Late 2009

The farmers taking in Tristan turned out to be a better decision than they could have originally hoped for in having another pair of 'helping hands' around. With his medical experience, Tristan had somewhat naturally fallen into the role of becoming the small tribe's defacto healer. Underneath it all though, as much as he enjoyed helping them, he also wanted to hurry up and get to Praxis. He had already burned over a year's worth of time by now (if the date on his 'useless' digital wrist watch was still counting correctly, it was now November 28th on the Surface), having around 4, maybe 5, months left before the younger version of his mother showed up, and another roughly ten months after that before his grandfather died. While aware of the time crunch, Tristan was also well aware that he still couldn't press too hard about personally getting to the city; so he semi-frustratingly continued to patiently waited his turn to eventually get chosen to go when the group felt more comfortable with him handling that trading responsibility. He couldn't blame them though. Clearance passes were hard to come by and pretty expensive, and one blotched trading haggle could easily set them back financially for a whole quarter of the season. It wasn't until about the fifth time that the group had visited one of the trade outposts to get their passes that Tristan ran across Gregory Magnus by accident.

As part of the Praxian medical guild, Gregory was currently tasked with making his way through the outlands with a small team to keep outpost physicians up-to-date on supplies; making sure they were well-stocked. Being that Tristan was his group's healer meant that it was mandatory for him to attend the meeting that was called for all medical personnel. It was there that he finally got to meet his grandfather for the first time.

Near the end of the meeting when the healers started to disperse and form more one-on-one discussions, Gregory didn't find the new enthusiastic face in front of him to be too out of the ordinary until the boy made a mistake of mentioning something that he knew only one other person would have known. Being the intelligent doctor that he was, Gregory started to secretly probe Tristan about what he knew of this secret. Gregory wasn't sure how it was possible as Helen never mentioned that she had finally birthed her second child while he visited her Sanctuary around a year ago, only Ashley, but the more the young man in front of him talked, the more he could see the resemblance between his daughter and her ex-fiancé. Not only that, but his personality reminded him a lot of Helen too.

Tristan didn't realize what he had accidentally done until it was too late and his grandfather pulled him aside to privately call him out on it. Being that Tristan felt like he was caught between a rock and a hard place, he eventually let everything slip as there was no denying that the jig was now up.

Back at the Underground Sanctuary, Helen and Ashley were sitting at the dining table in their private family communal area enjoying lunch when suddenly out of the blue Tristan walked into the room followed by the one and only Gregory Magnus right behind him. At the unexpected surprise entrance, both of the women shot straight up out of their chairs with looks of absolute shock and horror on their faces. Not disturbed by their reaction, Tristan made his way over to give his mother a big bear hug and a kiss on the cheek and then moved on to Ashley, to which after he gave her a hug she promptly gave him a whack on the back of the head as their mother warmly hugged their grandfather.

"Ow, what was that for!?" he grimaced as he rubbed his head.

"You weren't supposed to get him involved, remember?!" Ashley pointed out sternly, giving him a glare.

Tristan gave a massive shrug in response, raising his hands in the air. "He figured it out, I'm sorry!" he apologized.

"What gave him away?" Helen asked her father with a sigh, shifting her weight on her feet.

"He mentioned an old technique I used that only you could have known about," he said somewhat proudly.

Helen cast her eyes over at her son at that. She had a pretty good idea that what Tristan brought up was the same technique he asked her about just before he left on his trip.

"Go easy on him, it wasn't his fault, the boy is just a terrible liar," Gregory softly smiled.

Helen closed her eyes. "What did he tell you?" she asked waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop. If she knew her son well, he would be just like Ashley and blather details when he got caught red-handed.

"He informed me of your plan and from what I could gather, you're going to need my help. I need you to tell me more details about what is supposed to happen in your expected timeline, especially in regards to my involvement with the Holomap and Adam Worth. How was it possible that he was able to escape Praxis? He's currently in a state of suspended animation in their prison as we speak," Gregory questioned.

Helen then indicated for the group to sit down at the table before she explained. It was going to be a long story. "In less than two full months from now, Adam is reanimated by Fallon. Fallon thought that Adam could help her and other rogue factions perform a coup to dispose Ranna and Praxis' control over Hollow Earth."

Gregory's eyebrows perked up at hearing the soon-to-be treasonous betrayal.

Helen continued to speak. "Not long after Adam escaped, you accessed the Avatar Chamber without Ranna's knowledge to give Will a message to inform me of the holographic map; gifts that you gave me for my twenty-sixth and thirty-fourth birthdays. A few months later, Adam arrived in Old City looking for my map. We never found out for ourselves how Adam knew I had it."

Helen took a pause when a realization occurred to her; in that it wasn't just Adam who knew about it. She gave a questioning look towards her father. "When I ended up visiting Praxis not long after Adam found me, Ranna and I ran into you hiding down in the tunnels while we treated Kanaan. As you talked about when you accessed the chamber, you told Ranna that it was important that I needed to know that I had the map. During the discussion it seemed like it was common knowledge for her to know about me having possession of it. How did she know that I had it? Did you tell her you gave it to me? And another thing, why did you gift the Holomap to me as two separate pieces when you did? For just how long have you known about Hollow Earth and Praxis, Father?"

After taking everything in between what his daughter just now told him with what his grandson mentioned earlier at the outpost, mixing it with his own personal knowledge of events, Gregory sighed. "I found out about the existence of Hollow Earth during one of my expeditions when you were very young; I came across the map in some ruins. As I planned to eventually travel to the city, I decided to give the map to you for safe keeping, hoping that one day you could join me down here. In regards to Ranna knowing, yes, I told her. When I arrived at the city she wanted to know how I had found it. It's noted in the city's logs that I gave it to you. As for Adam knowing, Fallon might have accessed those logs, passing along the information. Once Gregory finished, he had a few questions of his own. "Can you tell me further about how it is Will that I communicate with in the avatar chamber and why you were having to treat Kanaan? He's in good health as of right now."

Helen then gave a CliffsNotes version of the issue involving Kali with Will becoming host to a Makri, the Makri dying, and all of the geologic activity that took place which caused parasitic trachnoids to get displaced into new territory leading to Kanaan becoming infected with a trachnoid queen.

As she finished, Helen was again hit by another moment that she couldn't explain. "All of this makes me wonder something," she voiced confused, looking at her father. "I never asked you how you knew to warn me about the map and Adam. I can't help but think that maybe this moment of sharing information is part of the reason behind it." Helen bit her lip.

Gregory shrugged his shoulders as he as well didn't know. "I wish I could tell you, but as I haven't reached that time yet, I can't say for certain how that would come to be."

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see how everything plays out then," she replied. Even though she still didn't have a certain answer to that question, Helen was at this moment certain of another thing. "However, before we even get there, I do know that out of everything that is to happen, it is that you cannot act on any of this information at all before you are supposed to. When you meet my other past self in about half a year, all of this has to be brand new to you, especially about Kanaan's health and Fallon's involvement with Worth. She wasn't outed as a traitor until just before Worth escaped the city a second time. You have to just let things play along outside of getting into the avatar chamber when you're supposed to, to fulfill that action. From what I know, you hide yourself down in the tunnels for several long weeks afterward until you eventually meet me on my way to treat Kanaan." A small afterthought occurred to her. "I also think it goes without saying that you shouldn't mention anything about 'this' me, or this moment, or anything about now and the new Sanctuary to anyone, including my other self, especially not about time travel, Ashley being alive, or Tristan existing," she emphasized.

Gregory nodded. "You don't have to worry about me spilling secrets," he smiled with a wink of his eye before continuing. "Being that I can't completely act off this information before your trip to Praxis in a few months time, tell me what information that I can act on after you leave, such as Tristan's involvement with Worth. He mentioned that Worth eventually destroys Praxis. How so?" he inquired.

"Just over a year after the start of the Kali incident, Worth completes his machine in January 2011 and sends the two of us back in time. Before he finishes however, he deliberately sets his machine off to destroy Praxis. Just before I left my time, John and I had traveled down to Praxis to check out what was going on there, as Ranna wasn't responding to our communication attempts to learn as to why Hollow Earth abnormals had started to come to the surface. While we were down there there, we found your broken walking stick in Ranna's chambers. I sent Tristan down to Hollow Earth now ahead of time to eventually spy on Adam, to keep track of his progress on his machine, hopefully learning ahead of time of when he plans to set it off in order to warn the city and evacuate its inhabitants, including you. At seeing your walking stick, I thought you had possibly died and I want to avoid that potential outcome from coming true," Helen said softly.

Gregory gave her a comforting smile as he reached over to give her hand a squeeze. "We'll just have to make sure that everyone makes it out safely, then," he assured her. "As for Tristan, I'll be able to get him into the city. When we return back to the outpost in just a few more minutes, I'll vouch for him and take him along with me on our way back to Praxis."

Just then, Helen remembered something important. "Father, make sure he doesn't go with you when you treat Kanaan. You and your team get caught in a magma pocket explosion, killing everyone but yourself. It would also be preferable that the two of you are mostly separated once you get to the city, to avoid Ranna and the council targeting him once you breach the chamber. Another thing, for the both of you, after my other self leaves Praxis and Fallon gets caught, Ranna imposes Marshall Law on the city to hunt down anyone part of the rebellion. It'll be very difficult to go snooping around looking for Worth. I'm hoping you two can look out for one another to accomplish that task without too much issue. Last but not least, when the time gets near to when Adam sets off his machine, remember that it emits a particular energy signature. That's how Praxis has been tracking him all this time. I know he set it off at least once in mid-late September 2010 before he uses it to destroy Praxis in January 2011. Look for a time dilation bubble that travels through the Earth's crust up to Carentan, France. It had been active for a couple weeks prior to my involvement on October 8th, 2010 to nullify it. That will be a warning signal to you to possibly start creating an evacuation plan of sorts, or at the very least get the two of you out of the city. He may very well set off the actual explosion not long right after that. I'm not sure how long it took for the Psych worms to surface once the containment fields from Praxis went out. The worms surfaced in the New Mexican desert just above the Mexico border about a week before I went back through time with Worth."

Gregory nodded his understanding and then looked down at his watch. At seeing the time, he made his way to stand and motioned for Tristan to come over to him. "Thank you for all of this invaluable information Helen, especially for the heads up about Praxis. Unfortunately, as much as I would like for us to stay with you and Ashley longer, we really ought to be heading back to the outpost before our disappearance becomes noticeable." And with that announcement, Gregory and Tristan moved to each gave their goodbye hugs and kisses to Ashley and Helen before teleporting away, leaving the two women to be alone once again with their meal.


Author's Note: I definitely hurt my brain trying to write this chapter having to stuff so many details in it and their respective time frames. I had intended to make this chapter longer, but I honestly can't do it and need to separate it into two parts.

In this chapter I've especially had a hard time trying to figure out the whole deal with Helen having the Hollow Earth map and Adam finding out about it. In the show, there is a scene with Fallon and Worth where she says she helped Adam get to Magnus' map just before Adam stuns her. In another scene when Helen, Ranna, and Kate meet Gregory in the tunnels, Gregory tells Ranna that he had to let Helen know that she possessed the map to which Ranna said he should have come to her first. I had to come up with some way of connecting all of that because the show writer's left giant plot holes of how Gregory could have known that Adam was going to go after Helen for her map and how Fallon even knew Helen had a map. This whole thing including getting wrapped up in Gregory getting 'lost' on his way to Mecca (retconned by the writers for him to have been in Praxis all this time instead of being frozen as seen in the episode 'Warriors') and to also have known about Hollow Earth for a very long time before that to have given Helen the Praxian map as gifts for her respective birthdays is really messy! I sometimes wish the whole thing with Hollow Earth never existed.