Disclaimer: Sanctuary isn't mine, etc. etc.

Prompt: I have looked everywhere for a fic that really covers Tesla's time at SCIU and was really shocked I couldn't find one! So I wrote it! It's fully planned out until after SFN2 so spoilers for the whole show, we'll see if I go past a few "days" after the events of the finale.

Timeline: I'm trying to stick to roughly when the episodes aired, so Awakening was mid May, Into the Black through the events of Uprising is early June, etc.

Naming: See end section

Chapter 1 – If You Can Find Me, I'm Here

Nikola Tesla was a vampire again and he felt abso-fricking-lutely incredible.

Of course, the events leading to his resurrection could've gone better. He hadn't liked getting a laser to the gut, and he'd passed out without getting to see Helen go postal on that crystal to get Afina's blood. Also, Afina had been kinda a bitch. Finally, Helen had destroyed the Hollow Earth map, which, while admittedly had been a genius and touching move to save his life, was also quite the unfortunate loss.

But he was back. Back to his immortal, eternal, constantly healing, indestructible self. He'd even kept the magnetic abilities, which was a bonus. While the electricity had been useful in more direct ways, a few months of mortality had led to some clever applications of his magnetism. Plus, the jokes were funnier.

He'd left the Sanctuary after Helen was called away over some kind of… worm-thing. He hadn't really been paying attention, it'd been dull, and almost the whole crew had left to go chase after it. Now it was time to get back to his work.

His work. Right. Well….

He'd spent the last few months with only one focus, restoring his vampirism. Before that, he'd been focused on the kiddie vampires in Mexico, and before that he'd been working on his thralls and avoiding the Cabal.

Mulling over the events of these last few years lead to a rather painful conclusion, one he would not tell a soul, not even the lovely Dr. Helen Magnus. He simply couldn't bear to see her smirk.

I need to stop trying to revive Sanguine Vampiris.

After all, where had it gotten him? His thralls had been dumb and thoughtless, almost killing Helen before he could stop them. (He really hadn't meant "kill" kill her… ) The vamp tykes had showed him just how dangerous it was to recruit from the current "ruling class", entitled upstarts that they were. It was becoming more and more clear to him that any vampires he made wouldn't be guaranteed to follow his line of thought and he just wasn't a team player.

As for other vampires that might be in stasis… Afina had left a rotten taste in his mouth that had only been washed away by several glasses of Merlot. The nerve she had, calling him a mongrel. He had helped her, attempted to smooth things between her and Helen, and she had rejected him as a fake, a mutt.

Worst of all, she'd compared him, negatively, to "pure-blood" vampires. Helen often teased that he was only part-vampire, but she did it to remind him of his, well, humanity; she didn't think of him as somehow less of a vampire. Afina's reaction to him had stirred up old wounds, carved into him by a century of watching humans kill each other over superficial labels. No matter what Afina claimed, she really was no better, and he was starting to doubt that other vampires would be any different.

So here he was, back. Back to his full potential, but with all of his work from the last few years discarded. What should he do?

He nearly laughed out loud at that thought, which would've disrupted the atmosphere of the quiet yet lavish Parisian restaurant whose wine stores he was currently depleting.

The great Nikola Tesla, with inventor's block. That simply would not do.

He still had not gotten a chance to see Hollow Earth, and he'd barely scratched the surface of the map before Helen had destroyed it. Yet he'd found the technology disturbingly advanced; he doubted whether he could just start hacking his way through the copy of her database he'd swiped on his way out. He certainly couldn't go there himself, not with his vampire status restored – Helen had had a hard enough time with that, even with Gregory's assistance.

So where did that leave him? Well, the Praxian tech he'd spent the most time on had been Adam's teleportation nodes, though at the time he'd been focused on the radiation output that had made Helen sick…. Maybe if he focused on how the device achieved the teleportation effect…

And how as it powered anyways? He and Henry hadn't discovered that either. Perhaps, if it was organic tech, it used some biological form of internal energy production…

Also, Adam had been a chemist, not a biologist nor an engineer. How had Adam built the damn thing anyways? Had he stolen it? Who from?

It was lucky that he'd taken one of the nodes from the Sanctuary.

Well, perhaps not "lucky" per se. What's one of dozens anyways?

Now he just needed to get to one of his many hidden labs and acquire some supplies…

Scientific discovery is a powerful, time-altering drug, especially in the hands of a vampire. Before Nikola got around to checking in on the world outside his lab, it had decided to come knocking on his door – and it brought its checkbook.

So, that's my starting point! Hope the writing style is all right. I won't be straying from Tesla's perspective so it's a mix of third person narration and inner monologue.

Naming: I put this here instead of the top because it's a bit long. Basically, in my head, Tesla is the epitome of the classic, cultured Manhattan bachelor, which means he must be a Stephen Sondheim fan. If you aren't familiar with Sondheim's musicals, this isn't a songfic, don't worry! But as I planned out this story (yes, it's planned!) some of his song titles were just perfect fits for the chapters, so I couldn't resist. I'll explain them at the end of each chapter, for anyone who's curious.

"Putting it Together": Probably the most meta, semi-autobiographical song ever, it's all about what it takes for an artist to create in the modern world. Tesla's self-centered enough to see his job at SCIU as simply part of "the art of making art", or in this case, "the art of making dangerous rift-tearing energy generators".

"If You Can Find Me, I'm Here": A poet decides his genius isn't properly being appreciated by the crass, boorish world and goes into seclusion to focus on his work. Sound familiar?

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