ageplot EP

[notsocommon]

Helen had never been away from home without her father and now she was on some strange island with a husband and a baby, neither of which she remembered. She had always prided herself on never fainting but she had come very close when waking up without a stitch of clothing in bed next to a man.

Will had been kind enough to explain that there was a place to get tea and to relax and that was where Helen was now, trying to soothe her jangled nerves. It was terribly awkward, the whole situation, made even worse by this strange technology she did not understand and these people she did not know.

"How much time have I missed? How many years in the future is it now?"

[PB aside, she looks enough like Magnus to be recognizable - just blonde and 17.]

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[swan_diver]

It took her a moment, but her mind came around to it eventually. The island must have struck with its craziness again, kind of like the morning she woke up half naked with Edward and no idea how she'd gotten there since she'd been in bed with Craig when she'd fallen asleep.

"Don't worry about it," Bella said with a friendly smile, "its the sort of thing you get used to living here. I'm Bella Cullen and this," she patted the baby's back through the sling, "is Renesmee. You first met her an hour or so after she was born."

[notsocommon]

"I have a son myself, apparently, though I cannot remember having married or given birth. He's called Gregory."

Helen would not have believed it except Gregory looked like an even mix of she and Dr. Zimmerman and so it had to have been the case that he was her son. Besides, the name.

"Was I your physician at the time?"

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"You were, and are," Bella smiled, "but you didn't deliver her. Ness decided she was a little too eager to meet us and didn't give us time to get to the clinic, so that task fell to my husband. I'm more worried about you, though. How are you handling this...ah...whatever it is? Island craziness?"

Her second thought was for Will, and how hard it must've been for him to wake up with a very young girl in bed with him.

[notsocommon]

"No harm has come to me," Helen said, smiling a bit nervously.

"And I suppose that is the best thing I could have asked for. The doctor has not asked that we resume our traditional marriage and all that it entails and he has cared for the child. I think it'll be all right, until I'm used to things."

[swan_diver]

Knowing what she did about Will, she had no doubt that he'd be doing everything he could to make sure his island-messed-with wife was as at ease as she could be under the circumstances. "Will's a good man," Bella confirmed with a nod and a smile. "Almost as much so as my husband, but I think it's part of the wife's code that I have to say things like that. Glad as I am to hear that you haven't been harmed, but I more meant your mental adjustment. I was about your age when I first came here and it can be a lot to get used to."

[notsocommon]

"Well, there is nothing to do but carry on. Being frightened doesn't help anything," Helen said, smiling nervously. "But nothing is wrong at the moment. Everything is just a little too modern and unfamiliar and I just...what do I know about being a mother? Or a wife? I've never even been courted before."

[swan_diver]

Bella hid a smile and a soft laugh with a kiss to the baby's head because whatever else, it seemed Helen was just as pragmatic as a teen as she was the way Bella knew her now. "I'm not sure I've ever had a more ironic conversation in my life," Bella replied and pulled Ness from her sling. "We met when I was newly pregnant with Ness. You had Gregory with you at the time and I was having a few bad moments about having a baby since I'd never even held a baby before. You handed Gregory to me and put my mind at ease."

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"I'm afraid I will be terrible at being a mother. I've never had one of my own," Helen admitted quietly. It was something she thought she might want someday but certainly not now. Not when she wanted schooling instead.

"But I suppose when I'm older I am not so terrible. How old am I when you know me?"

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"I've never asked," Bella said with a shrug and she was able to stave off the flush to her cheeks that indicated her less-than-truthful answer. She told herself it was a complete lie - she'd never actually flat-out asked, after all.

"But if I were to guess, I'd say somewhere in your late twenties." Bella supported Ness in her arms, letting her little body breathe a bit after being cooped up in the sling.

[notsocommon]

"So not that much older than I am now. How strange, that so much time should pass," Helen mused. "I feel like I've missed so much just by going to bed last night and waking up this morning. So, tell me about yourself, Bella. Do you have a husband or any other children?"

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"Not much to tell about me," Bella replied with a smile. "I do have a husband; his name's Edward, and Renesmee is our first child. I think both of us would like to have another at some point, but right now, having Ness here is still a little too fresh in my mind to think about that. I've been on the island almost two years now, Edward a little less than that. He arrived about five months after I did, but from a different time of our lives back home."

[notsocommon]

"Is that so common? To come from the same place but different eras?" It was Helen's understanding that Will came from a century later from her, though she wasn't entirely sure how that was possible. She suspected it had its roots in her father's research.

"Will is from so much later than me. I thought I was the only one."

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"I think so, yeah. There are four of us here from my hometown, and we've all come from different times. My best friend cam from just a few weeks after I left, but he had no memory of me disappearing from Forks.And he'd been here for two years when I showed up." Bella smiled and laughed a little. "It's enough to give you a headache if you try and think about it too much."

[notsocommon]

"I think I need something stronger than tea to process that," Helen said, laughing lightly. She never drank anything stronger than a bit of watered wine but she supposed the sentiment might translate all the same.

"I like it, I suppose. I am just a bit concerned as to the permanency of my stay. I shouldn't like to deprive my son of his mother or my husband of his wife but I do not have those memories. It frightens me to try and work through it and I end up running instead."

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"I don't think anyone would deny you the impulse to distance yourself from things that upset you," Bella nodded once. "If it helps put your mind at ease in any way, Will is a good man and I know he'll give you every thing you need, including space. I will admit nothing like this has ever happened while I've been here, but I have heard of things like this before. They've always gone back to normal after a day or two."

[notsocommon]

"I suppose I can endure just for a few days," Helen said, comforted by that. She settled her tea cup back on the saucer and watched the baby for a moment. She had never really been around one before now and it was fascinating when she wasn't expected to care for it herself.

"Women don't have nannies here, I presume?"

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Bella followed her gaze to the baby in her lap. "We have the Children's Office, a sort of 24 hour day care, but no, I don't think there are any dedicated nannies here."

She turned the baby in her arms more towards Helen and smiled. "Would you like to hold her?"

[notsocommon]

"I...suppose," Helen said. "I am nervous about this, as you can imagine. I've never held an infant before."

And yet, now, she was a mother and responsible for a child almost as young as this one. It was a frightening prospect.

[swan_diver]

"I can imagine," Bella smiled. She really liked the symmetry of the moment. "In much the same way you could when you put Gregory in my arms nearly a year ago. Just keep her head supported and you'll be fine. I know it."

With practiced ease, she transferred Ness into Helen's arms.

[notsocommon]

It was strange but it seemed instinctual in a way, cradling a child. Helen could imagine that she did do this with Gregory and was as comfortable with him as Bella seemed with her daughter.

"She's perfect. Oh, how I wish I had a girl now. In...addition, not instead."

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"My mom always said that pregnancy and babies are contagious," Bella smiled, watching the other woman and her daughter. "We got very lucky with her. She's a wonderful baby and barely fusses at all. Just when she's tired or hungry, or has something not very pleasant in her diaper."

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"I think that happened to Gregory earlier. Will handled it," Helen said, giggling lightly. She traced a finger along Renesmee's soft cheek.

"She's beautiful. So beautiful. I think she looks like you."

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"Good for him. There's just something about a guy not afraid to conquer a dirty diaper." Bella giggled right along with Helen, her eyes falling on the soft pink cheeks and rosebud lips. "Thank you. That's what Edward says, and I see a little of me in there, her hair, and her eyes. I even see a little of my father, too."

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"I have not met your Edward, so I cannot say if she favors him or not, but I definitely see you."

Gregory seemed to favor Will, mostly, but Helen wondered if she could see some of herself in her own child.

"Thank you, Bella. This is helping."