Nikola Tesla had fallen in love countless times over the course of his abnormally long life time. Countless times had he fallen for a woman, to have her invade his heart and consume his thoughts. Countless times had he imagined hearing her laugh, or admired her smile. Countless times had he envisioned waking up with the smell of her perfume filling his nose, her hair splayed across his pillow. Countless times had he dreamt of lying next to soft curves, a sticky dew of sweat slowly cooling on her skin. Countless nights had he spent in a dream land, his most intricate fantasies played out behind his eye lids in minute details.
Countless times had he fallen in love, but every time was with the same woman.
The first time at been an otherwise normal and mundane autumn day not long after he had started studying at Oxford. She'd been a vision with a golden halo; an angle. The autumn sun had backlit her trek across the courtyard, her hair literally glowed and the pale leaves under her boots had matched the colour of her dress. Nikola had stopped in his tracks, and stared. His blood had roared in his ears and he didn't dare to breath, not wanting to shatter the vision of perfection walking past. She'd obviously noticed his less-that-stealthy gaze, and offered him a slight smile as she caught his eye. He'd thought about stopping her, asking her name and why she was at Oxford. But he didn't, and she'd kept walking to what happened to be Nikola's next class.
The second time was in that class, when she opened her mouth. He was blown away by her grasp of the electrical attraction. He hadn't learnt a single thing that lesson, except that her hair was at least three different shades of golden as he stared at the back of her head the entire lecture, wondering what else was inside that magnificent brain.
The third time was later that day, when she strode up to him, looked him dead in the eye and introduced herself. He's been so taken aback by her display that he'd barely managed to mumble out his name as his face did an impersonation of a catfish with a moustache. She just giggled at his folly, and asked him to join her in the library.
He fell in love with her beauty; as all men would, with her brain; like most men should and with her spirit; which few men could. She was an enigma; a goddess of brilliance. He didn't see an annoying female attempting to infiltrate the world of men, he saw a revolutionary woman of knowledge and learning. He saw genius and an equal. He saw an outcast with a vision beyond their time. He saw someone like him. She was the silver lining of Oxford, the one positive light he had as a foreigner and an outcast. But she'd given her heart to someone else.
And so he'd run. Away from her, his heart and from everything that reminded him of her.
But he could never stay away from her; she was his drug. She was an addiction he suffered from his entire, abnormally long life; a need that no matter how hard, he tried he couldn't shake. Because every time he came back to her, he felt that irrational, self-destructive impulse disguised as joy. Because every time he saw her again, he fell for her as hard as he had that first time at Oxford.
Because time and time again he had fallen for her beauty, her brilliant and her bravery; countless times he had fallen in love with the enigma that was Helen Magnus.