Response to Gateworld's Helen/Nikola Ship thread challenge! Hm, it needs an acronym. GWHNSTC! Hooray! Anyway, this is January's challenge: "Snowed-In". Half of it is back and forth snippy arguing, but there's plenty of fluffy goodness as well. Bit of pre-ship. Also, it takes place after "Sleepers", so if you haven't seen it, please go away, watch, enjoy, and then come back. Shoo, shoo!

Everyone still reading: Please Enjoy!

Don't own Sanctuary. If I did, this ship would be canon before you could blink.

We Never Speak of This

"Well this is just perfect," Helen spat, kicking the nearest thing to her foot.

Unfortunately, the nearest thing happened to be Nikola Tesla's leg. He winced, mouth open in pain and stared up at her for a moment before releasing the actual, audible complaint. "Ow?"

"Sorry," Helen muttered unconvincingly.

"Look, just sit down," Nikola tried to reason. "It's hard to make a fire when you keep marching through the fuel and kicking me."

With an irritated huff, Helen sat straight down on the floor across from Nikola. He held her glare a moment longer, as if making sure she wasn't going to leap up and start ranting again. Then he looked back down at the scraps of wood on the floor and the lighter in his nearly-frozen hands.

It wasn't so long ago that he would have been able to snap his fingers and create a spark to light the pile of timber. Not so long ago, he wouldn't have had to worry about hypothermia either. But now his body shook from the chill of snow clinging to his skin and hair, and he was barely able to set fire to the wood. When he did, however, a boyish grin of triumph stretched his mouth. By the time he looked up at Helen, though, the smile had turned more cocky than childlike.

"Told you I could do it."

"Fine." Helen snapped. "It doesn't change the fact that you got us stuck here."

Nikola scoffed and stood from the filthy floor. "I fail to see how this is my fault, Helen."

Helen watched him in shock for a few minutes as the OCD genius picked vainly at his wet and filthy jacket, brushing off both real and imagined dirt. The snow from the storm outside—which they'd barely escaped from and into the tiny cabin—was already melting off of their clothes and hair because of the fire. At least the little ten-by-ten room was easy to heat.

"You're the one who said we should go left for a shortcut down the mountain back to base camp!" Helen finally spluttered.

Nikola's almost-silver eyes went wide in innocence. "My dear, I believe my exact words were: 'I'm feeling left. Then again, you're the leader.' You chose."

"Oho!" Helen sniped right back, eager to vent. "But right after that humble little comment you muttered under your breath, 'I am a genius, however, with incredible intuitive abilities.'" She mimicked his voice quite well in her opinion.

"You're still the one who picked left."

It never ceased to amaze her how childlike the over-a-century-old man could be at times. She glared at him a moment longer before sighing in disgust, turning her eyes heavenward as if God himself would send an angel to pluck her out of the one-room hell and away to a happy place. Somewhere warm. Maybe Malibu…

"Regardless of whose fault it is," Helen said, biting off the words, "we are stuck here until the storm subsides and in this part of the world, that could be days."

"I know that, Helen. You don't have to talk down to me like I'm that protégé of yours."

Helen rolled her eyes with a groan. "I can't even begin to imagine spending more than a few hours in this close space with you. I'm already losing my mind."

To her shock, Nikola looked extremely hurt. And it wasn't one of those emotions he quickly covered up with snark or arrogance. The knotted eyebrows and parted lips stayed for several seconds, long enough for the image to burn itself into Helen's brain. The only thought she was conscious of was:

Blimey, when did he get so…cute?

But then he was looking at the floor, the wall—anywhere but her eyes. "I'll try not to speak much, then," Nikola said, his voice low. "We have enough supplies. I don't need to eat much. I've gone for more than a week without food, easily."

"A week?" Helen asked, eyebrows up. "That's impressive."

Nikola accepted her slight waving of the truce flag with a tiny smile. "I'm very good at self-denial."

His gaze slipped down to her lips and lingered a moment too long before he looked toward the door and the blizzard howling outside. Helen shook her head slightly to clear it. Was she imagining things now? Possibly another Yeti in the snow messing with her mind?

"…and if we ration the available timber for firewood," Nikola was saying, "then we'll be able to make it several days."

"If we ration the fire, how do you propose we keep from freezing to death on the hours we have no heat?" Helen asked, partially in bitterness, but partially also in curiosity.

Nikola smiled with that penetrating, suggestive look he'd perfected so well. "We could always use our body warmth."

Helen fixed him in a no-nonsense glare. Though deep down, she knew survivalist-wise, that was their best bet. Nikola knew that she knew, as well, so there was no need to speak any more on it. In the short silence, she was mildly surprised to find her mind wandering to a daydream-like state.

She saw herself and Nikola wrapped in each others arms and swathed in blankets. Helen's head rested on his chest contentedly, eyes closed with a soft smile as her fingers traced lightly through his hair. For the first time in oh, so many years, his body was warm. She could feel the heat from his skin matching her own. And the leanness of his body—

Helen jerked herself free of the sudden—but not so unwelcome—vision and quickly ducked her head to look in her pack, hiding her sudden and fiery blush. It had been decades since she'd blushed. What was wrong with her?!

A yelp of pain caused her to snap her head back up. Nikola was cradling one of his hands against his body, his face set in agony.

"What happened?" she exclaimed.

"One of the logs needed to be shifted," Nikola explained sheepishly, still grimacing. "I reached in to move it."

Helen openly stared before cursing loudly. "Nikola! You're mortal! Things like that don't heal immediately, now!"

"They also hurt more," Nikola muttered, tears of pain shining in his eyes, but refusing to fall.

Helen sighed deeply and crawled over to the ex-vampire, snagging the first-aid kit on her way. "Let me see that."

She grabbed his wrist and firmly drew his hand out from under his jacket. His fair skin had dark pink blotches on it now—superficial burns, but they still needed tending. Shaking her head in exasperation, Helen pulled out ointment and linen bandages from the medical kit.

Speaking as softly as a child who knows he's enraged his mother, Nikola opened his mouth. "I'm sorry, Helen. I'm afraid I'm not used to this, yet."

"Well, for your own health, you should probably hurry up and adapt," Helen snapped.

She winced as soon as the sharp-edged statement was out of her mouth. What was it about Nikola that always had her so defensive? Why did she feel she had to one-up him in every single conversation?

Because that's always been our relationship—banter and harmless flirting.

She suddenly had a mental spasm as a thought struck her. What if it was never harmless?

Helen finished rubbing the salve on the burns, absently noting the warmth and smoothness of his skin. Every grunt of pain and hissing breath he allowed to escape seemed to chip away at her discipline, allowing even more inappropriate thoughts into her mind.

She finished wrapping his hand and for a moment just stared at the long, elegant fingers resting in hers. Then, slowly, almost anxiously, she lifted her head. The snow on their bodies had completely melted by now, leaving hair plastered to faces and heated skin slightly wet. Helen's many layers of clothing felt itchy and hot. Why was it suddenly so warm? She felt a trickle of snowmelt traverse her cheek slowly.

For the few seconds of intent silence, Nikola's eyes roved over her face, inches from his. She felt her heart pounding as she wondered what thoughts were racing behind his cool blue eyes. Were any of the thoughts as wild as hers? As if in answer, he was the first to move, gliding a few inches closer.

"Nikola…" she whispered.

His lips itched a little higher. "Yes, Helen?"

They seemed to drift even closer.

"Did you…" she was breathless, "…did you plan this to happen?"

Nikola's smile was crooked and inviting. "Now, my lovely Miss Magnus, a brilliant mind like yours would never fall for subtle undertones and suggestive speaking. You chose left quite randomly and I spotted this cabin—having never seen it before in my entire long life—because fortune smiled on us."

As he spoke, Helen had been leaning closer in order to reach around behind the genius. With a smooth motion, she pulled a bottle of wine from where it had been peeking at her from Nikola's bag.

"And this?" she asked dryly.

"Never know when you might need one" was his speedy reply.

Then Nikola closed his uninjured hand over hers on the bottle—his bandaged one still resting in her hands. Gently, he forced her to lower the bottle to the floor and in the same motion, they eased closer together once again.

Helen smiled just before their lips would have touched. "There's something you should know," she whispered.

"I'm listening," Nikola said, focused on her lips. "But not for much longer."

Slowly, Helen grinned. "I planned this expedition knowing full-well a blizzard was supposed to be blowing in."

Nikola's beautiful eyes widened appropriately, but before he could open his clever mouth, Helen covered it with her own. For a moment they were frozen like that, neither daring to raise the level of passion beyond the almost-innocent immobility of simply touching one another. Then Nikola tilted his head slightly and the movement of his lips against hers made something in Helen's lower stomach do a little flip.

All at once, their combined passion skyrocketed out of the little cabin and joined the stars in their fiery glory. Neither of the love-starved immortals—well, one ex-immortal—could remember the last time they'd been kissed so fantastically. Sitting on the floor, it was kind of awkward, but Nikola managed to pull Helen practically into his lap with his uninjured arm around her back. She was now higher up than him in their embrace and had to kiss downward on his upturned face. She dug her hands all through his wet hair and moaned against his mouth, murmuring his name on a breath of ecstasy.

"Niko…"

"Mm, that's new," he said lowly. Then he kissed her again, tugging her bottom lip between his very-much-human teeth before pulling away. "I kind of like it, though."

Helen smirked and shoved the normal-strength Nikola onto his back on the floor. Slipping off of her previous perch on his thighs, she knelt over his stomach and leaned down toward his lips. His crooked smile was simply too damned sexy to be un-kissed for very long. She'd been daydreaming about it and denying herself satisfaction for over a hundred years now.

"Let's not tell the others, hm?" Nikola murmured.

His hands rested on her knees and then slid up her thighs, long fingers easing toward the hem of her jacket or the waistband of her pants—Helen couldn't tell, but both ideas made her head spin. Resting her hands on the floor on either side of Nikola's head, she smiled dangerously.

"We will never speak of it."

And then, with matching devilish grins, the two long-plotting, long-awaited lovers began the extremely scientific task of testing the idea that repeatedly-generated body warmth can save a person from hypothermia.

~fin~