and realized it was nearly noon. They’d gotten an early start this morning, and the flight had been short. Even though it had been a rough couple of days, he wasn’t really all that tired and the shower had revitalized him. He decided to head down to Magnus’s office and give his report over lunch.
Once he was back in the hallway, the sense of wrongness came back to him, as strong as it had been in the foyer. Again, he shrugged the feeling off, and continued to walk down the hallway.
When he got to the office, Henry was already there, fiddling with something on his tablet and Kate was ensconced on the sofa with a cup of tea. Henry looked a bit bewildered, and Will wished that he’d forgone the shower and come straight here so as not to be out of the loop. He held up a hand and started to apologize, but Helen cut him off.
“Don’t worry, Will,” she said. “It’s not a problem.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, taking the seat beside Kate. Her eyes were tight, but not as questioning as Henry’s. Whatever was going on, Kate already knew some of the details.
“We have a new guest,” Helen said. “She’s in the SHU until we can determine the best place to keep her permanently.”
“She’s dangerous?” Will said.
“Extremely,” Helen said.
“What kind of abnormal are we talking about here?” Will asked. Henry coughed uncomfortably.
“She’s not abnormal, Will,” Helen said.
“I don’t understand,” Will said. “Why is she in the SHU?”
“You asked me before if I knew H.G. Wells,” Helen said. “And I told you the truth when I said that I did. What I didn’t mention was that H.G. Wells was in truth Helena Wells, and my very good friend.”
“H.G. Wells was a woman,” Will said slowly, turning the information over in his head. It was hardly the most unusual piece of information he’d ever learned at the Sanctuary, but experience had taught him that it was usually best to take these types of thing slowly, as they had a habit of spiraling out of control in a hurry.
“She is a woman,” Helen said. “After her daughter was murdered, she became exceedingly violent, and the organization she worked for took rather extreme measures.”
Will listened as Magnus explained the Warehouse and their particular brand of justice, as well as the events that had led to H.G. taking up residence in the SHU.
“Did she design any of our security systems?” Will asked when Helen was done. Because of course an author that Magnus knew would also be the inventor of many of the things in her novels.
“Yes,” Helen said. “Nikola is working on it. Henry, I think he is hoping you’ll join him.”
“Never a dull moment!” Henry said with false bravado in his voice. He headed out, somehow managing to walk and keep working on his tablet at the same time.
Kate caught the look that passed between Will and Helen and announced that she was going to find some lunch. Once she was gone, Helen sat down on the sofa facing Will. Her face was set, as though she was expecting him to yell at her, but he was still reacting to the information she’d told him and couldn’t muster the effort yet.
“Is it going to be as bad as it is with Druitt?” Will said finally.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Helen said, her voice softening. “John’s madness is entirely external. Helena’s pain is personal and I am hoping I can reach her, if given enough time.”
“I’d like to speak to her as well,” Will said.
“No,” Helen said, sitting up ramrod straight on the sofa.
“This is why you hired me,” Will said, leaning forward slightly. “To be a psychiatrist.”
“Not with her,” Helen said. “I know it’s an unorthodox request given your experience and your background, but I really must insist, Will. Under no circumstances are you to talk to her.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to chase her down again after she tricks you into helping her escape,” Helen said sharply.
“Now you’re just insulting me,” Will said, slumping back into the sofa.
“I know you, Will,” Helen said. “And I know her. Believe me, it’s for the best.”
Will stood up and started for the door without waiting for a dismissal or a polite end to the conversation.
“Oh, and Will?” He turned to look at her, shoulders stiff with annoyance. She was reading a file and didn’t even look up when she spoke.
“What?” he said.
“Pass that along to Henry as well, would you?”
Will left the office muttering under his breath.
+++
Chapter 3
Teaser and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
1895
“You’d read it if Helen had written it,” Helena argued.
From the doorway of the sitting room, Caleb flinched. Fortunately, his two years of practice allowed him the dexterity to react to the overflowing emotions in the room without spilling anything off the tea tray. He settled for hoping to get in and out as quickly as possible, and back to the kitchen where it was both quiet and calm.
“Helen would never write such a thing,” James retorted.
“You didn’t have a problem with Mr. Doyle,” Helena said. “But I suppose he rather appealed to your ego, what with immortalizing you in print and all.”
No one had asked him, but had they done so, Caleb would have been forced to admit that the days following one of James’s interviews with Doyle were terribly amusing for him. Dr. Magnus would always hover on the edge of mirth, fighting very hard to suppress all signs of it and maintain polite conversation, while Dr. Watson was very nearly insufferable. It was like walking along the edge of a steep slope, and if one of them pushed the other even slightly, the resulting hysteria would overwhelm his empathic senses. It was something of a rush.
“Holmes will be used to train an entire generation of young minds to think properly,” James said.
“Young male minds, you mean,” Helena sniped, just as Doctor Magnus entered the room.
“Is there another kind?” Watson said, not having seen her.
“Why James, what a thing to say,” Helen said. “I’m quite offended.”
“Helen, you know I – ” James began, but Caleb knew the great thinker was lost.
“You’ve wounded me, James.” Helen feigned great drama. “And the only way to make it up to me is to read the book.”
James glared at her, but conceded the point and took the proffered manuscript from Helena with no degree of gentleness.
“I shall be witheringly honest,” he said darkly.
“I should expect nothing less,” Helena said, quite happy now that she had her victory. “I want it to be nearly perfect when I let Helen read it.”
“Nigel tells me he thought it was quite good,” Helen said, settling into her chair and taking the cup that Caleb handed her. “Though he told me nothing of the story itself.”
“Which is as I bid him,” Helena replied, taking her own cup. “Thank you, Caleb.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Wells,” Caleb said, already preparing for the reply he knew was coming.
“Helena, please,” she said, as she always did. “We’re of the same station after all.”
James muttered something that sounded a great deal like “socialists” under his breath, but was already several pages into the manuscript and it was clear his attempt was more of habit than of any real conviction. He took his tea without even looking up, and then paused.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “Why did Nigel get to read it first?”
“Are you jealous, Dr. Watson?” Helena said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, taking a biscuit off the tray. He returned to reading.
“Will there be anything else, Dr. Magnus?” Caleb asked. Suddenly he was much less eager to quit the room. He knew that his report of how Watson really felt about the book would be almost as useful to Helena as anything Watson might actually tell her.
“Thank you, Caleb, no,” Helen said, but she winked so that he knew he could stay if he liked. “But at some point before it gets too late, would you tell the cook that Dr. Tesla will be joining us for dinner?”
At that, both Helena and James bristled, and Caleb felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped several degrees.
“He promised me a decade at least,” James said. “I suppose it was too much to expect him to keep his word.”
“To be fair, Helen did offer me a job,” Helena said with a reluctant grin. “Just not yours. And Nikola had no way of knowing I was already spoken for, because I hadn’t told him.”
“I trust you’ll all manage to be civil,” Helen said. She didn’t look particularly optimistic. “And anyway, I thought you and Nikola parted on good terms, Helena.”
“Oh we did,” she said. “But I’ve since learned that he had the gall to name the weapon I helped him invent after himself, and quite shut me out of any credit I might have otherwise got for the designs.”
“Whyever would you want your name on a gun?” James said. “It seems a dreadfully American thing to do.”
“That’s probably why he did it,” Helena allowed.
Caleb marveled at how easily the two of them moved back and forth between outright hostility and pleasant agreement. Then again, Doctor Tesla tended to provoke a united front.
“Whatever the case, you know you’ll only make him more insufferable if you complain,” Helen said. “But if it makes you feel any better, you can report to your superiors that he also sold me a prototype, and has been working to improve it so that it will stun something larger than a person.”
Helena’s grin was wicked.
“Is that where that monstrosity in the lab came from?” James said. “I should have known.”
“I think we’ll have to abandon the memory loss function in order to get the kind of power we need to take down a larger abnormal,” Helen said conversationally. “But I don’t think memory loss in abnormals would be necessary anyway.”
“He’d never admit it, but it was a side effect of the device itself,” Helena said. “It was never in the plans.”
“God spare us from the accidental inspirations of Nikola Tesla,” James said fervently, and Caleb found himself in emphatic, though silent, agreement. The vampire was going to invent something someday that would be the death of him. “Now, will you please either be silent or leave me alone so that I might finish my book?”
Neither Helen nor Helena laughed as they quit the sitting room, but as he followed in their wake, it was all too apparent to Caleb how badly they wanted to.
+++
Present Day
If there was one thing that Will Zimmerman knew with complete certainty, and there might, he admitted, only be this one thing, it was that he was completely normal. Smart, yes, and not bad looking, but mind-numbingly normal. He didn’t get feelings, he didn’t get hunches. He noticed clues and put pieces together. He had no special powers at all. Well, not on his own anyway. After India, he was a bit more open to the idea, but he still knew himself, and knew that he was normal.
It was with some alarm, therefore, that he found himself standing inside the door of the Sanctuary knowing, absolutely, that something was wrong. Nothing appeared different. Nothing was dirty or covered in blood. There was nothing pungent enough for him to smell. But something was wrong, all the same, and he was starting to get a little bit uncomfortable.
“Jet lag?” Henry said from behind him. He shifted his backpack.
“Henry, we didn’t leave the time zone,” Will pointed out.
“I know,” Henry said. “I just couldn’t think of another reason why you’d stop dead in the door way when we clearly, clearly both need showers.”
“Do you smell something besides us?” Will asked.
“No,” Henry said after a few experimental sniff. “Should I?”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Something seems off.”
“Definitely jet lag,” Henry said, pushing past him into the foyer.
Will followed him up the stairs towards the residential wing. He was probably wrong, anyway. If there had been a problem, Magnus would have called. Or someone would have met them in the foyer. Or something would be on fire. Instead, all was quiet and nothing seemed untoward. It was probably just left over nerves from the mission.
When he got to his room, he took a few moments to just relax in the blessed quiet. Henry was a great guy and all, but he talked a lot, and Will was grateful to have some time alone with his thoughts for a change. Eventually, though, he concluded that he really did need a shower, so he went into the bathroom.
At last refreshed and feeling like himself again, Will checked the clock and realized it was nearly noon. They’d gotten an early start this morning, and the flight had been short. Even though it had been a rough couple of days, he wasn’t really all that tired and the shower had revitalized him. He decided to head down to Magnus’s office and give his report over lunch.
Once he was back in the hallway, the sense of wrongness came back to him, as strong as it had been in the foyer. Again, he shrugged the feeling off, and continued to walk down the hallway.
When he got to the office, Henry was already there, fiddling with something on his tablet and Kate was ensconced on the sofa with a cup of tea. Henry looked a bit bewildered, and Will wished that he’d forgone the shower and come straight here so as not to be out of the loop. He held up a hand and started to apologize, but Helen cut him off.
“Don’t worry, Will,” she said. “It’s not a problem.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, taking the seat beside Kate. Her eyes were tight, but not as questioning as Henry’s. Whatever was going on, Kate already knew some of the details.
“We have a new guest,” Helen said. “She’s in the SHU until we can determine the best place to keep her permanently.”
“She’s dangerous?” Will said.
“Extremely,” Helen said.
“What kind of abnormal are we talking about here?” Will asked. Henry coughed uncomfortably.
“She’s not abnormal, Will,” Helen said.
“I don’t understand,” Will said. “Why is she in the SHU?”
“You asked me before if I knew H.G. Wells,” Helen said. “And I told you the truth when I said that I did. What I didn’t mention was that H.G. Wells was in truth Helena Wells, and my very good friend.”
“H.G. Wells was a woman,” Will said slowly, turning the information over in his head. It was hardly the most unusual piece of information he’d ever learned at the Sanctuary, but experience had taught him that it was usually best to take these types of thing slowly, as they had a habit of spiraling out of control in a hurry.
“She is a woman,” Helen said. “After her daughter was murdered, she became exceedingly violent, and the organization she worked for took rather extreme measures.”
Will listened as Magnus explained the Warehouse and their particular brand of justice, as well as the events that had led to H.G. taking up residence in the SHU.
“Did she design any of our security systems?” Will asked when Helen was done. Because of course an author that Magnus knew would also be the inventor of many of the things in her novels.
“Yes,” Helen said. “Nikola is working on it. Henry, I think he is hoping you’ll join him.”
“Never a dull moment!” Henry said with false bravado in his voice. He headed out, somehow managing to walk and keep working on his tablet at the same time.
Kate caught the look that passed between Will and Helen and announced that she was going to find some lunch. Once she was gone, Helen sat down on the sofa facing Will. Her face was set, as though she was expecting him to yell at her, but he was still reacting to the information she’d told him and couldn’t muster the effort yet.
“Is it going to be as bad as it is with Druitt?” Will said finally.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Helen said, her voice softening. “John’s madness is entirely external. Helena’s pain is personal and I am hoping I can reach her, if given enough time.”
“I’d like to speak to her as well,” Will said.
“No,” Helen said, sitting up ramrod straight on the sofa.
“This is why you hired me,” Will said, leaning forward slightly. “To be a psychiatrist.”
“Not with her,” Helen said. “I know it’s an unorthodox request given your experience and your background, but I really must insist, Will. Under no circumstances are you to talk to her.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to chase her down again after she tricks you into helping her escape,” Helen said sharply.
“Now you’re just insulting me,” Will said, slumping back into the sofa.
“I know you, Will,” Helen said. “And I know her. Believe me, it’s for the best.”
Will stood up and started for the door without waiting for a dismissal or a polite end to the conversation.
“Oh, and Will?” He turned to look at her, shoulders stiff with annoyance. She was reading a file and didn’t even look up when she spoke.
“What?” he said.
“Pass that along to Henry as well, would you?”
Will left the office muttering under his breath.
+++
Chapter 3
