The new Sanctuary, January 2012
Helen didn't like the idea of Nikola Tesla being present but unseen for days on end in her house. God knew what he could be up to, and the current changes in their relationship notwithstanding, she was damned if she trusted him. Circumstances had prevented her from looking into the matter sooner, but eventually she got so suspicious that she made time to inquire.
Interestingly enough, she found him in his newly designated bedroom, something dangerously resembling 90's pop music blasting from the speakers of his laptop at a virtually ear-breaking volume. To speak for Nikola, the perfectly arranged vocal harmonies and the pleasant tune made the song sound better than anything the pop music industry tended to produce recently. On the other hand, it was a love song, for crying out loud. What the devil had possessed the man?
She banged on the door loudly to make him hear her through the racket, but entered without permission. Nikola was sitting at his desk with his feet on top of it, and played with a small device, absent-mindedly flipping it over and over again, while his mind seemed totally engrossed in the melody.
"Helen," he registered her presence immediately.
"A boy band, Nikola? Really?"
"Backstreet Boys, actually," Nikola confessed. "The little brats stole my life and now they're singing about it."
Helen stared at him incredulously for a moment before she realised she wouldn't get the meaning of his sentiment without his help, so she asked:
"What the heck are you talking about?"
Nikola looked up at her properly for the first time since she entered the room, and Helen was shocked that his face was perfectly serious.
"Helen, there's something that I have to tell you. I have no idea how to tell you without making you absolutely furious, so please, just try not to be, because to be honest, it wouldn't have any effect on me anymore. Please, sit down and listen. I know you have enough time, otherwise you wouldn't have showed up – you've left me here long enough. Anyway…" he waved away the words with his hand, and gestured her to sit down. Curious, she did as she was told.
"What's that?" she nodded towards the device in his hand.
"This? This is the end of the story. The Backstreet Boys are the end of the story. She would have loved them, I'm sure. And she is my daughter, Rowena."
"Your…?" Helen gaped at him, unable to reproduce the word.
"Not technically mine, don't worry. Met her on a train in Chicago in 1950, she was eight years old. A very bright child, she was, and had a charming mother. Anyway, twenty minutes later, the train's crashed and her mother lies dead in my arms. So I took the girl in. She was purely amazing, Helen. You could tell her anything – you needed her to do or not to do something, you just told her why – and she nodded and she understood everything. I raised her as best I could, and then I realised I made her completely wrong for the world as it was then. I mean if it was now, she would be an empowered young woman with a bright future, but she turned out to be like you in a way; she wouldn't be owned, she wouldn't settle for ordinary life. She wanted someone to really see her and respect her like she deserved, and the only person who could do that was me. So she… so we bound our lives together, we lived for each other, became everything to each other. I swear I've loved you the whole time, but with Rowena, you stood somewhere in the distance and the not-having-you part didn't hurt quite as much. She was my world, Helen. And then, in 76, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Oligodendroglioma, to be more precise. You're a medical doctor, you know what kind of stuff that is. But she refused to let it kill her. You can't imagine what she was like. I broke down several times since the news, but not Rowena. She simply told me to fix it – and believe it or not, I did. We needed time that we didn't have, and she gave me the idea to put her in stasis and work on a way to save her. Luckily, I was able to make her the stasis chamber, and I've spent decades since then trying to either build a tool to remove the tumour completely, or turn her into a vampire. Explains a lot, doesn't it?"
"Which was the point when we met again in Rome and you told me you loved me and asked me to be your queen, was it?" Helen frowned.
"Actually, no. That part was me breaking down again. Pure frustration at failing so spectacularly."
"Ah. That makes it so much better."
"Point is, this is where I've reached my goal. This thing," he shook the device in his hand, "can remove the tumour. I think you will understand my dilemma."
"A) you can't do it without my help, and b) you're risking the wrath of both of us," Helen summed it up.
"Something like that," he nodded. "Look, Helen, I can feel the rage building up inside you, and I can hear it already – of all the selfish, arrogant things you could've done…!" he imitated her, his expression too tired to promise any reaction if Helen was actually planning to explode like that. "Truth is, after I saw you again, I… well, I woke up. I remembered. And I never wanted to lose touch with you again for so long; everything I felt was exactly like it was a century ago. It makes me sick of myself, because for you I almost wanted to let her sleep forever. And you would have never known and her gravestone in Galena, Illinois, would have become exactly that. I'm weak and I screwed up. See, this is the kind of thing she would make me say – even you couldn't disassemble my arrogance like that. I spent twenty-seven years with this woman, Helen. And I've strayed from my task and let her down, but that time, those almost three decades, I'd change nothing about. There's nothing I feel shamed of from back then. You were unattainable until a month ago, I don't have to answer to you for what I did in the 50s through 70s. But I've messed up now and I'm sorry. Just please, could you help me save her and keep the fireworks for later?" he looked at her wearily.
"You selfish, lying, cheating bastard. Even now I can't trust you. You haven't changed one bit," Helen shook her head in disbelief, although she was somewhat struck by the exact opposite. He had changed. He'd never opened up for anyone as much as he clearly had for this woman. It hurt. It hurt like hell. "But you know what?" she decided suddenly. "I will help you save her. I want to see the look on her face when you tell her what you've been up to these past four years. She sounds like someone who could have you for lunch. I won't have to kill you; she will."
"She, for one, wouldn't be jealous of a relationship that happened more than thirty years ago."
"She would if she found out the feelings were still there."
"She knew about you."
Somehow, the sentence stopped the argument for a few seconds.
"I've had your photographs in my house, Helen. She's always known about you. She told me that one day there will come a time when the two of us will be ready to be together; and that was the first night she came to my house. It will break her heart when she finds out the time has come before she's woken up, but there's nothing you have to worry about. I'll always be yours if you want me. You've always had that power over me."
"So has she, I'm sure."
"No. Not like that. She's been my unexpected angel; you've been my destiny."
"She'll be your angel of wrath when she wakes up; never mind me," Helen assumed.