notsocommon | for Will

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for Will

Helen had taken a day to process everything she'd seen before going to talk to Will about it. She felt like she'd been neglecting Gregory somewhat in the process, so she took a day off from clinic work and her classes and just about everything to take care of her son. He seemed grateful enough for the attention, so much as a small baby could, and since Will wasn't around, she took her time giving him a bath and singing to him.

She had a terrible singing voice, true, but her father had always sung her little lullabies growing up and Helen wanted to pass that along to Gregory. She always wanted him to associate his Mummy with someone safe and kind. She always wanted him to know that being in her arms meant that nothing could ever harm him or frighten him.

"I'm sorry I've not been around, little one. Mummy's just had so many things to think about this week. It's nothing to do with you, I promise."

Maybe she could get him soothed and down for a nap before Will came in and then they could talk.

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Will knows when Magnus is up to something or hiding something she doesn't want him to know. He knows it because he knows her, and because he's seen it, and he just knows. She's been away a lot--and it's not like he expects her to spend every waking moment with him, that's ridiculous, but this is just weird--and he's not sure what to think about it.

So when a patient cancels an afternoon appointment, he decides to go home early and maybe if Magnus is home, they can talk.

He comes in silently, in case Greg's asleep, and he hears Magnus singing. To the baby, he guesses, and after a moment he can tell he's right; Magnus is singing to Greg in a low voice. He stands there listening for a moment, remembering, because that act of a mother singing to her child gives him a lot of feelings, and then he hears, I'm sorry I've not been around, little one. Mummy's just had so many things to think about this week. It's nothing to do with you, I promise.

Will's not sure what to make of that.

So he backs away and goes to sit in the front room so he doesn't wake Greg; it's time for his nap and he knows Magnus is putting him down for it.

Once Helen got Gregory settled in for his nap, she quietly walked out into the front room, shocked to see that Will was already home. She'd hoped she would have a little time to collect herself before he came home but she guessed she wouldn't be getting that luxury today.

"You're home early. I wasn't expecting you until somewhat later."

"Patient cancelled an appointment," Will says. "Thought I'd come home early." The way she's reacting to the fact that he's home early is weird and not really like her, either. "Should I... go back?"

"No, I just...wasn't expecting you just yet. It's fine," Helen said, giving him a little smile that she didn't particularly feel. It wasn't Will's fault that her head was all out of sorts the last week or so.

"Lucky you, an afternoon off?"

"Yeah, lucky me." Will drums his fingers against his leg, thinking. "I thought so anyway, having an afternoon off to spend with my wife and son, but you must have plans or something."

"No, no plans. Gregory's plans include sleeping," Helen said, smoothing down her skirt in order to help ease her nerves. It didn't help very much.

"I wanted to talk to you about something but I'm not entirely certain where to start."

That sounds ominous, Will thinks, and he's trying to think about what she might want to talk about with him with that kind of prelude--but not coming up with anything good. "Okay," he says. "What is it?"

"I stumbled upon something in the Compound a few days ago. These...reels, like film reels or, I suppose a television serial? It's about us, Will. All of it's about us. It's all wrong somehow."

Helen took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to find the words she wanted to use. "Our paths divert so greatly. We go through terrible things and instead of getting closer, I pushed you away. I locked you out and you ended up with someone else."

Oh. Those. On one hand, Will's relieved that it's nothing worse than that--she hasn't gotten any bad health news about her or Greg, and no one Will would rather not see has shown up on the island--but at the same time, he was hoping she would never find those reels. And it sounds like she's seen some of the same ones he has.

"I was hoping you'd never see those," he says.

"You hoped," Helen echoed, trying to work that out. Had Will been keeping this from her in hopes that she'd never actually find out?

"You've seen them already," she said, trying to stay cool. She imagined some of her hurt leaked through but she had gotten very good at checking her emotions over the last century.

"A while back," he admits. "I mean, I'd always assumed they existed, after hearing about similar things from other people, but I'd never seen them before. But one day... there they were. Just sitting there. I watched a few and I thought... well, it doesn't really seem like us." Weirdly, what had bothered him the most was seeing people like Ashley and especially Clara. It was like a slap in the face.

"How long did you keep this from me?"

Helen wasn't entirely sure that was fair, considering she'd been keeping the reels to herself for the better part of this week and had apparently, back home, kept a whole 113 years to herself but it didn't really seem in the spirit of marriage and communication that Will wouldn't tell her something so important as this.

"About... I don't know. A year or so ago?" Except he does know. It's not like he's going to forget that, or forget that he was so out of his mind and they had a slip up that resulted in Greg. "Are you pissed I didn't tell you? Because I didn't think you'd want to know. I've seen too many people lose their whole sense of self when they find out they're from a tv show or a book or whatever and I didn't want you to have to deal with that crap."

"So you made the decision for me? You just decided, oh, well, Helen's of the fairer sex and I can protect her? It doesn't work that way, Will. You don't get to decide what I should and should not know when it comes to my own life."

Strangely, this disturbed her more than the fact she was fictional. That seemed logical enough, considering the number of people she'd met on the island who were fictional in her world that she would be fictional in some of theirs.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Will's voice is low because he doesn't want to wake the baby, but he's pretty irritated that Magnus, who is like, the queen of keeping shit from him (apparently even moreso in the future) is lecturing him on keeping things secret. "Because first of all, it has nothing to do with you being a woman and everything to do with wanting to spare you needless bullshit, because I sure as hell didn't want to know about that damn show and I didn't think you would either, and second of all, you lecturing me on keeping stuff from you is pretty rich, considering there's stuff you maybe ought to have told me but I had to find out from a tv show. Like, my Harvard scholarship? I mean, I get why you kept it from me, and I'm not even pissed, but you cannot stand there and lecture me on not telling you things when you don't tell me everything."

Edited 2013-03-18 04:59 (UTC)

"I hardly find that your scholarship is relevant when we live on an imaginary island," Helen said coolly.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually remember everything I've said and done over the last century or so and had you asked me about it or had we even talked about your schooling, there's a chance it might have come up. As it was, it did not, and that's hardly...what do you expect me to do? Give you a full account of every second I've been alive? You'll be here a long time, Will."

"Not every second you've been alive," Will says, irritated that she's talking to him like he's a child. It's a little like... the Magnus from the episodes and he doesn't like it. "And not even every second that concerns me, although knowing a little bit about how you were controlling my life would possibly have been something I would like to have known. I just find it pretty hypocritical that you're pissed at me for keeping this from you when you're keeping stuff from me."

"I'll have you know that I haven't even lived that version of me yet so I'm not keeping anything from you. And obviously the things that have happened since we came here weren't orchestrated by me, unless you think my feelings for you are some elaborate lie. It's different, Will. This happened well after you married me."

It happened...oh bloody hell. It had taken her a moment to realize it but it appeared that Gregory had been conceived right around the time Will must have known about the reels.

"I'm not going to apologize for not telling you," he says. "I didn't think you'd want to know. This isn't something you can un-know. But hey, I'll be sure to tell you everything in the future, even if it sucks."

"Silly me, I thought being married meant actually discussing things." It was a cheap shot, meant to wound and bite simply because she was hurting and Helen knew it wasn't fair of her. It still didn't change the fact that she wanted to spread some of the pain around.

"Too bad John's not still here. You two could have a grand time talking about keeping things from me so that I can achieve your standard of happiness."

Wow. He has no idea what to say to the idea that he's even remotely anything like Druitt. "I keep one thing from you. One thing and you're comparing me to Jack the Ripper. I don't even know what to say to that." He throws up his hands in frustration and turns and walks out onto the porch, because the alterantive to going outside is saying something hateful that he doesn't mean and that won't help.

Helen wanted to stomp out after him but thought better of it. Her temper was hot and her words were cruel and it wouldn't go well for either of them if she pushed it.

Besides. She had some semblance of control if she waited him out and so wait she did, albeit not terribly patiently or gracefully.

Will doesn't know how he can go back in that room and look at her. She just compared him to freaking Druitt, when all he'd done was try to spare her the knowledge that her life was fictional and everything she'd done up to coming here didn't actually matter because it was all made up. Yeah, that really puts him on the same level as a serial killer. He's pissed enough that he kicks one of the porch's support posts, and that's really unsatisfying because it just makes his foot hurt. So he just sits down on the front step and tries to figure out what the hell he's going to say to that.

Helen waited a while before coming outside to actually see about Will. She had thought, surely, that Will would have cooled down before now but she supposed she was wrong on that account.

"Will?"

"Yeah." He's not as pissed as he was before, he's cooled off a little, but he's still a little short with the word. He doesn't get up, and he doesn't invite her to sit beside him. She might take it as trying to control her or whatever.

"I am sorry for the poor comparison. I shouldn't have said that," Helen said quietly. It wasn't often that she apologized but in this instance, it did appear to be warranted. She shifted a bit on her feet, unsure of what to say.

"I don't want to stay outdoors with Gregory asleep inside but whenever you're ready to come in, I'm happy to continue this discussion."

"He's asleep, in his crib, and we're on the porch," Will says. Her apology has softened his tone somewhat but he's still kind of hurt. "Nothing's going to happen to him. I'd rather stay out here. I don't want to wake him up with any of this."

"No, he shouldn't hear us fighting," Helen agreed. Will hadn't invited her to sit down so she stood, more uncomfortable as time went on.

"I'm hurt you didn't trust me. I just watched...apparently John wanted to use a time machine to go back to before we took the blood so that we'd be together and I wouldn't leave him. He wanted to erase everything - the Sanctuary, Ashley, you...I'm reeling from that still."

Edited 2013-03-18 15:39 (UTC)

"It had nothing to do with not trusting you," Will begins. He's caught up in the need to defend himself so much that he almost misses what Magnus says about Druitt and he stops and stares at her. "He did what?" Will thinks this must have been in the parts that he missed because he doesn't remember seeing anything like this.

"He and Adam made a deal, of sorts. If John would help him back to Hollow Earth, Adam would use their technology to send him back to 1888, before we took the blood, and John could change his past by preventing us from taking it. Adam lied, of course, and double-crossed him since he wanted to go to 1898 so he could save his daughter."

Helen sighed and worried her lower lip a bit with her teeth. "He said that he did this out of love. That he would change my life, your life, Ashley's...he would ruin everything so he could have me in his bed again. I wasn't pleased."

"Oh my God," Will says, and he's so angry that he can't say anything else for a minute. If he had known this when Druitt was here... well, he doesn't know what he would have done, but letting that bastard walk around like he was just another person with a blank slate would not have been an option. "He better be fucking glad I never saw that part," he manages after a minute. He can't even get his mind around the arrogance and utter disregard for other people that would allow someone to even think about doing something like altering history.

"I didn't...I suppose I don't take kindly to being lied to and manipulated. I still shouldn't have struck out at you," Helen said, thinking the additional apology wouldn't go amiss.

"I suppose...I am not terribly fond of the woman I've become on those reels."

Will's still too furious at Druitt to explain that he, Will, was not manipulating her, and would never manipulate her. Especially not like that. "You know, those people aren't us," he says. "Maybe they used to be, could have been, but they aren't now. Our lives are different than that now and if we're--we've had different experiences than those other versions of us. They're not us."

"Do you think this place is a hallucination? Did you see the one where we hallucinated that whole life?"

Helen didn't want to believe that her happiness on the island, that her marriage to Will and her son were the result of some carefully-applied neurochemicals. And yet...

Will tries to remember the episodes he's seen, but he can't remember anything like what she's describing. "No," he says. I don't think I saw that one... but I don't think this is a hallucination." He can't say why he's sure of that, but he is. "I mean... if anything, that, the whole TV show thing, that is the fiction and this, the island, is the reality." He refuses to believe otherwise.

"Perhaps. I don't know my why hallucinated world would include childbirth without pain medication," Helen said, laughing lightly. "Or include John and not Ashley. So perhaps this is the real one after all."

It still bothered her, not knowing the truth, but she guessed she ought not dwell.

"He was going to chance the whole--just go back and change things to they could be like he wants them." Will's still stuck on the monumental arrogance of John Druitt. The man's not even here anymore and he's still causing problems. Will wonders if he came here before or after he decided to rewrite history--not that it matters, but still, if Will ever sees him again he's going to punch him in his stupid face. "Sorry. I just can't get past that. I'm not surprised, though."

"He loves me, remember? He is so absolutely misguided by what he thinks he feels for me that he'd destroy everything I love and destroy who I am in order to have it," Helen said, disgust lacing her voice.

"If he were here still, I'd be hard-pressed not to hit him."

Will mutters a few things under his breath about what exactly he'd be hard-pressed not to do in that situation. "It didn't work, though, did it? There's that, at least."

"No, it didn't work," Helen assured him. "Apparently my response to all this was to skulk around for over a century and lie to everyone I know about everything. Oh, and to blow up my own house and go underground."

It all seemed patently ridiculous when spelled out like that and Helen wondered why, exactly, anyone would think she'd act that way.

"That part I saw," Will says. He didn't see any more after that--what if there isn't anymore? what happens if your tv-show "life" gets canceled? "And I didn't really like it, you know, but it made sense. I'm not really sure what else could have been done."

"Perhaps not," Helen said, unsure of what really to say. Taking a look at that version of herself and comparing it to who she was on the island, Helen didn't particularly like it. She'd never been very good at seeing fault in herself and being forced to examine it now was not an entirely pleasant experience. She touched his shoulder lightly, just the barest brush of her fingers, and tugged her hand away.

Will shifts on the step and turns toward her, reaching up to take her hand as she pulls away. "Either way, that's not you. Or me." He's not so sure he would have let Magnus push him away like that and he's also not sure about some of the other things he saw. "That's not us."

"No, it isn't," Helen agreed. She squeezed his hand lightly, hoping that this helped smooth over the last of their hurt feelings. She and Will didn't fight terribly often and Helen was glad of it. While her relationships with Nikola and John had always been fraught with argument and fun, in some ways, she had never particularly cared for how raw and empty she felt after fighting with Will.

"I should go check on him. It's been a while."

Will squeezes her hand, too. "I'll come with you," he says, and stands, but doesn't let go of her hand. He hasn't seen the little guy all day and just wants a peek.

"I am aware, now, that the timing of our son's conception aligns with when you found those reels," Helen said evenly. She didn't want to fight any longer but it would just consume her if she didn't discuss it.

"I know that it was an accident but I'm grateful that it happened. I love him and you very much."

"It was an accident that was totally my fault," Will says, and he hopes she realizes that they caused him enough upset--enough that he wasn't thinking straight--and that he didn't want Magnus to have to go through the same thing. "But it doesn't make me love him any less."

"Of course it doesn't," Helen said, scoffing at even the suggestion that he might.

Gregory was still quiet but had opened his eyes to look around a bit. Helen knew if she left him in the crib he would likely fall back asleep but she was torn between holding her son and letting him be for a little while.

"I think he'll go back to sleep if we leave him be but I sort of want to lay down with him myself. I haven't spent much time with him this week."

"Then we should do that," Will murmurs. He doesn't feel like things are resolved between them but they're not actively fighting and he wants to make a little peace, even if it's temporary. Greg's eyes are drooping again but Will thinks if they're careful, they can all settle on the bed together and Greg can go back to sleep.

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