Fic: Dog Days Are Done (Sanctuary)
Aug. 16th, 2011 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityAN: Another installment in "Helen Does the Time Warp, Again", this section comes after Long Road Home, Begin Again, Enter Athene and To The Letter. Time travel! Who knew! ;)
Spoilers: Into the Black
Disclaimer: Oh, the ways in which I do not own this show!
Rating: Teen
Character/Pairing: Helen Magnus, Adam Worth
Summary: Whitechapel is just as she remembers it.
+++
Dog Days Are Done
Whitechapel is just as she remembers it.
She remembers it other ways too, of course. Between the Royal Hospital and Merrick in the 1890s, and the general acceptance of abnormals by the modern Bengali population, both she and James spent quite a bit of time there, even immediately after John forever ruined it for both of them. The neighbourhood is quieter now, then, in the future she’s come from; World War II saw to that, but this is Whitechapel at its most depraved. The Ripper is gone ten years, but things have not much improved.
It’s the smell, she realizes quickly, having resigned herself to another few decades of chamber pots and awkward fumblings with voluminous skirts, the smell sets her back in time more than what she sees. Her eyes have been fooled too often lately, and her heart all the more. The stench of humanity, or what passes for it in the cramps boarding houses of the East Side, reminds her more than anything of when she is.
The only small mercy is that it’s dark. With her jacket wrapped around her waist like she’s rigged it, she casts a rude silhouette. She merely has to avoid the lamplights, but she’s used to doing that anyway.
She cannot call on anyone she knew. They would not understand. She also cannot call on strangers, as they would only call the Yard and she would find herself in Bethlem or worse, having to call on James for parole. She has limited options and even more limited resources: a useless phone, a Bic pen, three guns with spare clips, and two knives. She is also wearing a gold necklace. That may be the most useful thing of all, at the moment.
She’s picked Whitechapel because it’s a place to disappear, but also because there are abnormals there. She’s been an abnormal herself since 1886, but she always chose to live as close to the human world as possible, serving as the bridge. Now, there is little need of that. She can lose herself in the world she, the other she, protects, and watch from the sidelines until it’s time to enter the game again. The prospect is not something she’s looking forward to. She had refused the sidelines the first time around, and she is not excited to consign herself to them again.
Helen pulled herself up short, ducking into an alleyway to avoid a lurching drunk on the sidewalk. In those moments where she was still, she realized that there was no reason to make all her plans now. She has to tackle this one step at a time, and the first step is to find someone she can trust. In Whitechapel, that means Lissandra.
As soon as she thinks the name, she feels calmer. She’s already trusted the Macropus sebaceaous with the most important secret she has, and the woman proved to be completely discreet. There is no reason at all to believe Lissandra will betray a second confidence when she has not betrayed the first.
Lissandra’s shop is well lit, even at this time of night. It’s not so much a shop as it is a location, but it must be easily found by those who need it, and thus the lamplight shines on the doorsill and sign. To casual passersby, it looks like the storefront of a poor seamstress, one who still manages to eke out a living in her own domain instead of being forced into more industrialized production. Lissandra makes her money in other ways, and probably has plenty of it, except that she gives away nearly all she makes. Helen Magnus, the current one, makes sizable donations, but Lissandra prides herself on being self-sufficient.
Helen knows that she is marked before she gets to the door. Hopefully, no one actually recognized her. The last thing she needs is for rumours of Helen Magnus frequenting this area of town in trousers to start circulating, but there’s no help for it. When she reaches the door, she knocks.
It’s been ten years, or thereabout, since Helen first came to this house. It’s been more than a century too, and the time makes her head spin so she does her best not to think about it. She’s a different woman now, but not so different that Lissandra won’t help her. They’ve built too much in the decade since Mary Kelly died. The only thing that Helen isn’t sure of is what she’s going to say.
Lissandra opens the door herself, and takes Helen in with a quick gaze before ushering her over the sill and out of the night. With the door safely closed behind them, Helen finds herself the object of much scrutiny.
“Helen Magnus!” Lissandra says. “What in the name of God are you doing here? Dressed like that?”
“I can’t explain it Lissandra,” Helen replies, the cadence of this style of speech returning to her as if she’d stopped speaking it only yesterday. “But I need your help.”
“From both professions, I’ll warrant.” Lissandra looks her over again. “You can’t muck about London in that.”
“Thank you,” Helen starts, but Lissandra is already bustling about. The abnormal woman is remarkably efficient, and before she quite knows what’s happened, Helen finds she is sitting in front of the fire with a cup of tea, and Lissandra is laying out dresses for her inspection.
“I imagine you’ll want to forgo the corset?” Lissandra says.
“Please,” Helen says, “And dark colours, where possible. I don’t want to be fashionable, memorable or remarkable.”
“A disguise, then,” Lissandra murmurs. “Of my station.”
“Yes,” Helen says. “Though I will also require pockets.”
In the end, the dress is neither fashionable nor particularly well fitting, but it is sturdy and well made. The material is black, and the dress could easily be confused for a mourning dress unless someone were to get close. This suits Helen quite well. The pockets are deep enough for the gun she’s brought with her on this accidental journey. She can’t quite hide it from Lissandra, whose eyes widen when she sees it, though she says nothing. Helen dresses and finishes her tea on her feet when she is done. Lissandra holds out a mirror, and Helen takes it while the abnormal seamstress moves behind her and begins to pin up her hair. The design is not so elaborate as one that Helen would have worn back when her hair was golden curls. Rather it is like the dress: sturdy and dependable, with no pretensions to style.
“What are you about, Helen?” Lissandra says as she takes the mirror back and sits down across from where Helen sits. “As a seamstress, I do not require information, but if I am to be of more help, then I must know a few details.”
“You must tell no one that you have seen me,” Helen begins. “Not Nigel, not James, and not even me. You must never mention this meeting to the Helen you know, the one with blonde hair.”
“You’re not her?” Lissandra says.
“I was her,” Helen says. “And that is all I can tell you.”
“What else?” Lissandra asks.
“There is something I need to do in London,” Helen says. “Someone I must see. And then I must disappear. Will you help me?”
“As always,” Lissandra says. “Only tell me, did it work? What we did ten years ago?”
Helen smiles, and that is answer enough.
+++
Adam Worth has burned down another lab. He stands besides the smoking ruins, and wonders why his life has gone so wrong. His daughter is near death, his works lies in ruination, and there is not a soul alive who can help him. This fire was not set accidentally, though when the patrolman asks, Adam claims a flare of flame and a spilled chemical are to blame. In truth, he could not bear the place anymore.
Through the smoke, he sees Helen Magnus, but the not the Helen of his dreams. She is dark and her cloth is poor, and she is pointing something at him. But then she meets his eyes, and after a moment, she disappears into the haze of his burned laboratory.
He ought to go to her. The real one, not the apparition he has seen tonight. She and James have set up shop in her father’s old house, a right scandal though Adam knows that anything scandalous that might have happened between the two doctors hardly required cohabitation. Helen is brilliant. Helen will think of something. And if not, Adam will find another way.
++
Helen fades into smoke. She is tempted to kill Adam anyway, save herself the trouble later, but she knows it would be a bad idea. The past is what Adam has sought to change, and she would do herself no favours in changing it for her own ends. The lab is the wrong place to look for him, but it is also the closest to Whitechape and she could not pass it by unchecked. Adam is at the lab. Hyde has gone straight for Imogen.
So Helen follows, navigating the streets like some dark ghost, unremarkable, until she arrives at the Sanitorium where Imogen Worth spent the last few days of her short life. Even now, Adam is making his way to see Helen and James at the Sanctuary, which means that Hyde does not have much time. If he means to act, he will have to act tonight.
It’s late enough that the carriages are gone and the streets are mostly empty. There are lights on the bridge, of course, but they are barely able to cut through the fog coming up off the river. She will have to watch closely, but she has the advantage of surprise and does not intend to squander it.
She sights him alone on the bridge, and counts herself lucky. If she can get to him before he crosses, she will simply throw his body in the Thames, and by the time the ragmen get to him, he will be unrecognizable. She moves as quickly as she can, hampered by skirts she hasn’t worn in two lifetimes.
She gets to the bridge in time.
He sees her, of course. And he laughs. And then she pulls the trigger once, twice, three times.
This time, Helen Magnus does not miss.
+++
finis
Note: Lissandra is mentioned, but not named in my earlier series Blood Will Out. Her abnormality allows to hold off pregnancy in her own species (like a kangaroo), and preserve and remove a foetus in humans. Hence Ashley.
And yes, the title is from the Florence+The Machine song.
Gravity_Not_Included, August 16, 2011
Spoilers: Into the Black
Disclaimer: Oh, the ways in which I do not own this show!
Rating: Teen
Character/Pairing: Helen Magnus, Adam Worth
Summary: Whitechapel is just as she remembers it.
+++
Dog Days Are Done
Whitechapel is just as she remembers it.
She remembers it other ways too, of course. Between the Royal Hospital and Merrick in the 1890s, and the general acceptance of abnormals by the modern Bengali population, both she and James spent quite a bit of time there, even immediately after John forever ruined it for both of them. The neighbourhood is quieter now, then, in the future she’s come from; World War II saw to that, but this is Whitechapel at its most depraved. The Ripper is gone ten years, but things have not much improved.
It’s the smell, she realizes quickly, having resigned herself to another few decades of chamber pots and awkward fumblings with voluminous skirts, the smell sets her back in time more than what she sees. Her eyes have been fooled too often lately, and her heart all the more. The stench of humanity, or what passes for it in the cramps boarding houses of the East Side, reminds her more than anything of when she is.
The only small mercy is that it’s dark. With her jacket wrapped around her waist like she’s rigged it, she casts a rude silhouette. She merely has to avoid the lamplights, but she’s used to doing that anyway.
She cannot call on anyone she knew. They would not understand. She also cannot call on strangers, as they would only call the Yard and she would find herself in Bethlem or worse, having to call on James for parole. She has limited options and even more limited resources: a useless phone, a Bic pen, three guns with spare clips, and two knives. She is also wearing a gold necklace. That may be the most useful thing of all, at the moment.
She’s picked Whitechapel because it’s a place to disappear, but also because there are abnormals there. She’s been an abnormal herself since 1886, but she always chose to live as close to the human world as possible, serving as the bridge. Now, there is little need of that. She can lose herself in the world she, the other she, protects, and watch from the sidelines until it’s time to enter the game again. The prospect is not something she’s looking forward to. She had refused the sidelines the first time around, and she is not excited to consign herself to them again.
Helen pulled herself up short, ducking into an alleyway to avoid a lurching drunk on the sidewalk. In those moments where she was still, she realized that there was no reason to make all her plans now. She has to tackle this one step at a time, and the first step is to find someone she can trust. In Whitechapel, that means Lissandra.
As soon as she thinks the name, she feels calmer. She’s already trusted the Macropus sebaceaous with the most important secret she has, and the woman proved to be completely discreet. There is no reason at all to believe Lissandra will betray a second confidence when she has not betrayed the first.
Lissandra’s shop is well lit, even at this time of night. It’s not so much a shop as it is a location, but it must be easily found by those who need it, and thus the lamplight shines on the doorsill and sign. To casual passersby, it looks like the storefront of a poor seamstress, one who still manages to eke out a living in her own domain instead of being forced into more industrialized production. Lissandra makes her money in other ways, and probably has plenty of it, except that she gives away nearly all she makes. Helen Magnus, the current one, makes sizable donations, but Lissandra prides herself on being self-sufficient.
Helen knows that she is marked before she gets to the door. Hopefully, no one actually recognized her. The last thing she needs is for rumours of Helen Magnus frequenting this area of town in trousers to start circulating, but there’s no help for it. When she reaches the door, she knocks.
It’s been ten years, or thereabout, since Helen first came to this house. It’s been more than a century too, and the time makes her head spin so she does her best not to think about it. She’s a different woman now, but not so different that Lissandra won’t help her. They’ve built too much in the decade since Mary Kelly died. The only thing that Helen isn’t sure of is what she’s going to say.
Lissandra opens the door herself, and takes Helen in with a quick gaze before ushering her over the sill and out of the night. With the door safely closed behind them, Helen finds herself the object of much scrutiny.
“Helen Magnus!” Lissandra says. “What in the name of God are you doing here? Dressed like that?”
“I can’t explain it Lissandra,” Helen replies, the cadence of this style of speech returning to her as if she’d stopped speaking it only yesterday. “But I need your help.”
“From both professions, I’ll warrant.” Lissandra looks her over again. “You can’t muck about London in that.”
“Thank you,” Helen starts, but Lissandra is already bustling about. The abnormal woman is remarkably efficient, and before she quite knows what’s happened, Helen finds she is sitting in front of the fire with a cup of tea, and Lissandra is laying out dresses for her inspection.
“I imagine you’ll want to forgo the corset?” Lissandra says.
“Please,” Helen says, “And dark colours, where possible. I don’t want to be fashionable, memorable or remarkable.”
“A disguise, then,” Lissandra murmurs. “Of my station.”
“Yes,” Helen says. “Though I will also require pockets.”
In the end, the dress is neither fashionable nor particularly well fitting, but it is sturdy and well made. The material is black, and the dress could easily be confused for a mourning dress unless someone were to get close. This suits Helen quite well. The pockets are deep enough for the gun she’s brought with her on this accidental journey. She can’t quite hide it from Lissandra, whose eyes widen when she sees it, though she says nothing. Helen dresses and finishes her tea on her feet when she is done. Lissandra holds out a mirror, and Helen takes it while the abnormal seamstress moves behind her and begins to pin up her hair. The design is not so elaborate as one that Helen would have worn back when her hair was golden curls. Rather it is like the dress: sturdy and dependable, with no pretensions to style.
“What are you about, Helen?” Lissandra says as she takes the mirror back and sits down across from where Helen sits. “As a seamstress, I do not require information, but if I am to be of more help, then I must know a few details.”
“You must tell no one that you have seen me,” Helen begins. “Not Nigel, not James, and not even me. You must never mention this meeting to the Helen you know, the one with blonde hair.”
“You’re not her?” Lissandra says.
“I was her,” Helen says. “And that is all I can tell you.”
“What else?” Lissandra asks.
“There is something I need to do in London,” Helen says. “Someone I must see. And then I must disappear. Will you help me?”
“As always,” Lissandra says. “Only tell me, did it work? What we did ten years ago?”
Helen smiles, and that is answer enough.
+++
Adam Worth has burned down another lab. He stands besides the smoking ruins, and wonders why his life has gone so wrong. His daughter is near death, his works lies in ruination, and there is not a soul alive who can help him. This fire was not set accidentally, though when the patrolman asks, Adam claims a flare of flame and a spilled chemical are to blame. In truth, he could not bear the place anymore.
Through the smoke, he sees Helen Magnus, but the not the Helen of his dreams. She is dark and her cloth is poor, and she is pointing something at him. But then she meets his eyes, and after a moment, she disappears into the haze of his burned laboratory.
He ought to go to her. The real one, not the apparition he has seen tonight. She and James have set up shop in her father’s old house, a right scandal though Adam knows that anything scandalous that might have happened between the two doctors hardly required cohabitation. Helen is brilliant. Helen will think of something. And if not, Adam will find another way.
++
Helen fades into smoke. She is tempted to kill Adam anyway, save herself the trouble later, but she knows it would be a bad idea. The past is what Adam has sought to change, and she would do herself no favours in changing it for her own ends. The lab is the wrong place to look for him, but it is also the closest to Whitechape and she could not pass it by unchecked. Adam is at the lab. Hyde has gone straight for Imogen.
So Helen follows, navigating the streets like some dark ghost, unremarkable, until she arrives at the Sanitorium where Imogen Worth spent the last few days of her short life. Even now, Adam is making his way to see Helen and James at the Sanctuary, which means that Hyde does not have much time. If he means to act, he will have to act tonight.
It’s late enough that the carriages are gone and the streets are mostly empty. There are lights on the bridge, of course, but they are barely able to cut through the fog coming up off the river. She will have to watch closely, but she has the advantage of surprise and does not intend to squander it.
She sights him alone on the bridge, and counts herself lucky. If she can get to him before he crosses, she will simply throw his body in the Thames, and by the time the ragmen get to him, he will be unrecognizable. She moves as quickly as she can, hampered by skirts she hasn’t worn in two lifetimes.
She gets to the bridge in time.
He sees her, of course. And he laughs. And then she pulls the trigger once, twice, three times.
This time, Helen Magnus does not miss.
+++
finis
Note: Lissandra is mentioned, but not named in my earlier series Blood Will Out. Her abnormality allows to hold off pregnancy in her own species (like a kangaroo), and preserve and remove a foetus in humans. Hence Ashley.
And yes, the title is from the Florence+The Machine song.
Gravity_Not_Included, August 16, 2011
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 06:14 pm (UTC)I love how you called time-travelling Adam Hyde.
That was mostly for my own sanity. Doubling up on Helen is bad enough. I didn't want to do it to Adam in the same chapter on top of everything else!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 05:48 pm (UTC)Whitechapel is not the nicest place. But Helen just can't avoid it.