AN: And on this cheery note (sarcasm alert!), we come to the end of the Cruor Mos Sicco, Blood Will Out series. (And hey! I actually managed to write a story for each of them!)

Thanks to oparu, who made me use the occasional semi-colon, slaughtered at least a dozen "and"s, and pointed out that James would probably not use the word "bad" three adjectives (well, one of them was an adverb) in a row.

Spoilers: For King and Country

Disclaimer: If only, my friends. If only.

Characters: Nikola Tesla, Helen Magnus, James Watson

Summary: Nikola Tesla died January 7, 1943. He was old, sick, poor as a church mouse, and completely alone in the world. Only one of those things is true.

How To Fake Your Death (And Live To Tell About It)

Nikola Tesla died January 7, 1943. He was old, sick, poor as a church mouse, and completely alone in the world.

Only one of those things is true.

The end of his life begins on December 2, 1942, when the Italian navigator lands in the New World.

He's not in the room when it happens, thank goodness. He hadn't even been invited to the party in the first place, and for that he's grateful. He's never been a team player, for starters, and also he's starting to believe that there's no point in taking over the world if all you get is a smoking ruin when you're done. Conquering someone is dead easy, but the key word is dead, and the shine of science is starting to wear a bit thin.

Helen is in America when it happens, of course, with Roosevelt. She's been spending most of her time there lately, even though he knows she's not afraid of making the crossing. By the time she really does come back, she might not recognize London, and that's before she gets inside the Sanctuary, which James has been altering since the day she left. Nikola hopes she's as appalled by what the Americans have done as he is, but with Helen it's never easy to tell. She did convince four of the smartest men ever to come out of Oxford to inject themselves with vampire blood, after all.

As far as anyone knows, Nikola Tesla is in New York, wrapped up in his hotel and barely able to afford food. The abnormal man Nikola hired six years ago to sit in his rooms and age is quite healthy and well fed, and, of course, obscenely well paid at Helen's insistence. There isn't a Sanctuary in North America yet, since Europe keeps erupting into war and cramping Helen's plans, but it's only a matter of time. She is determined to stay on good terms with the locals, normal and abnormal, so that when she does set up shop, it will be a relatively easy thing. Helen Magnus lives as though she plans to live forever, and at this point, Tesla thinks she very well might.

For his part, Nikola realized soon after the Great War ended that having an exit strategy might come in handy. He might just outlive Helen, assuming he isn't bombed into atoms by some foolhardy physicist with a God complex, but he hasn't exactly led a quiet life, and far too many people know where to find him. The abnormal he has hired to pose as his increasingly elderly self possesses, in addition the ability to not go stark staring bonkers whilst mostly confined to a single room, a wide array of psychic talents that come in handy whenever the FBI decide to increase their surveillance of him.

It's those damned espionage groups that were starting to cramp his style. It had been annoying enough when he was only dealing with the British Foreign Service (they've switched to calling it the Secret Service now and Tesla appreciates the honesty if not their methods), but now World War II was starting to galvanize the French, Americans and Russians into really perfecting their own agencies. Still, even that might not have been enough to well and truly snare him had it not been for his own pride.

He would die before he admitted it to anyone, of course, but it was in a fit of pique after the Manhattan Project's announcement that he made the mistake of sending the plans for his Death Ray out to all the allied governments (except Australia, but only because he was still convinced that it was not actually a proper country). He had thought that with the war winding up, the Death Ray would be enough to finally rout the Germans, and that afterwards they could all go back to the way they had been before.

Nikola Tesla is not often wrong, which is to be expected of a genius of his caliber, but on those rare occasions that he is, it is usually on the grandest scale imaginable.

If it were only the spies, he could deal with it on his own. He has a half-dozen safe houses in London alone, not counting the Sanctuary or any of his old haunts in Oxford, and that's before he starts taking advantage of any number of uncomfortable holes that Nigel used to hide his ill-gotten gains in while he waited for the heat to die off. The agencies tracked a man, a genius of course, but still a man. And since Nikola was not entirely limited to such a descriptor, he could avoid them handily.

It was the others who caused him trouble, though. A group of agents who knew what they were doing, and more details than Nikola was comfortable with about who and what they hunted. It was their knowledge of his unusual character that made him both require and fear going to Helen for help. He had abandoned politics in 1908, left with a poor taste in his mouth and a cloying sense of pride for a country that wasn't even his own, and was therefore unprepared to cope with all the different nationalities that hunted him. At the same time, he could hardly justify bringing this new hornet's nest to Helen's doorstep, let alone James's.

Still, as he was forced to abandon his fourth safe house in as many days, Nikola was starting to think that he might just be in over his head this time, and that even though Helen was going to kill him eight times over for the storm he'd stirred up, he has no choice but to bring her into it.

The cable he sent her was terse, if not downright cryptic, but it must have got his point across because she appeared three days later, just as he was seriously thinking that Scotland or Cornwall might be his last viable option.

"This had better be important, Nikola," she says as she breezes through the door. She's still wearing her flying clothes, and he's very, very tempted to ask her how she got here, but decides the better of it.

"I'm not living here because I like the aesthetics," he replies instead. "Much less the view."

"Is it your medication?" she asks.

"No, I can do that myself," he says. "When I haven't burned down a lab, anyway. No, this is far more tragic. I need your help."

"You know I'm under orders from two different governments to bring you in for questioning."

"What did they offer you this time?" he says, his teeth sharpening. Because if she's going to sell him out, he's going to make sure she pays for it.

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffs, looking uncomfortable. "As if I let the conversation get that far."

She sits down in a chair by the cast iron stove and warms her hands. She doesn't ask how he acquired a coal ration.

"How bad a hit will you take?" he asks, sitting beside her with a face returned to normal. He knows they must have offered her something, or threatened her.

"I'll be fine, Nikola," she says. "I've been meaning to spend more time in America anyway. James is putting down roots in London and I've always been more adventurous."

"Won't Roosevelt make it hard for you?" he says. "I am technically a citizen, after all."

"Which is why, technically, he can't order me in the first place. Because I'm not." Helen looks at him with a vexed expression. "And Eleanor's taken a shine to me. I'll be fine."

"That's really annoying, you know," he says.

"What?"

"When you refer to those people by their first names."

"Oh, for God's sake, Nikola. They're my friends and it's 1942."

"And soon it will be 1943," he replies. "Do you think I'll live that long?"

This time, her look was measuring, speculative, and he let a modicum of his concern show on his face.

"What's after you, Nikola?" she asks, her voice quiet.

"I don't know exactly," he admits. "The regular espionage agencies all think I'm bundled up in the New Yorker, carrying on affairs with pigeons. But this new one, they seem to know a great deal about me, the real me, not the old me set up in New York."

"No nationality in particular?" Helen asks. It's clear from her face that she already knows the answer.

"None," he says. "What do you know?"

"Rumours mostly," she says, leaning back in the chair even though he's not entirely sure it won't just fall apart underneath her. "There have been a number of unusual abnormal deaths." She sighs. "This war is very different than the last one."

"Not so much for me," he replies. His voice is quiet and he's not entirely sure she hears him.

"I don't know who they are either," Helen says. "Only that they exist in shadows, and that they have a better network in the abnormal world than I do."

"That must really frustrate you," he says, regaining his smile.

"Not now, Nikola," she says. "You're going to have to die."

"I beg your pardon?" he says.

"You, the old you in New York," she says. "He'll die. There will be a funeral, we will bury a body, the Americans will confiscate everything you owned in the name of National Security, and you'll be gone."

"That will stop the run of the mill spies," he admits. It's a good plan, and there isn't really anything in New York he can't duplicate easily enough anyway. "But what about my covert followers?"

"That's why you'll have to disappear," Helen says. "Some island in the Caribbean perhaps? Or somewhere in Oceania?"

"I think I'll go home," he says, in that same quiet voice.

"Nikola, the whole point was to go somewhere where no one would – " she trails off as understanding hits her. "Nikola…"

"It's for the best," he says breezily. "I'll keep myself hidden, and that will protect both you and James, not to mention Nigel if he ever cares to join you. They'll never think to look for me there."

"They will if stories of a vampire start surfacing."

"Helen, they're all dying," he says, finally. His voice is hard and tired and old, all the things he never is. "Not just the volunteers in the army, or the women and children who get caught in raids. All of them. Systematically. Like they're not even human."

He hasn't been one of them in so long. Not since he left for America, and then Oxford. And he hasn't been human in almost as long. But if there's one thing he understands, has always understood, it's blood, and there is more blood on the ground in his homeland than he can bear to think about.

A sudden knock at the door startles them both. Helen is on her feet in an instant; the gun in her hands as natural as if it had grown there. Nikola is not very far behind her, teeth and nails at the ready. The knock repeats, the cadence familiar, and Nikola drops his guard ever so slightly. It's James, but of course now the question is whether or not he is alone, and if he has the same directive Helen has chosen to ignore.

Helen must be thinking the same thing, because she keeps the gun at the ready as moves to answer the door.

"For God's sake, Helen, you can't possibly think I'd bring the secret service down on the pair of you," James says, brushing the gun aside and walking into the room in a hiss of servos that steam from the cold. "We're in a mess, all three of us."

Nikola sinks back into his chair, which creaks alarmingly at him. "What now?"

James's glance takes in the whole room quickly, from the rickety chairs and iron stove, to the thick layer of dust that coats everything except the floor where Nikola spent the hours waiting for Helen pacing back and forth.

"Well to start with, I've had an official request to bring you in for a discussion with the Prime Minister," James says. "Which I assume you wish to avoid."

"Quite," Nikola says. "Get on with it."

"The second part I have put together myself," James says, "so it is possible that I am not entirely correct."

"Oh please," Nikola says. "Now is not the time for false modesty."

Despite the situation, Helen very nearly laughs, and Nikola can't help but smile when she does.

"I suspect that our government has informed certain others of your…condition." James's voice is level, but he might as well be hammering nails into Nikola's all too occupied coffin.

"That goes against everything I laid down when we established the Sanctuary!" Helen bursts out. "Abnormals were not to be used in such a manner."

"Helen, I'm right here," Nikola says.

"They're desperate, Helen," James says. "Whatever toy Nikola isn't letting them have, they want. And badly."

"Could you just – " Helen begins, but Nikola cuts her off.

"No, I can't."

"It's that appalling, then?" James says. "What you've dreamed up is that heinous."

"Yes," Nikola whispers, picking at his nails. "I'm sorry I ever thought of it."

"Right, then." Helen takes a deep breath. "James, you need to get back to the Sanctuary, and if anyone asks, you're looking for Nikola. And me, while you're at it."

"Helen," James begins, but stops once he sees her face. He can't know, not right now anyway, and he doesn't like it, but he understands. "Very well. Be safe, both of you. Pass word when you can. I – "

He can't say it, not even now, but they all recognize a farewell when they see it.

"Good-bye, James," Helen says instead, and hugs him for a long time.

"Be careful with the longevity device," Nikola says, as James shakes his hand briskly. "Or at least teach someone else how to fix it."

"I will," says James, and then he's gone.

The room seems a little bit colder.

They spend Christmas Day wedged into the cellar of Nigel's very last safe house. It's freezing and there's barely any room to move, and even though he's now spent a number of hours sharing his overcoat with Helen, Nikola has never been more miserable. He tries very hard not to think about the people huddled across Europe in ghettos and camps, because uncomfortable as he is, he's still better off. Tomorrow, they will have to move again, but he's not sure where else they have left to go.

"You know," he says, because he's cold, and because he can't help himself. "I do wish Johnny were here. It would simplify transport."

"I know," Helen replies flatly, and that's how he knows how worried she is. "We'll have to chance it," she continues. "Making a run."

"Where to?" he asks.

"Canada, I think," she says.

"Won't they just hand us over to the English?" Nikola says. He wants to fidget, but they're in far too close quarters for that.

"No, I don't think so," Helen replies. "They're rather enjoying their independence at the moment."

"Wouldn't the Americans be a better bet?"

"If I could get word to FDR directly, maybe," Helen says. "As it stands, the Office of Strategic Services might just take preemptive action."

"I can't get on a boat with people," Nikola says. This has always been the weak point in their plan. He's been taking as little of his medication as possible, but the he's also spent the last few days extremely close to her, and he's starting to feel the strain.

"You don't have to stay on the ship, Nikola." She doesn't flinch away from him. He is going to miss that. "They just have to see you getting on it."

In the end, it's not a terribly elegant plan. In a bizarre and quite welcome stroke of luck, the ship they book passage on is captained by an abnormal Helen has sailed with before, and he is more than willing to look the other way when it comes to dealing with her. They board in broad daylight and disappear below decks to wait until they are out of sight of land. Helen doesn't say anything, but grips his hands very tightly while they wait. At last, the captain himself comes below to tell them it's time.

She doesn't let go the whole way up to the deck, to the lifeboat that's been prepared for him. He could probably swim it, but he's grateful for the boat all the same. This way, at least, he'll be able to carry a few things with him and not arrive on shore looking completely bedraggled.

"You're really set on Jasenovac?" she asks, when they stand at the railing. "What if there's nothing you can do?"

"I have to try," he says, and presses his forehead against hers.

"Your medication?" She's nearly stuttering, and he realizes it's because she's trying not to cry. That, more than anything, terrifies him.

"I haven't decided yet if I'm going to need it," he says. He expects a rebuke, but none comes.

"Be safe," she says instead. "And come back someday, when it's over."

"What if it's never over?" he asks, cynicism burning through his body. "What if it's just the next one?"

"Then come back anyway, and help me stop it," she says.

"You could come with me," he says, only half in jest. "I could keep you safe, and we could find out who's been chasing us."

"Who's been chasing you," she reminds him. "They don't seem to care about me yet. And you know I can't."

"You seemed so upset at the idea of losing me, I thought I should at least make the offer," he says, and pretends the smile on his face is real.

"You are the absolute end," she says, her smile no more genuine than his. "Go, before I throw you overboard myself."

He kisses her then, because there is a war on and because even though two is not that much less than three, once he leaves it will be the Sanctuary and not The Five anymore. He'll miss that, and he's pretty sure she will too. It's not a particularly long kiss, but she doesn't push him away. She tastes of salt, and he can't tell whether it's tears or spray. He's not sure he wants to know. Instead, he climbs into the boat, and they cast him off; the last voyage of Nikola Tesla.

The funeral is enormous, but sincere. The government takes all his things, despite the protestations of what family members made it to America in time. His cremated remains will not be laid to rest until 1957, but they will build a museum to house them. He will be overshadowed by Edison, in the end, but there will always be people who know his name. Eventually, he will appear in fiction, creator of things far too impossible to be real or reasonable.

He watches all of this happen with some amusement, but after Jasenovac, it's a long very time before he can face humanity again. He misses them all at first; Helen, James; his friends in America. But the longer he stays in Serbia, the harder it is to remember who he was, back when he was alive. Now, there's darkness and blood, and an entire army made afraid of things that go bump in the night. But it isn't enough to turn the tide.

He takes his medication again, the last few pills that he saved for the end, so that he can think clearly. It's been too long since he's built something, and he's afraid that if he doesn't stop destroying things, he'll forget how to create altogether. There was a story, a legend that Gregory Magnus used to tell, about a city, a city where the vampires had ruled. If he's learned nothing else from this bloodbath, it's that humans have entirely the wrong idea about everything, and he's starting to think that it might be a good idea to fix that.

So he turns his back on his homeland once again, and heads to the east, to India. Maybe there, he will once again find hope.

fin

Notes: I pretty much decided to ignore Tesla's real life unless it was convenient. I am not the first to do this, I imagine. The idea of Nikola going full out monster during the war comes from artaxastra's Kill.

Also, Helen had 11 days to get to New York, which...works because I've decided it will. On January 5th, Tesla hung a Do Not Disturb sign on his door and wasn't found until the 8th, after he died.

Gravity_Not_Included, February 28, 2011