Helena "H.G." Wells (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feellikeibelong) wrote2013-12-16 03:39 am
feellikeibelong) wrote2013-12-16 03:39 am
Entry tags:
Headcanon - Christina's Death
Given it's never expressly stated in canon how Christina was murdered, I wrote the scene out. It involves time travel, so it's slightly wibbly wobbly timey wimey. And it's purely headcanon based on the facts that were given in canon. If anyone ever is able to get this story out of Helena beyond "She was murdered by five men" I am sorry for the emotions that accompany it...
As a warning, there is death, blood and violence to be found in this. And this is what haunts Helena's nightmares...and even her waking moments.
London 1898
Warehouse 12
After several trials and many prototypes, Helena’s time machine was finally ready. And she was going to use it to go back in time and save Christina. She would re-write time and undo the last seven agonizing years of her life. Everything would turn out fine. She wouldn’t be hurting any longer. Anger and rage wouldn’t be consuming her. And she would be back in good standing within the Warehouse. Oh she knew she was on thin ice with the Regents having been brought before them twice over the past seven years for looking through the artifacts within the Warehouse that could potentially allow her to re-write time itself.
It was no wonder that several years earlier she had given her brother, Charles, the idea for The Time Machine. Ever since discovering that Sophie had used kenpo to try and fend off the intruders, Helena knew that somehow, some way, she’d traveled back in time and become Sophie. Time traveling had become an obsession of hers ever since she’d unleashed her vengeance on Christina’s murderers. And finally, finally it was about to become a reality.
Helena had asked Caturanga to be the one to monitor her time machine as she used it. While at first he was hesitant, he did agree, knowing he was perhaps the only person out of everyone at Warehouse 12 that would be able to get Helena out of trouble if something went wrong. He’d allowed her to set the machine up in a room within the Warehouse, given how much electricity it took to power the machine. And truthfully, Caturanga would rather Helena be in a completely safe environment while she did this. After completing a mission earlier in the day, Helena had taken her leave to make adjustments and ensure everything with her machine was ready.
Eventually, once everyone else had left, Caturanga made his way to the room. He stood in the doorway for a minute simply watching his student as she paced almost frantically back and forth, muttering to herself. The man knew better than to talk her out of doing this, but he was concerned that she wasn’t in the proper state of mind to handle this. Yet he well knew even if he convinced her to wait for another time, she would still have this reaction. He knew his student well and he knew that the topic of her daughter would always make her frantic. And he also believed it would one day be her undoing.
“Is everything in order, Miss Wells?” He finally asked, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. Turning to face him, she gave one curt nod.
“Yes, it is.” It was a simple response, but elaboration wasn’t needed. Caturanga walked over and stood before Helena, looking her in the eye.
“Are you certain you are ready to do this?”
“I have waited for seven years to do this. I am more than ready.” Silence fell as they both looked into the others’ eyes. Caturanga saw the determination within Helena’s dark eyes, but he also saw seven years of turmoil, of pain and obsession. Helena saw the concern in his own. “Do not worry so, I shall be fine. This is why I asked you to sit with me.”
“I know. I will keep vigil and ensure the machine functions as it should.” Helena had all ready told him how the machine worked, and he had all ready helped her do a couple trial runs with it. Caturanga was familiar with the machine, and should anything unsavory occur, he could fix it. Or at least try to.
And if things went wrong and she was unable to save her daughter and was unable to return to her body? At least she would be dead and no longer have to suffer as she’d suffered the last seven years. Silently, Helena turned from Caturanga and sat in one of the chairs. She hooked herself to the machine, and when she was ready, she leaned back and took a deep breath. Her heart was racing, truly fearing what she would be met with in a few short minutes.
Caturanga walked over to the machine itself, seeing that it was set for the thirteenth of July 1891. Well at least she was giving herself time enough to prepare for the event itself. Despite his reservations on the mental strength his student had to successfully complete this, he pulled the lever and sent her on her way.
Closing her eyes, Helena was filled with an apprehension and anxiety that she had never known before.
13 July 1891
Paris, France
When she opened her eyes, Helena found herself in a room that was not the one she had just been in. There was a mirror on the far side of the room and the reflection she saw within it was not herself, but that of Sophie. All right, it had worked. She was within her cousin’s home. And judging by the amount of sunlight coming in, it was sometime in the afternoon. Most likely early afternoon judging by the angle of the rays of sunlight.
“Sophie!” Came a voice from the neighboring room. It took only a second for Helena to remember she had to act the part of Sophie. Quickly, she left the room and went into the one the voice had come from. Though she was completely unprepared for what sight she was met with. Not only was her cousin in the room, but also Christina, who was busy reading a book. But despite the flood of emotions that swam over her, Helena turned her attention to her cousin.
“Yes?”
“I will be leaving shortly. Remember that Christina has a lesson this afternoon.”
“Of course,” she replied with a nod. At least Helena knew the specifics of the lesson and could see that Christina got to it. After all, Helena herself had been the one that had arranged that. After a few more instructions, Helena’s cousin departed, leaving Helena with Christina.
It was tearing her up inside to be this close to Christina again, but be unable to hold her or even say anything about it actually being herself and not Sophie at the moment. While she knew Christina was a bright girl, after all, how could she not be?, Helena knew better than to try and explain what she had done in order to save Christina. But while she thought it would be difficult to keep herself restrained, it wasn’t. Christina seemed to genuinely like Sophie, though Sophie’s household duties tended to keep her occupied.
However, the entire time that Helena was doing that, her mind was all ready focusing on the events of the next morning and how to keep it from happening. There were several scenarios running through her head. Which was perhaps a good thing. Helena felt she needed a couple different plans in the event one failed. It never hurt to have back up plans, really. The only thing that distracted her was when she retrieved the day’s mail and she found a letter that she herself had sent. Being caught unprepared for that, she drew in a breath and took the letter into the room where Christina was occupying herself.
“Christina, you have a letter here from your mother.” Helena didn’t have time to say or do anything further. Christina was up and taking the letter out of her hand before she had really even blinked. She watched Christina as she sat down and opened the letter, then went about reading it. The irony of this moment was that Helena had just delivered a letter she herself had written. Strange, truthfully. Time travel in reality was wholly different than the idea that had become the book her brother had written.
Quickly though, she carried on with what she’d been doing before. And when the time came, she got Christina to her lesson and back. Though what really wrenched her heart was when it came time to put Christina to bed. She sat with Christina and read to her. The story was Christina’s choice. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It had been a book that Helena had started reading to her before Christina had gone to Paris for the summer. And if Helena didn’t do this right, her daughter would never finish the book.
After reading two chapters, Christina fell asleep. All ready Helena could tell her daughter was becoming ill. She knew Christina’s mannerisms well, but she couldn’t break with the course of events until the morning when the attack would come. The last thing Helena needed was inadvertently getting Sophie arrested for kidnapping. No, she needed to do this on her own, needed to single-handedly save her daughter.
Once Christina was tucked into bed, and the book returned to its proper place, Helena walked over to the bedside, gazing down at her daughter’s sleeping form. Her little angel, the light of her life. Helena would do anything for that little girl, even changing time itself.
“Do not worry, love. Mama’s here, and I’ll make certain everything will be fine come the morning.” It was an oath Helena made with her entire soul. She leaned down and gently kissed Christina’s head and gently stroked her dark hair. Silently, she then took her leave and returned to the room Sophie had. Helena had so much riding on what would happen in the morning. She was not thinking about what would happen if she couldn’t alter and change the course of events. All she was focused on was saving her daughter. And it was for that reason that Helena did not sleep that night, save for a couple hours that Sophie’s body so desperately needed. The woman did not have the constitution and stamina Helena did.
When the morning finally came, Helena rose at the time Sophie normally got up and went about her morning duties. When it came time to wake Christina, she knocked and entered the room, finding Christina whining in bed. Rushing to her, Helena checked her and found she had a fever.
“Stay in bed, Christina. I will bring you some breakfast and medicine.” With that, Helena knew it was only a matter of time before everyone else in the house left to go about their daily habits. She was in the kitchen preparing some breakfast and getting the medicine, her senses on high alert. Placing everything on a tray, she began carrying it to Christina’s room, intent on having breakfast with her daughter before the thieves would arrive.
But the folly in the plan was that Helena was not certain precisely what time the thieves would break in. Sophie had no recollection of the incident, and Helena had not cared enough at the time to hear what time of day it had happened that the murderers said it happened. All she had cared about was vengeance. And now she was driven by a need to make things right, to get her daughter back.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard breaking glass. Helena stopped, trying to gauge where the sound had come from. It was hard to tell from the echoes. She was not that familiar with the intricate sounds reverberating through her cousin’s home. But it was not long before she heard voices, two of them, coming from the main floor. She turned and saw the two men coming out of a room below her. Helena had the advantage having seen them before they saw her. Dropping the tray in her hands, she quickly leapt down the stairs to engage them.
“I say, I thought this place was supposed to be empty!” One of them exclaimed shortly before being decked by Helena. Spinning, she opened her hand and jabbed it into the other man’s throat, causing him to gag and fall to his knees. And that’s when she heard a noise from upstairs.
“Christina!” She exclaimed. The first man she’d hit managed to land a punch to her face while she was momentarily distracted. Helena responded by kicking him in the groin, then in the face. She then delivered a swift kick to the other man’s face, leaving them both strewn on the floor.
Driven by her instinct to protect her daughter, Helena bounded up the stairs and heard three more voices in the direction Christina’s room was in. She ran down the hall, only to hear one man exclaim in surprise about a child being there.
“No witnesses! She’s seen our faces!” One exclaimed.
“Christina!!! No!!!” Helena cried out. Just as she reached the doorway of Christina’s room, she heard her daughter scream, only for it to be cut short as she was stabbed. Helena froze, her eyes wide as she saw the blood.
No. No this couldn’t be happening. This is not how it was supposed to happen!
In a frenzy, Helena leapt into the room and attacked, vengeance now gripping her heart once more. In the ensuing battle, she received some minor wounds, cuts and contusions, but the men she could not fell. All of them escaped with their lives once they realized Helena was too strong for them.
Once they had fled the bedroom, Helena did not run for help. Did not check to ensure the men left without taking anything. No, she went over to the bed and pulled Christina into her arms.
“Christina? Christina! Wake up, please! Please wake up!” Helena begged, and she checked for a pulse, for a response of any sort. But there was none to be found. Tears filling her eyes, Helena still refused to believe it. “Christina, open your eyes. Mummy’s here now. It’s okay. Mummy’s here.”
But it was too late. Christina was gone. Helena had lost her daughter all over again. She hadn’t been able to change a single thing. All the men had gotten away, her daughter was dead and Sophie would be alive.
“I’ve got you, love. I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to stop this.” Helena said through a sob and just clung to Christina’s body. In that moment, her soul shattered and her heart grew completely dark. All hope of saving her daughter in this manner left her. Rocking back and forth, Helena just sobbed, letting go of caring about keeping up appearances. Nothing she would do would matter any longer. Her daughter was gone and she was reliving the trauma for a second time, this time first-hand.
She didn’t know how long she sat there clinging to Christina, but it was long enough for the sun to change its position in the sky. Long enough for Helena to let her heart be consumed by grief. She had been unable to change time, even with the aid of a time machine. And the anger was beginning to set in. After all, had she not been recruited to the Warehouse, she would still have Christina. She never would have been in Paris, she would have been with Helena, where she belonged. That anger festered within her the longer she clung to Christina and cried.
Then, finally, her twenty-two hours and nineteen minutes were up and she was sent back to her own body. Jerking awake, she found herself back within Warehouse 12, hooked up to her time machine.
“Welcome back,” Caturanga greeted her. He would have said something further but he saw the lifeless look in Helena’s eyes. That was all the answer he needed to his question of how things had gone.
Silently, Helena detached herself from the machine, not even bothering to look at it as she headed out of the room. She needed to get out of that place, go somewhere she could think. A time machine didn’t work, so she would have to revisit the artifacts, find one that could let her change the events.
“Miss Wells, what do you propose to do with this?” Caturanga asked. She paused in the doorway, barely glancing back at him.
“It should be treated the same way as anything that does not work.” She then headed off for the exit, no longer wishing to be in the Warehouse longer than necessary. It was only when she was in the control room about to leave that she finally noticed something was missing. She paused momentarily to properly take it in. But she merely scoffed and continued on her way. She needed to get out of the place that had taken that which she cared the most about. No longer did she care about the Warehouse. If she couldn’t find an artifact to rectify losing her daughter, she didn’t have any other reason to stay. She was starting to view the Warehouse as her enemy.
As a warning, there is death, blood and violence to be found in this. And this is what haunts Helena's nightmares...and even her waking moments.
London 1898
Warehouse 12
After several trials and many prototypes, Helena’s time machine was finally ready. And she was going to use it to go back in time and save Christina. She would re-write time and undo the last seven agonizing years of her life. Everything would turn out fine. She wouldn’t be hurting any longer. Anger and rage wouldn’t be consuming her. And she would be back in good standing within the Warehouse. Oh she knew she was on thin ice with the Regents having been brought before them twice over the past seven years for looking through the artifacts within the Warehouse that could potentially allow her to re-write time itself.
It was no wonder that several years earlier she had given her brother, Charles, the idea for The Time Machine. Ever since discovering that Sophie had used kenpo to try and fend off the intruders, Helena knew that somehow, some way, she’d traveled back in time and become Sophie. Time traveling had become an obsession of hers ever since she’d unleashed her vengeance on Christina’s murderers. And finally, finally it was about to become a reality.
Helena had asked Caturanga to be the one to monitor her time machine as she used it. While at first he was hesitant, he did agree, knowing he was perhaps the only person out of everyone at Warehouse 12 that would be able to get Helena out of trouble if something went wrong. He’d allowed her to set the machine up in a room within the Warehouse, given how much electricity it took to power the machine. And truthfully, Caturanga would rather Helena be in a completely safe environment while she did this. After completing a mission earlier in the day, Helena had taken her leave to make adjustments and ensure everything with her machine was ready.
Eventually, once everyone else had left, Caturanga made his way to the room. He stood in the doorway for a minute simply watching his student as she paced almost frantically back and forth, muttering to herself. The man knew better than to talk her out of doing this, but he was concerned that she wasn’t in the proper state of mind to handle this. Yet he well knew even if he convinced her to wait for another time, she would still have this reaction. He knew his student well and he knew that the topic of her daughter would always make her frantic. And he also believed it would one day be her undoing.
“Is everything in order, Miss Wells?” He finally asked, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. Turning to face him, she gave one curt nod.
“Yes, it is.” It was a simple response, but elaboration wasn’t needed. Caturanga walked over and stood before Helena, looking her in the eye.
“Are you certain you are ready to do this?”
“I have waited for seven years to do this. I am more than ready.” Silence fell as they both looked into the others’ eyes. Caturanga saw the determination within Helena’s dark eyes, but he also saw seven years of turmoil, of pain and obsession. Helena saw the concern in his own. “Do not worry so, I shall be fine. This is why I asked you to sit with me.”
“I know. I will keep vigil and ensure the machine functions as it should.” Helena had all ready told him how the machine worked, and he had all ready helped her do a couple trial runs with it. Caturanga was familiar with the machine, and should anything unsavory occur, he could fix it. Or at least try to.
And if things went wrong and she was unable to save her daughter and was unable to return to her body? At least she would be dead and no longer have to suffer as she’d suffered the last seven years. Silently, Helena turned from Caturanga and sat in one of the chairs. She hooked herself to the machine, and when she was ready, she leaned back and took a deep breath. Her heart was racing, truly fearing what she would be met with in a few short minutes.
Caturanga walked over to the machine itself, seeing that it was set for the thirteenth of July 1891. Well at least she was giving herself time enough to prepare for the event itself. Despite his reservations on the mental strength his student had to successfully complete this, he pulled the lever and sent her on her way.
Closing her eyes, Helena was filled with an apprehension and anxiety that she had never known before.
13 July 1891
Paris, France
When she opened her eyes, Helena found herself in a room that was not the one she had just been in. There was a mirror on the far side of the room and the reflection she saw within it was not herself, but that of Sophie. All right, it had worked. She was within her cousin’s home. And judging by the amount of sunlight coming in, it was sometime in the afternoon. Most likely early afternoon judging by the angle of the rays of sunlight.
“Sophie!” Came a voice from the neighboring room. It took only a second for Helena to remember she had to act the part of Sophie. Quickly, she left the room and went into the one the voice had come from. Though she was completely unprepared for what sight she was met with. Not only was her cousin in the room, but also Christina, who was busy reading a book. But despite the flood of emotions that swam over her, Helena turned her attention to her cousin.
“Yes?”
“I will be leaving shortly. Remember that Christina has a lesson this afternoon.”
“Of course,” she replied with a nod. At least Helena knew the specifics of the lesson and could see that Christina got to it. After all, Helena herself had been the one that had arranged that. After a few more instructions, Helena’s cousin departed, leaving Helena with Christina.
It was tearing her up inside to be this close to Christina again, but be unable to hold her or even say anything about it actually being herself and not Sophie at the moment. While she knew Christina was a bright girl, after all, how could she not be?, Helena knew better than to try and explain what she had done in order to save Christina. But while she thought it would be difficult to keep herself restrained, it wasn’t. Christina seemed to genuinely like Sophie, though Sophie’s household duties tended to keep her occupied.
However, the entire time that Helena was doing that, her mind was all ready focusing on the events of the next morning and how to keep it from happening. There were several scenarios running through her head. Which was perhaps a good thing. Helena felt she needed a couple different plans in the event one failed. It never hurt to have back up plans, really. The only thing that distracted her was when she retrieved the day’s mail and she found a letter that she herself had sent. Being caught unprepared for that, she drew in a breath and took the letter into the room where Christina was occupying herself.
“Christina, you have a letter here from your mother.” Helena didn’t have time to say or do anything further. Christina was up and taking the letter out of her hand before she had really even blinked. She watched Christina as she sat down and opened the letter, then went about reading it. The irony of this moment was that Helena had just delivered a letter she herself had written. Strange, truthfully. Time travel in reality was wholly different than the idea that had become the book her brother had written.
Quickly though, she carried on with what she’d been doing before. And when the time came, she got Christina to her lesson and back. Though what really wrenched her heart was when it came time to put Christina to bed. She sat with Christina and read to her. The story was Christina’s choice. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It had been a book that Helena had started reading to her before Christina had gone to Paris for the summer. And if Helena didn’t do this right, her daughter would never finish the book.
After reading two chapters, Christina fell asleep. All ready Helena could tell her daughter was becoming ill. She knew Christina’s mannerisms well, but she couldn’t break with the course of events until the morning when the attack would come. The last thing Helena needed was inadvertently getting Sophie arrested for kidnapping. No, she needed to do this on her own, needed to single-handedly save her daughter.
Once Christina was tucked into bed, and the book returned to its proper place, Helena walked over to the bedside, gazing down at her daughter’s sleeping form. Her little angel, the light of her life. Helena would do anything for that little girl, even changing time itself.
“Do not worry, love. Mama’s here, and I’ll make certain everything will be fine come the morning.” It was an oath Helena made with her entire soul. She leaned down and gently kissed Christina’s head and gently stroked her dark hair. Silently, she then took her leave and returned to the room Sophie had. Helena had so much riding on what would happen in the morning. She was not thinking about what would happen if she couldn’t alter and change the course of events. All she was focused on was saving her daughter. And it was for that reason that Helena did not sleep that night, save for a couple hours that Sophie’s body so desperately needed. The woman did not have the constitution and stamina Helena did.
When the morning finally came, Helena rose at the time Sophie normally got up and went about her morning duties. When it came time to wake Christina, she knocked and entered the room, finding Christina whining in bed. Rushing to her, Helena checked her and found she had a fever.
“Stay in bed, Christina. I will bring you some breakfast and medicine.” With that, Helena knew it was only a matter of time before everyone else in the house left to go about their daily habits. She was in the kitchen preparing some breakfast and getting the medicine, her senses on high alert. Placing everything on a tray, she began carrying it to Christina’s room, intent on having breakfast with her daughter before the thieves would arrive.
But the folly in the plan was that Helena was not certain precisely what time the thieves would break in. Sophie had no recollection of the incident, and Helena had not cared enough at the time to hear what time of day it had happened that the murderers said it happened. All she had cared about was vengeance. And now she was driven by a need to make things right, to get her daughter back.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard breaking glass. Helena stopped, trying to gauge where the sound had come from. It was hard to tell from the echoes. She was not that familiar with the intricate sounds reverberating through her cousin’s home. But it was not long before she heard voices, two of them, coming from the main floor. She turned and saw the two men coming out of a room below her. Helena had the advantage having seen them before they saw her. Dropping the tray in her hands, she quickly leapt down the stairs to engage them.
“I say, I thought this place was supposed to be empty!” One of them exclaimed shortly before being decked by Helena. Spinning, she opened her hand and jabbed it into the other man’s throat, causing him to gag and fall to his knees. And that’s when she heard a noise from upstairs.
“Christina!” She exclaimed. The first man she’d hit managed to land a punch to her face while she was momentarily distracted. Helena responded by kicking him in the groin, then in the face. She then delivered a swift kick to the other man’s face, leaving them both strewn on the floor.
Driven by her instinct to protect her daughter, Helena bounded up the stairs and heard three more voices in the direction Christina’s room was in. She ran down the hall, only to hear one man exclaim in surprise about a child being there.
“No witnesses! She’s seen our faces!” One exclaimed.
“Christina!!! No!!!” Helena cried out. Just as she reached the doorway of Christina’s room, she heard her daughter scream, only for it to be cut short as she was stabbed. Helena froze, her eyes wide as she saw the blood.
No. No this couldn’t be happening. This is not how it was supposed to happen!
In a frenzy, Helena leapt into the room and attacked, vengeance now gripping her heart once more. In the ensuing battle, she received some minor wounds, cuts and contusions, but the men she could not fell. All of them escaped with their lives once they realized Helena was too strong for them.
Once they had fled the bedroom, Helena did not run for help. Did not check to ensure the men left without taking anything. No, she went over to the bed and pulled Christina into her arms.
“Christina? Christina! Wake up, please! Please wake up!” Helena begged, and she checked for a pulse, for a response of any sort. But there was none to be found. Tears filling her eyes, Helena still refused to believe it. “Christina, open your eyes. Mummy’s here now. It’s okay. Mummy’s here.”
But it was too late. Christina was gone. Helena had lost her daughter all over again. She hadn’t been able to change a single thing. All the men had gotten away, her daughter was dead and Sophie would be alive.
“I’ve got you, love. I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to stop this.” Helena said through a sob and just clung to Christina’s body. In that moment, her soul shattered and her heart grew completely dark. All hope of saving her daughter in this manner left her. Rocking back and forth, Helena just sobbed, letting go of caring about keeping up appearances. Nothing she would do would matter any longer. Her daughter was gone and she was reliving the trauma for a second time, this time first-hand.
She didn’t know how long she sat there clinging to Christina, but it was long enough for the sun to change its position in the sky. Long enough for Helena to let her heart be consumed by grief. She had been unable to change time, even with the aid of a time machine. And the anger was beginning to set in. After all, had she not been recruited to the Warehouse, she would still have Christina. She never would have been in Paris, she would have been with Helena, where she belonged. That anger festered within her the longer she clung to Christina and cried.
Then, finally, her twenty-two hours and nineteen minutes were up and she was sent back to her own body. Jerking awake, she found herself back within Warehouse 12, hooked up to her time machine.
“Welcome back,” Caturanga greeted her. He would have said something further but he saw the lifeless look in Helena’s eyes. That was all the answer he needed to his question of how things had gone.
Silently, Helena detached herself from the machine, not even bothering to look at it as she headed out of the room. She needed to get out of that place, go somewhere she could think. A time machine didn’t work, so she would have to revisit the artifacts, find one that could let her change the events.
“Miss Wells, what do you propose to do with this?” Caturanga asked. She paused in the doorway, barely glancing back at him.
“It should be treated the same way as anything that does not work.” She then headed off for the exit, no longer wishing to be in the Warehouse longer than necessary. It was only when she was in the control room about to leave that she finally noticed something was missing. She paused momentarily to properly take it in. But she merely scoffed and continued on her way. She needed to get out of the place that had taken that which she cared the most about. No longer did she care about the Warehouse. If she couldn’t find an artifact to rectify losing her daughter, she didn’t have any other reason to stay. She was starting to view the Warehouse as her enemy.