Who: Harley and Helena What: bad dreams and working on projects When: recent Where: their house status: complete Rating: PG-13
Helena hadn’t slept well, and it was due to the dream she had. It was intense, to say the least. After she’d confronted Artie about having used the Astrolabe, she, Leena and Mrs. Frederic had cornered Artie in the Warehouse so he could tell them everything. Little had she known the severity of what he had to say. Despite the dangers of the Astrolabe, he’d had good reason to use it. The Warehouse had been destroyed. Helena had died. Mrs. Frederic had died. Pandora’s Box, which contained hope, was gone. A world without hope was a damn good reason to use the Astrolabe to change the course of events.
In the dream, Helena’s death had been a revelation to her, one that she took hard at first, but ultimately knew she would gladly die to save her friends if that was what it took. There was discussion about the situation, and Mrs. Frederic was going to reach out to the Brotherhood to gain more information on Brother Adrian. Once the other two left, Artie chastised Helena for having told them, but she defended herself. After all, no one knew the perils of time travel Artifacts like she did. She’d lost two Agents because of them, and refused to lose Artie as well.
Then the icing on the cake came when she and Mrs. Frederic retrieved the Astrolabe from its hiding place in the Warehouse. Mrs. Frederic told her to take it and disappear, and not to communicate with any of her friends at the Warehouse. She was told to trust no one. She disliked being on her own, especially in a world she was still trying to learn about and find her place within, but she did as she was told. With the Astrolabe in tow, she left the Warehouse, and disappeared as only she could.
She woke up with a lot of emotions running through her. Glancing at the clock, it was early. She slipped quietly out of bed, grabbing a robe and she headed to her workroom. She wouldn’t be sleeping after that, so she might as well work. Though she was doing her defensive response to the situation. She kept the emotions inside and put on that cool, detached exterior as only an English woman could. Keep calm and carry on, as they said. Helena just took it to an extreme.
The other side of the bed was cold. Harley patted around with her hand and then groaned a little. Where was her wife and why was the bed cold? She sat up and stretched. “Honey bun?”
No honey, no bun. Harley hopped out of bed and pulled on a robe. She came downstairs and headed to Helena’s workroom, making a stop to feed the dog and hyenas and procure a granola bar for Helena. She peeked in.
Helena was fiddling with some gadget or other. It was something she did when she had issues, simply grab parts and start building and wiring them with not thought of what the finished product would be. It was like a puzzle, letting her mind process whatever was wrong and trying to put it aside through working. Multitasking, she was very good at it.
However, her frustration was only growing this time. How had it been a good idea for her, the isolated one still recovering from the whole trying to destroy the world thing and having been a hologram for an undisclosed period of time, being sent out into the world completely alone? It only added to her feelings of being alone in a world that wasn’t hers. A stranger in a strange land, as it were. She hadn’t noticed Harley peeking into her workroom. Finally, the device in her hands earned her ire and she threw it against the far wall, no where near the door of the room so it wouldn’t hit Harley. Helena huffed and ran a hand through her hair in exasperation.
It was a good thing she’d already pulverized the part of her time machine that had shown up or else the room would be covered in bits of that from her destroying it. Along with undoubtedly waking the household in the process.
Whether H realized it or not, she was a creature of habit, and so that was why Harley let her work for a few moments, before coming in and shoving granola bar into Helena’s face. “If you’re gonna stick your nose into a gadget you should do so on a full stomach. Whatcha working on?”
Best to start with that before probing about her dreams.
Helena was definitely a creature of habit, and she was aware of it. Mostly. When she got like this, she tended to forget about habits and whether anyone else knew about them or not. As it was, when the granola bar was shoved in her face, she blinked. She hadn’t known Harley was there.
“Oh, thank you.” She took the granola bar. Helena hadn’t noticed if she was hungry or not. She hadn’t even paused to make herself some tea before coming here. But she still opened the bar and took a bite. It was partly done on autopilot as her mind was only half there currently.
“It’s hard to say. I was just putting bits together without a vision of the end result.”
"Tea is brewin'" Harley said, as though reading her mind. She picked a spot on the bench and sat on it, swinging her legs above the ground. "Lets see where it goes? That's what genius is, ain't it?"
That right there was one of the reasons Helena loved Harley. She could anticipate the things she needed in times like these. Helena didn’t always think straight and tended to forget things like food and tea that were a necessity to life.
“Thank you, love,” she said, knowing she could definitely use a good spot of tea. Helena looked down at the things remaining on her workbench. “Yes, it is. Sometimes it is a journey to get there, and there is no map.” Genius tended to write the maps, and re-write ones already in existence.
Harley tilted her head and leaned lover to get a better look at what Helena was working on. It didn’t make too much sense to Harley. She was smart, and could probably work it when it was working, but right now it was in an unfinished state. Whatever it was. “Got inspired?”
She picked up another of her devices that was unfinished, and had been started during a similar time to right now. She turned it this way and that, looking over it for some moment before she started poking at the circuitry. “Not entirely. Sometimes I just need something to keep my mind busy, so I will simply just start building something with no real direction.” An indirect way of saying it was her way of working through issues she may have.
“Do you wanna talk about it? If you need to keep your mind busy and all. I can keep you distracted.” Harley threaded her finger into Helena’s hair.
Helena didn’t immediately respond to Harley’s question, though she did give a nod, showing that she both heard Harley and was going to talk. She was focused on getting something into place, but once it was, she set it down and looked up at Harley.
“I had another dream. In it, my dream self was told that she’d died when the Warehouse exploded. She was then later tasked with safeguarding a dangerous Artifact. I am feeling what she felt, and it is difficult to push it aside.”
That was good. Harley shifted to get a little more comfortable, and stared at the side of Helena’s head as she waited, and then stared some more as she listened. “Someone told you you died, and then you have to protect something dangerous. There’s probably a link there ain’t there. What are you feeling?”
“There is, yes.” Helena took a breath and brushed a hand through her hair as she leaned back in her chair. “I feel some anger, a little resentment, and an intense loneliness. There are other feelings mixed in, but it is difficult to put a name to them.” Whatever was coming in her dreams, she knew it would be bad, and she didn’t like any of it.
“After the Warehouse was destroyed, the world was left without hope as Pandora’s Box was also destroyed in the explosion that killed me. As a result, Artie searched out an Artifact that had the power to rewind time a full 24 hours. Do you remember Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer famous for being the first person to circumnavigate the Earth in the 16th Century? The Artifact that Artie was looking for was Magellan’s Astrolabe. While it had the handy ability of turning time back an entire day, it came with one very bad downside. Artie says that he was told that upon using it, he would be creating an evil that he would have to live with for the rest of his days.”
And then because she knew it would probably cross Harley’s mind, she went ahead and volunteered some information before a sensitive question would be asked. “Yes, I did make an attempt to search for that Artifact after Christina died, but it was too well hidden for me to get to it within a day of her death.”
“All valid,” Harley assured her. She slipped off the table and into Helena’s lap. “So he found the Astrolabe, turned back time, an’ set you up to take the downfall so the Warehouse don’t go kablooey.”
Most of that was a guess, and they’d find out if she was right, but that’s what it sounded like.
She slid her arms around Harley’s waist. “It’s rather more complicated than that. He had kept it a secret, but I figured out he had done something to go back in time. There were things that he said right after he turned back time as he, Myka and I were going to find the Artifact that could stop the Warehouse from being destroyed, that I knew he’d altered time. I confronted him about it, but not before I shared my suspicions with Mrs. Frederic, the Caretaker of the Warehouse. He told us everything, and came to the conclusion that a man by the name of Brother Adrian was the evil. He wanted Artie to use the Astrolabe again, to undo what had been done. Thus Mrs. Frederic charged me with taking the Astrolabe far away to prevent Artie from using it and restoring the original timeline.”
“I’m starting to get a headache.” Harley rubbed her head. “So is this the second timeline or the kablooey time line? Or is there something else going on here? Pandora’s Box is kinda important.”
“Second timeline. Thanks to my being an outside observer of the dreams, the exact point where it deviates is when Myka and I were caught in the Rigging Rope from the Mary Celeste that Artie saved us from being crushed to death after Sykes got the bracelet back that he’d been after.” Hopefully Harley remembered that enough to help her keep things straight. The second timeline was a bit messy. But time travel was incessantly messy. “In other words, when Artie used the Astrolabe to turn the world back 24 hours, the 24 hour mark from when he used it was when Myka and I were being crushed by the rope. It isn’t the easiest to keep straight, but time travel is rather messy and convoluted.”
“It sounds convoluted but at least you got a landmark to pay attention to.” It helped to find a direction or a standing point, and that worked not just for time travel but also for mental issues. Harley needed a fixed point. She figured Helena did too.
“Indeed. Nevertheless, I have been tasked with keeping the Astrolabe safe and being unable to contact anyone. I have also been told to not trust anyone either. It does not sit well with me considering I am still very much a stranger in a strange land, and have been effectively cut off from the few people I know so that Brother Adrian can’t force Artie to use the Astrolabe again. But I will do it because no one else can disappear without a trace like I can.” After all, it was easy to disappear when you were supposed to have died a century earlier.
“You couldn’t just...grab someone else and make them disappear with you?” Harley knew the need to disappear, but she also knew she couldn’t survive alone. Oh she’d survive but she was more social than most people. She needed a person around to talk at and drive slowly crazy.
“Not in this case. Doing so would have tipped off Brother Adrian that something was going on. I understand that and why it was important to remain hidden, I was the best candidate to do it considering I was already searching for another Artifact for Artie and thus wasn’t around the Warehouse to be on Brother Adrian’s radar. Even with that said, it is hardly the best for the person attempting to acclimate to the 21st Century, as well as acclimating to living again, to be utterly alone.” Helena was upset by that, but it was the sacrifice she had to make for the job. “Yet even as I complain about it, I know it is part of the job, having to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. There is a reason Warehouse Agents rarely live to old age. They are either killed on the job, turn evil or go insane. I’ve had the rather rare fortune of being all three. Though I suppose since I am technically one hundred and forty-six years old at this point in the dreams that I also have lived to old age.” The last part was said with some bemusement.
Helena was the last person that ever deserved to be alone. Not after everything that had happened to her, and everything she’d done. Helena deserved a kind of peace that didn’t come out of a bottle or a gun barrel. “Being the good guy ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s why I have such a hard time with it. But even I know the difference between right an’ wrong.”
“It isn’t, but my dream self is trying to better than she was. She can never go back to the way she was before Christina died, she will always have that anger within her, but she is trying her best to not murder people again.” Though it was sometimes rather tempting to kill someone. That was an impulse that Helena had to wrestle with for the rest of her life.
Harley nodded her head, a slightly guilty look on her face. Trying not to murder people was harder than it sounded. It should be easy. Just don’t kill someone. But come on, where was the joy in that? Live a little! So to speak.
“Yeah, probably good not to kill people unless they deserve it.”
She saw that guilty look and gently rubbed Harley’s lower back. “It is, yes. But even saying that, it’s difficult to not kill people. Especially as my dream self has been through so many changes in a short amount of time, I am rather amazed she hasn’t snapped. Though I suppose I shall see how she responds to being utterly alone in the world.” Would she snap again and follow that dark path she’d been on before? It was entirely possible. She wasn’t entirely recovered from that, though she was far better than she had been.
“She might snap. God knows I’d snap.” Harley nodded, as though she understood what it took for a person to snap. And she’d snapped, bigly. So she understood. And she understood that Helena understood and understood that Helena understood she understood. Which was understandable.
“But remember you ain’t alone in this world. You ain’t gonna be! Ever!”
“I would not be surprised if she did.” Helena wasn’t optimistic, but she hoped that her dream self could find some strength within her to not lose her sanity again despite the odds being against her. But they always were against her, that was nothing new.
Helena looked at Harley and she managed a smile. “No, I am not. I have you, Christina, and the babies. And I am more than thankful for that.” She squeezed Harley in her arms.
“Life gives you lemons you make yourself some lemonade, and use the rest to squirt that juice right into life’s eyes.” Fuck ‘life’ in general. It was hard not to get depressed from her job, and some of her side projects.
“Precisely. And it serves life right for giving us lemons in the first place.” Helena replied. “I am happy neither of us is alone here.” Some days it was difficult getting through life without the dreams throwing wrenches into it all.
“I’m always so afraid,” Harley admitted. “Of being alone. Of losing you. Of becoming that girl that gave up everything she was.”
“You won’t be alone as long as Christina and I are here. There is far more to you than people give you credit for. And no matter what your dreams say, you have a choice here. You have a different life here. I won’t let you fall.” Helena took her vows seriously. She would be there to catch Harley if she fell and to pull her back up when necessary.
And Harley would pull Helena back from the brink, even if she might occasionally push her around the edge. She’d never push her in. She looked at what Helena was working on. “What if we turned that into a toy for Christina?”
Helena wasn’t opposed to being pushed around the edge. She was opposed to being pushed in. She then looked back at the device, her mind quickly, almost startlingly so, clicked over into the inventor mode. “It is certainly something we could do. What do you think we should make for her?”
“Something that’ll challenge her, but also make her the envy of her peers.” Harley adjusted glasses that weren’t actually on her face. “What about some kinda drone? Something cool, stealthy and red.” Because red was cool and fast okay?
“Oh yes, that would be brilliant. It should have lights on it as well. Or what if it was a scale model of something like the Stealth Bomber? Obviously it would not drop actual bombs, but it could drop something like water balloons.” Helena suggested with a smirk as she picked the device up. She started undoing some of the wiring she’d already done, needing to alter that so it would be wired properly.
“Water balloons and snowballs!” Harley had a vision of a whole fleet, of getting the neighborhood involved in a literal water balloon war with bombers and super soakers on mini drones and kids in little water tanks.
“Already planning to involve the neighborhood?” Helena asked, a knowing grin on her face, as though she was reading her wife’s mind. Though it wasn’t that much of a leap to get to that outcome.
“We’ll conquer everything!” Harley threw her fist into the air. “And crush our enemies and see them driven before us!”