You know how I said Normandy wrecked my headcanon for James and Helen’s relationship? I’d put in Our Darkest Hour that they’d split, as Helen couldn’t live with James’ pain and her own. They’d obviously stayed best friends but that was why they weren’t living together in present day – they weren’t together together.

But Normandy put a spanner in that because James and Helen were definitely together romantically then. So why weren’t they together together? If they loved each other it made zero sense to me why Helen lived in Old City, James was head of house in London and they saw each other maybe once a year and barely talked otherwise.

However, this morning I woke up and it just came to me.

I still have 2 episodes of season 3 to watch but I’m not completely spoiler free I know season 4 has time travel. Helen goes back to the past and has to live a century over again. Well James knows about future!Helen (I know that much) and Helen doesn’t want to disrupt the timeline so she can’t do much, has to hide a lot of the time. Her past!self is living her life, so everyone she knows and cares about is off-limits pretty much – apart from James who knows.

Now James can’t have a relationship with current/past!Helen and future!Helen at the same time. He can’t tell current/past!Helen the truth, so her logical conclusion at his secrecy would be an affair. However, he can’t leave future!Helen to face the century totally alone. She doesn’t have anyone else.

Therefore that’s the reason for the distance between them. James probably made some excuse about politics, needing to stay in London etc. when Helen moved to Old City. I’m sure he would try and leave her in no doubt as to his feelings (and they certainly seemed to be on good terms in Revelations) but they don’t live together, as he needs to be there for future!Helen. If he was living with Helen, and sneaking off to see future!Helen, as I said the current/past!Helen would surely conclude an affair.

New headcanon! 🙂

I like this one. Current/past!Helen might be a bit confused, and never have totally understood why they aren’t together together. Then she has her time travel trip and suddenly it all makes sense.

Now I just need to concoct some way that James could theoretically have survived in Revelations (while appearing to die) so post-time travel shenanigans he can come back to life and be with Helen completely (as she’d merged with herself so to speak). Also it did just occur to me that I heard (but I’ve not seen so I don’t know if it’s true) that John disappears post-time travel event. I know there’s some kind of scheming going on so Helen doesn’t admit to her time travel adventure for ages, so that could be why James couldn’t come back to life, but then after Helen went back to her life he would be the one left alone unless John went to keep him company.

I’m going to have to write this aren’t I? This has got to be a thing.