Takes place immediately after End of Nights. Written for the Teslen Monthly Challenge. April: Rain. Has an angsty, hysterical Helen and a somewhat cold Nikola. This is a little bit of pre-ship. :D Kind of a depressing ending, but I really wanted to keep with the plot of the show and the episode after End of Nights, Niko's gone again, so…

Kiss Away the Tears, Please Pretend It's Rain

Ashley was gone.

Helen half-reclined on the concrete, frozen, sobbing, unable to stand.

The others had come running, but now stood like statues around her. They were as lost as she. She couldn't stop sobbing. The wall had shattered. They could all see through her defenses. They were staring. She was breaking. She couldn't let them see her like this.

She had to get away.

Scrambling to her feet, she shoved past Will, knocking him back a step.

"Helen!" Nikola raised his voice after her—a rare occurrence.

But she was out of the room by then. She knew the old house better than the rest of them and was quickly lost to her pursuers. Not that they chased her very enthusiastically. They were ashamed of seeing her vulnerable—she knew it. She just knew it. Why had she broken in front of them? There would be looks now, sidelong glances of insecurity. Their leader was an emotional mess.

She was weak.

Once on the roof, she collapsed and allowed her icy walls to shatter and melt completely. On her knees, stretched over the wall of the parapet, she sobbed. The storm covered her wails and the rain disguised her tears.

She didn't hear him approach, but she froze when she felt something settle over her back, halting the chill of the rain. Lifting her head from her arms, hesitantly, she saw him.

Nikola stood on the other side of the tower, staring out over the storm-racked city. The torrent had slicked his hair flat to his head, but the vampire acted as if he was standing in the middle of a ballroom. One hand on his hip, the other hand's fingers absently rubbing together, he purposely stared with cool composure into the distance, as if she weren't a wet, broken mess on the ground.

Sniffing sharply, Helen pushed to her feet. Nikola's jacket slipped from her shoulders and hit the flagstones behind her with a wet slap.

"Have you any idea how much that cost?" Nikola drawled, without looking at her.

Wordlessly, Helen picked the sadly-ruined suit coat up off the ground. However, unable to bring herself to cross the ten foot space over to him, she simply held the coat between her crossed arms and joined him in staring out over Old City. She bit her lip. Why was he there? She couldn't be broken with him standing there. She just wanted to sob and grieve. Why did he always insist upon being where he wasn't wanted?

"Oxford," he said, presently.

Helen frowned and looked at him. "I'm sorry?"

"That's how I knew where you were," he explained. "At Oxford, when you wanted to be alone, you went to the places no one else wanted to be at that particular moment. Cemeteries at night, classrooms with no class, cathedrals on a Friday night…rooftops in a storm…"

He hadn't looked at her once yet, but at the end of that speech, his mouth twitched in a smirk. Helen felt her own lips twisting in an attempt at a smile, but it ended up twisting too much and soon she was grimacing to hold back sobs again. Her ribcage seemed to tighten around her lungs and she thought she was going to pass out when she suddenly noticed that Nikola had moved.

Now, he stood not six inches from her, so close she could feel the heat from both of their bodies reflecting one another. Cursing his vampiric grace and silence, she jumped a bit—which was a dangerous thing to do on the tippy-top of a tower. Luckily, Nikola also had fantastic reflexes and he caught her arm before she would have tumbled backward off the parapet.

Panting from her near-death, Helen gripped his arms. She felt something in their half-embrace that she hadn't felt in a long time and it surprised her that she found it in Nikola's touch. He was always her friend—and if not that, he was her entertainment. They'd first met when she'd been screaming in frustration over an experiment that refused to cooperate. Nikola had smirked, winked, and told a joke, and within minutes of seeing him for the first time, she'd been laughing. And then, of course, he'd solved her experiment with a careless suggestion and walked away, leaving her with a success and new curiosity.

But now, feeling his long, elegant fingers gently holding her arms, looking up into his steel eyes, she felt a warmth in her stomach that had long been missing. She felt…safe.

And just like that, the ice was gone. Giving up on holding the façade, Helen let her head fall forward, resting it on Nikola's chest, and just sobbed. She felt him tense immediately. Though he was charismatic and entertaining, he was also arrogant and distant. They'd been close at Oxford, but she realized now that, in a century and a half, they'd never actually touched more than to shake hands.

Realizing her mistake, Helen backed away. She was surprised to find that his grip on her arms prevented that. Halting, she looked up into his eyes again and found strange emotions swirling there. Something was cracking through his cold steel eyes, shrugging off the arrogance and intelligence to shine through.

"Helen…"

She experienced an unexpected chill at the way he said her name, but chalked it up to the frigid rain that drenched her.

"I'm sorry, Nikola," she said immediately. "I—"

"For a brilliant woman, you can be incredibly stupid sometimes."

Now indignation rose, replacing her insecurity, discomfort, and abiding grief. If she were a less intelligent woman, she would have simply smacked him across the face. As it was, she simply broke his grip from her arms, ignored the cold feeling without his palms against her skin, and backed away with a glare.

Nikola wasn't having that.

He took one long stride and had her backed up against the parapet wall. Short of leaping off, she wasn't escaping, not in her emotion-weakened state. His gray eyes had a spark of fire to them now as he spoke firmly, with no hint of his usual jest.

"You're not alone, Helen," he said, emphasizing each word. "Those children down there don't look at you like some goddess—they love you as a friend. Like a mother, even. They loved Ashley, too and you can't shut them out like this. You can't shut me out like this."

Helen blinked. "You?"

Nikola froze with lips parted, as if just realizing he'd said something he shouldn't have. He tried, for a moment, to cover, but finally sighed. "I'll always be here. That's all you need to know. Okay?"

She nodded, but remained tense against the wall. Moving like he was approaching an injured animal, Nikola put his hands on her shoulders, guiding her easily into his arms again. This time, he was not tense, but Helen could still feel the superhuman strength in his body as he simply held her.

Yes, they'd always been 'just friends' their entire long lives. What had once been schoolgirl obsession with his brilliant mind and magnetic personality had faded to the feeling of being invisible, rejected, and finally bitter. Then, more recently, he'd confessed his love in Rome with that sure-of-himself smirk and it had seemed like a mockery of the love she'd once held for him.

But now, it seemed he was serious. Now, with her head tucked under his chin, sharing the warmth of his body, she wondered why she'd given up so easily on the man and gone with John, who'd adored her.

She knew he was lying about always being there. She knew he couldn't sit still, could never stay in one place long enough for a relationship to bloom. He never could. He would be gone by morning and probably wouldn't show up again for months.

But for now, she just enjoyed his touch in the rain and was glad that vampire's low body heat was a myth.

"You know," he murmured against her wet hair, "you owe me a new coat."

Helen glanced to the side and saw the lovely silk was once again plastered to the flagstones. She snorted out a laugh. As always, he could turn her tears to smiles. She held on a little tighter, wishing he wouldn't go like he always did. Fresh tears formed, combining with those for Ashley and doubling in volume. She couldn't think of her heroic daughter now. She couldn't let go of her. Right now, she needed to forget. To hold on to something.

She looked up into his eyes and her voice was a broken whisper. "Don't go."

He arched one eyebrow. "Do I look ready to flee?"

"I mean don't leave tomorrow." She pressed her palms to his chest. "Stay with me. Please."

He searched her eyes with the same shrewd calculation that he studied wires and engines. She hoped she wasn't as simple to figure out as the mechanical workings that always danced under his fingers.

Finally, he nodded, slowly, unsure. "Alright, but if Druitt—"

Overjoyed, she let her impulses take over. Lifting one hand to the back of his head, she pulled his mouth down to hers. It was a clumsy kiss for being their first. They were both dripping wet, clothes were chafing, and it was still storming and freezing cold. However, the rain slicked their skin, creating a smooth, slippery kiss. After getting over his surprise, Nikola shifted his head for a more comfortable angle, his skillful hands lifting to cradle her face like he was holding a treasure of the world.

She dug her fingers into his thick, wet hair for leverage, pushing the kiss deeper. Nikola had no complaints and let her know with a soft groan. With that small noise, Helen realized it was the most vulnerable the cold genius had ever been. Feeling their connection slip into another, deeper lock, Helen let her own icy walls fall away completely as she gave herself over to his vampiric heat.

Gains and losses were the story of her life. Everything had balance. The universe would remain constant. And at the end of this night, she would smother her grief and come out stronger. For Ashley, for the "children," for Nikola—but mostly, for herself.

~finito