taxonomites | 008. [ accidental visual / location: helen's lab ] that you'll find me, that you'll see me.

The Halloween Party had gone better than she hoped, even expected. The party ended and the events unfolded with the large green creature and retrieving Ashley. And then it was returning to work as normal. Rather, as it had been, as opposed to normal. Long hours going back and forth between her lab and her office. Hardly seeing anyone, except when Henry had found the Cabal Laboratory. Which had done little more than fan the flame.

Helen found herself up all night again. Continually testing the sample of blood that Claire had so kindly given her. Trying to learn how it worked when dealing with other samples. The results seemed to say that no matter the blood type, Claire's could bond with it and repair it. A universal donor. She then mixed a sample of Ashley's previous blood and Claire's, letting it settle before looking for the results.

Except she had fallen asleep with her forehead pressed to her hands. Having terrible sleep patterns were completely different from pure fatigue and exhaustion. Though her dreams were hardly ones that would lighten her mood, it took her a few moments to realize she had dozen off. And that it was now morning, given the sunlight coming in from the glass roof above.

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She gave him the Magnus Look. "Henry. I will give you letting someone else hook, but I'll hardly settle for people in my Sanctuary eating out of a hatch. I do have standards. And those are well below them."

"What?" He had expected this reaction, and to be honest? He didn't even mind it. "The food's not so bad. Okay, sometimes the chicken is still a bit raw in the middle, but whatever doesn't kill us?"

"Henry. Don't tell me you've actually been eating out of one of those horrid things." Helen stared at him with raised eyebrows. "Honestly, we have plenty of food in the pantry."

"Only some of the time," he broke into a grin, letting her know that he had been, mostly, joking. "Seriously, you should get some actual sleep. I'll take care of breakfast."

Helen rolled her eyes slightly. "I can eat before I sleep, Henry. Dr. Suresh was just here earlier." She turned off the screen and grabbed the shawl she had draped over the back of the chair. "Any changes in the security systems or EM shield?"

He held up his hands, his expression clearly saying that he had just been trying to help. Of course, when she asked about the security, it changed, Henry going immediately serious. "Yeah, I've done a few things. We don't need the same kind of sensors here, we're not dealing with all the variables of back home. So I've fine tuned them, and managed to reduce the surge strain on the EM shield. It's a start."

"Very good. Though, I want you to be able to place it up at the strength it is at home in case we ever need to." Helen began walking out of her lab, waiting for Henry to catch up. "Taxon is known to cause problems from time to time. If something goes wrong, I'll need it so that we can protect ourselves internally and externally."

"Absolutely," he actually smiled, "already on it. There's a failsafe to amp it back up to full strength if anything out of normal parameters hits the sensors. And-" he forestalled what he thought the next question would be, "there's a manual switch for it too. Just in case."

She smiled proudly at him. "Good work, Henry. Just as always." Helen turned inside the elevator. "Any preferences for breakfast?"

"Seeing as you've taking sausage and egg mcmuffin off the menu? How about pancakes?" He held his computer back against his chest, "even I can make pancakes. You can sit and watch."

"Alright. If you insist. Consider it a cooking lesson." Helen grinned at him. "You could add chocolate chips. Except Ashley might get a bit sour about that."

"The cooking lesson or the chocolate?" He joked, rolling his shoulders to loosen them. "We can make some without. I mean, we can, can't we?"

Cooking wasn't exactly his area of expertise.

"Of course." Helen nodded. "Before you arrived, Ashley glitched into being five years old. And wanted everyone to eat waffles with chocolate chips in them."

"She told me about that. The five years old," he explained, almost talking over himself, "not the waffles."

She grinned. "You know Ashley. She's always embarrassed about the girly things."

"Tell me about it," Henry didn't want to think about Ashley's early teenage years, even as he dug in a cupboard for what he thought he needed. "We should be happy she wasn't thirteen again."

008. [ accidental visual / location: helen's lab ] that you'll find me, that you'll see me.

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: helen's lab]

[location: sfa kitchen]

[location: sfa kitchen]

[location: sfa kitchen]

[location: sfa kitchen]