A/N: Hello everyone! This is my take on everyone's favourite episode, Awakening, well except for Sanctuary For None Part 2 of course;) With a twist! This was written to a lot of Adele's music especially 'Make You Feel My Love' which is so Teslen it hurts! A big huge shout out and cyber hug goes to chartreuseian because without her this story would not have seen the light of day!And you can thank her for the title of this, 'cause I do! Thank you, honey for putting up with my frantic e-mails at all hours! Hope you all like this, reviews are love and I can't tell you how excited it would make me to see them:) And any critique would be most welcome!xxx
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Sanctuary or Helen and Nikola, wish I did:( Just taking them out to play, so please don't shoot me! Also don't own the lyrics to 'Make You Feel My Love', that honour belongs to Bob Dylan:)
Fair Trade
Part One
Helen was in her office, staring at the same page she'd been contemplating for the past fifteen minutes but her mind was not on the job at hand. In fact it was back in lab where she left a certain ex-vampire drowning his sorrows in a very old and not to mention expensive bottle of Merlot. Though she supposed she could forgive him for drinking her cellar dry. He did, after all give up on his latest plan for world domination at her very insistent request thus abandoning the fresh batch of vampires he'd intended to create though the fact that it all went horribly wrong as usual probably had something to do with it. He and his hare-brained schemes were the entire reason she couldn't focus on the reports before her. Nikola Tesla; walking distraction.
She needed to focus, clear her mind of all thoughts of the pesky vampire so that she could finish these blasted reports. With this in mind she strode across to the coffee table where her tablet lay abandoned picked it up, brought up her music playlist on screen. Hitting the icon entitled Debussy she double-clicked and waited for the strains of 'Clair de Lune' to waft over her. But instead of the soothing sounds of Debussy all she heard was a song that would have been more to Ashley's taste than her own.
Ashley - God how Helen missed her daughter. Missing her was a constant ache in her heart, which she was certain, would never entirely heal. Henry must have been tinkering with the tablet again. She would speak to the young HAP in the morning. She let the song play with tears streaming down her face as she listened to the lyrics. 'When the rain is blowing in your face and the whole world is on your case, I could offer you a warm embrace to make you feel my love'… Yes she was certain Ashley would've loved the song but she pushed away the sad thoughts, focusing instead on the task at hand. What to do with Nikola?
Nikola being de-vamped could cause quite a few problems for Helen. She realised that her wine cellar was going to take a bigger hit than usual and she had better reinforce Nikola's lab in case of explosions. She figured it was entirely probable given the extent of his frustrations. But those problems were nothing compared with the dilemma she found herself faced with now. What was she going to do if she couldn't find a way to reverse the effects of the 'De-vamper' as Nikola has termed it? He truly was terrible at naming things, she grinned to herself. Tears stung her eyes once more as she realised she would miss her dear friend just as much as Ashley if he were to die.
Momentarily she allowed herself to dwell on the fact that deep down, she knew Nikola was more than a friend and that she'd been thinking that way for quite some time now. The possibility of losing Nikola was unfathomable and rocked her to her core. For some reason she just knew she wouldn't be able to survive without him and there was a lot more to it than Oxford and The Five.
She can't survive without him, she mused to herself. "When did having Nikola around become to integral to getting through each day?" she wondered internally. Oh heaven's this was not good, Nikola was insufferable at the best of times and if he got wind of this... Well she didn't even want to think about where he'd take that information!
But regardless of what he would or wouldn't do with that piece of information, she was determined to do everything in her power to help him reclaim his vampirism because, as much as she may have assured him otherwise, he just wasn't the same without it. Of course it meant she'd have to keep whatever these feelings were to herself for now for she'd not risk letting Nikola know what she thought she might be feeling.
First things first though, she had to endeavour to cheer him up and, she realised with a smile, what better way to achieve that than by going on a field trip that could utilise his considerable genius? Plus it would give him a much needed ego boost. She'd been studying the Praxian map for some time and now, she was relatively certain she'd found the last known Praxian stronghold. So, she decided almost instantly, they were off to East Africa. Alone.
