Regarding Adam

[notsocommon]

Nikola's arrival still had her reeling. She'd been dying for Christ's sake and there was apparently nothing anyone could do about it. Nikola was still obsessed with that puzzle, too, so he had to have been rattled to the core and truly thought she was on death's door to be that worried about it. And Adam. Adam. Alive and wreaking havoc like he had in Old London and Helen had no idea what to do with that. She'd talked to Sookie about it in passing, a dark secret confessed when Sookie had confessed killing someone in her boyfriend's version of Bristol and Helen never thought she'd actually have to deal with that and process it.

He wasn't even dead. John had seen to that. John always muddled her plans and made them nigh recognizable, even the ones she hadn't wanted to go along with anyway.

It was a heavy heart and heavy steps that brought her back home and she let herself in quietly, teeth worrying her lower lip. What was Will going to think of her?

Comments

[inabmovie]

Will took his time getting home. What he'd learned from Tesla had thrown him for a loop--Tesla himself was bad enough, but throwing this on top of it and his head was spinning.

"Hey," he said, when he came in; it looked like Magnus had just gotten home, too. "I um... saw Tesla, earlier." Best to get that out there up front.

[notsocommon]

"As did I," Helen said, giving him a little smile. "I told him he couldn't stay with us, at least. We'll be spared that indignity."

He hadn't taken the news of them being together so well.

[inabmovie]

"Whew," he said, genuinely relieved. He'd hoped Magnus's compassion for an old friend wouldn't extend to giving him a place to sleep. Will didn't think he could stand it even if Tesla could. "You uh... I guess you saw what he brought with him?"

[notsocommon]

Helen nodded. "It seems I didn't have anything to worry about, giving up my immortality. I was dying anyway, wasn't I? At least here, I can't imagine it'll be a painful and gruesome death like radiation poisoning."

[inabmovie]

"Just because Tesla doesn't know how to solve it doesn't mean you weren't cured," Will pointed out quickly. "I'm sure that somebody figured it out in time. Probably you," he said, "because you're brilliant like that." He'd seen his own handwriting in some of the notes in her file, but this kind of thing was way, way beyond him.

[notsocommon]

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about Nikola in our bedroom," Helen said, tone sharp enough to imply she wanted him to put an end to that. "You're the only man I want to talk about in here."

[inabmovie]

Will was caught totally off guard by her tone and her words, and he just stared at her for a minute. Then he said, "Well, maybe we should go in another room, because I don't really want to drop this right now."

[notsocommon]

"I just spent the last hour with him pawing all over me, forgive me," Helen said, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have been sharp with you."

More to discuss. Christ. He didn't know about Adam, did he?

[inabmovie]

"It's okay," he said, and touched her arm, rubbing her shoulder a little. "Are you all right?" This news plus the fact that Tesla was here at all had to rattle her.

[notsocommon]

"I could be better," Helen admitted, giving him a little smile. "I've had a lot of shocks today, unfortunately, and as happy as I am to see Nikola, I'm not sure how to handle his news."

[inabmovie]

"Come here," Will murmured, and eased his arms around her for a hug. Sometimes physical comfort was best with Magnus, especially since words sometimes weren't enough.

[notsocommon]

"I don't want to die," Helen murmured against the skin of his neck, clutching tight. "I'm going to die no matter what I do, Will, and I'm frightened. I don't want to waste my life."

[inabmovie]

Will rubbed her back, holding her close. "You're not going to die, not right now," he said. "And your life is far from a waste, believe me. Think about everything you've done that most people can't even imagine."

[notsocommon]

"I'm going to...I was sick, Will, back home. I was going to die back home," Helen murmured. "Nikola didn't think he was going to be able to solve it, Will. What if he hadn't?"

[inabmovie]

He shook his head a little. "Like I said, just because Tesla couldn't figure it out doesn't mean it wasn't going to get solved. Medical science isn't really his thing, more like... insane inventions."

[notsocommon]

"I hadn't figured it out yet either," Helen murmured. "What if I don't figure it out in time, Will? We need James. More than anything, I need James and why did this damned island give me Nikola instead?"

[inabmovie]

"Okay, look." He took her shoulders and squeezed a little, looking at her. "There's nothing we can do about it here. I know it's hard to accept that, but I think you're going to have to. I think it's one of those things about this island, the way it works, the way things in our future don't affect the lives we have here. And if you get too caught up in it, if you obsess over it, it's going to eat you up inside."

[notsocommon]

"What if I have this illness here and I don't know it?" Helen asked, voice trembling slightly in fear. "I mean, it's unlikely...it looked like radiation poisoning...but what if? I don't...I haven't gotten a chance to live with you yet, Will. I don't want to die now when I have a chance to be everything I can't be back home."

[inabmovie]

He shook his head. "No, no way," he said. "You don't have it. It's--whatever happened, it had something to do with this Adam Worth guy, and I don't even know who he is. It's something that happens in our future, there's no way you have it here and if you did you'd know it by now."

[notsocommon]

"Adam's nobody you'd care to know," Helen said darkly, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "If he's responsible, there's no telling what or how he came about the cause of it. Deviant, twisted man."

[inabmovie]

"If he's responsible for hurting you, then you're damn right I want to know who he is," Will said. "You know this guy? This Adam Worth?"

[notsocommon]

"He wanted to be part of us, part of the Five," Helen explained, voice trembling a little. She was so frightened to know he was still alive and was even more frightened to know that Will would know this about her.

"His experiments weren't...he didn't want to better the world, Will. He was a threat."

[inabmovie]

"So he's somebody you knew back then? Back at Oxford?" Will asked, shaking his head a little. That was something he wasn't expecting. "How in the world is he still alive? Did he get the source blood too?"

[notsocommon]

"I have no idea how he's alive, Will. Not only did he not take the source blood, I..."

Better out with it, Helen.

"I killed him, Will. I shot him and I saw him fall from a cliff with my own two eyes. I can't imagine how he could have...I don't know how he's alive."

[inabmovie]

"You killed him?" Will was incredulous; unless there was something more going on here than Magnus was telling him, killing someone for dubious experiments seemed a little over the top. "Why?"

[notsocommon]

"He threatened everything we'd worked for, Will," Helen said, unsure of how to explain something she'd done over a century before. "He was unstable...especially after his daughter died. He was a liability we couldn't withstand."

[inabmovie]

Will was still confused, like he didn't have some piece of critical information that would make this make sense. "Okay, I feel like I'm missing something here," he said. "What do you mean, he was unstable and a threat to your work?" Now he wished he'd had a closer look at the other file, but he had been so focused on the bit where Magnus was dying and Tesla wasn't giving him any information that he hadn't really cared.

[notsocommon]

"There was the bit where he tried to destroy London," Helen said dryly, then sighed. "The King threatened to take away everything I worked for, Will. Everything James and I built. We had to neutralize Adam's threat. I made the best decision I could."

[inabmovie]

Will wasn't sure he liked where this was going, but he still had to know more. And the king was involved, too? "Okay," he said, "just... can you start at the beginning and tell me everything? Because I'm not really seeing how this all fits together." Sometimes when Magnus talked about her past, he thought maybe she forgot that he wasn't there, didn't experience all the things she did, didn't get all the details she took for granted.

[notsocommon]

Helen sighed and rubbed at her temples for a moment.

"His daughter, Imogene, had a rare form of leukemia. He implored James and myself to help her and we did what we could but we refused to give her the Source blood. Considering John's reaction, we didn't want to chance giving it to a child. She died under our care and Adam blamed us, me in particular. He thought I was always trying to keep my boot on his throat...anyway. He was always a bit mentally unstable but losing Imogene just made it worse. He tried to poison London's water supply with cyanide and the king...the king threatened to take away my Sanctuary if I didn't handle the situation. We were trapped between bad and worse, Will. What was I supposed to do?"

[inabmovie]

Will had often wondered how Magnus had managed to get the backing of so many governments, how she'd gotten the not quite official but very necessary sanction for her work. And now it was starting to make sense.

"So...you took care of Adam, so you thought, and the King let you keep your work," he said slowly. He really wanted to ask her when she was going to tell him this, but he wasn't sure he could ask it because he didn't think he was going to like the answer.

[notsocommon]

"More or less," Helen said, sighing a bit with the memory. "I hated feeling trapped that way. I hated being told what I could and could not do but it was the only way, Will. He was going to kill so many people. It was the only thing that could be done."