Disclaimer: I own nothing and profit none.
A/N: Yes, I know I should be working on Reluctance and I am, I swear! But I've been battling a terrible cold and, despite my best intentions, the NyQuil gave me this instead.
Tripping up the stairs as lightly as possible in heavy skirts, Helen gratefully reached the landing and turned the key with effort in the stiff lock of the lab door. As always, just when she was about to give up, the lock suddenly gave under her hand and she entered the lab trying to get her fingers to uncramp from around the key. Distracted, it took her a few steps to realize that the shape on the settee was a person, not cast off detritus.
"Who is there?" she demanded, taking a step towards the table. Several heavy objects resting on it seemed likely prospective weapons.
"It is only I, Helen," came a familiar voice, "Please don't bludgeon me over the head with a Bunsen burner."
"Nikola," she sighed, "Of course."
All of them had grown accustomed to the fact that, when things began to pall in their little lab tucked into the heart of Oxford, Nikola would soon fail to join them there; or come in the dead of night to leave them rambling notes and a fearful mess. Helen didn't particularly care for the disappearing act, but when she had pressed, he had simply claimed in his (thankfully) inimitable style that he needed space to be brilliant away from pestering busybodies. It had been said rather pointedly and Helen had since given up the subject as a lost cause. Therefore, that Nikola had been missing for the past several April days had not been unusual; Helen stumbling upon him this late Saturday afternoon, however, was new.
"I cannot say the same of you, I'm afraid. Whyever are you here on a Saturday? I expected to have the lab to myself."
"Sorry to disappoint," Helen said, not sorry in the least, "but I had an idea that I wanted to test."
"Ammonia?"
She hated it when he did that.
"Yes," she admitted begrudgingly.
"Preliminary tests look promising," there was a faint gesture to a stack of papers at his feet that she had overlooked, "but I wouldn't mind a second eye," he paused, "Well, so long as it is your eye, that is."
"James is as able a chemist as I," she noted, heading for the papers before he could change his mind.
"James prefers to proceed from one step to the next, as though science could be reduced to a recipe for bread," Nikola held up a hand as Helen made to protest, "His logic and methodology make him excellent at deduction – which you may not tell him I said – but he is hidebound and stodgy. You are free to pass that on, of course," he added with a wicked smile. He knew she would tell James no such thing, "You are willing to take a few leaps, at least. That is a necessity in invention. Brilliant invention, at least, and I should know, after all."
"So modest. You've taken more than a 'few,' here," Helen muttered as she skimmed his haphazard writing, "and… oh! This is what I wanted to try. Where is the rest of it?" She began a frantic hunt through the stack.
"Those are in a specific order," he said, casually and unmoving.
"One recognizable by man?" she quipped, emerging successful with a sheaf in her hands.
"I don't care what little minds can comprehend."
"Hm," Helen ignored him, a skill that grew easier with frequent practice, "This needs further testing, but I agree, it is promising."
"Delightful! Just fire up your erstwhile weapon over there," Nikola leaned back and shut his eyes briefly," I shall be with you momentarily."
Helen moved to rise from the floor and was halfway to the work station when she paused. Since when did Nikola not leap into action; particularly when the word 'promising' was brandished? She placed the papers on the table, still considering, before she turned back to the settee.
"Nikola?"
"Yes?" came the short reply.
Upon closer scrutiny, he look even paler than his wont and his clothes, while arranged neatly, looked as though they had been slept in. Or, as was more likely, not slept in, but worn for several days on end. She paused, torn. They were already in the lab, after all, with his research at hand. Surely, they could tend to him after testing? His pallor convinced her, eventually. Honestly, Helen, she scolded herself, how can you hope to become a decent doctor if you would let a man expire for your curiosity? Though if any man would appreciate the urge, it would be the one before her; the one who had gone back to ignoring her on the settee. She should act before temptation got the better of her in this matter.
"Up," she said.
"I beg your pardon?" came a slightly ruffled answer and no signs of movement.
"I suspect you have not had a decent meal since you left us and a change of clothes would do you some good as well," Helen said, striving for a voice that would convey no option but compliance.
"How touching, you're concerned for my well being," that tone of voice always made her want to hit him with the nearest heavy object , "but it is completely unnecessary. I shall be fine. If you would begin the experiment now?"
"I care only that you survive long enough to be of use," she lied, "and if you fall over, I will not catch you. Therefore, the obvious solution is to prevent such from happening. Unless you cannot rise? Should I send for one of the others?" Skinny as he was, she knew that Nikola was solider than he appeared. She would never be able to carry him far even if it wouldn't be improper. Who would he be least likely to object to, though? "Nigel, perhaps?"
The only answer she received was a scoffing sound.
"Unless you come with me, I shall send for one of them. I believe John would be quite helpful," if that didn't get him, nothing would. Helen didn't truly understand what was between them; it wasn't hatred per se, but Nikola never wished to appear weak before him, even more so than the others, for whatever reason.
"Overbearing…" the rest of his sentence was too soft for her to hear, he knew her well enough to take that precaution, but she could guess the outline of his sentence.
"They won't have gone out for the evening yet," she answered in as sweet a voice as she could find, "and I'm sure any of them would be delighted to come to my aid."
The soft monologue continued, but Nikola clutched at the back of the settee to assist his efforts to rise. The care he took in his movements said more clearly than anything how little effort he had taken to look after himself over the past several days. Helen would never admit it, but she did worry that one day he might get himself into a state past their ability to drag him out of harm. Nikola lurching to his feet was a welcome distraction from her morbid thoughts.
"Now what?" he inquired shortly. Helen would have taken offense if he wasn't so obviously still trying to catch his balance.
"Now we need to find a meal for you," she stated solidly, while trying to figure out precisely where she could take such a bedraggled waif.
"Wonderful plan. Where?"
"Ah," Helen gave in to the inevitable with a sigh, "I suppose I will have to sneak you into my kitchen."
"Sneak?" Nikola inquired very innocently, resting a hand against a case of instruments, "Would your father not welcome a friend of yours?"
"Any other friend, yes," Helen said, "You, however, are not precisely in his good graces at the moment. Perhaps because of the incident from the last time you were invited over?"
"Such a lot of fuss over one small accident," he muttered.
"Small?" Helen breathed deeply to quell an unseemly show of temper, "You set his lab on fire!"
"A small fire," Nikola stressed.
"Only because James had the good sense to check up on you!" Breathing was getting her nowhere; it never did with Nikola. Worse, he was distracting her from getting them out of the lab, which was no doubt his goal, "Come along," she said, dragging them back on track, and offered her arm.
With an aggravated sigh, Nikola looped his arm through hers and, after a few steps to adjust herself to his erratic weight when he wavered, Helen led them through the door.
One very, very long trip later, the disgruntled duo eyed the Magnus' tall Oxford home from their position on the side of the property. Helen had already ascertained that her father was in residence, which made the situation much more difficult. If only Nikola could be persuaded to put his best foot forward when it gave to her father! Every time they met, however, turned out worse than the last; even when she had pleaded with both of them to behave with the utmost courtesy, events seemed to conspire against them. She loved her father and Nikola could be both charming and brilliant when he chose, but an evening with the two of them was enough to make her wish them both to the ends of the earth. Separate ends.
"You will have to climb over the garden wall," Helen finally decided, after a few more minutes of pondering, "and I will let you in by the kitchen door."
"There is a perfectly good pub just down the street," Nikola pointed out from where he leaned against the black fence surrounding the property, "One I can actually enter by the front door."
"You may be able to," Helen returned, "but I cannot. And I hardly trust you to go yourself; that will only lead to finding you half-dead in our lab. Again."
"A restaurant, then," he tried, eyeing the garden wall with distaste.
"As though they would permit you entrance looking as you do?" she said disdainfully, "Over the wall. I will let you in as quickly as I am able."
"And how precisely do you propose I manage such a feat?" Nikola inquired, all grating courtesy with a gesture that encompassed both the wall and himself.
Privately, Helen was astonished and slightly worried that he would include himself in that gesture. Even suggesting that he was not at full strength was not really Nikola's style. Bearing in mind his bone-deep need to ridicule any particle of sympathy, however, she merely said, "You are a genius, correct? Think of something," before making her way to the front of the house.
Her task was made decidedly easier by the maid informing Helen that her father had barricaded himself in his lab after an early dinner. She simply dismissed both the maid and the cook for the day, telling them that she was quite capable of looking after herself for the remainder of the evening, and slipped out through the kitchen as soon as the front door closed behind them.
"Nikola?" she queried in a harsh whisper.
Silence greeted her.
"Nikola?" she repeated at a louder volume, walking towards the section of the wall nearest to where she had left him. She was half-worried that he had simply left, but fairly confident that he hadn't really the energy to make it very far.
"Nik-" she began again, only to end on a stuttered shriek when a hand grasped her arm.
"That is not likely to endear your father to me, either," Nikola said, rubbing an ear pointedly, "All this noise when he is trying to work."
"If one does not wish to startle, one should not lurk in the shadows," Helen spoke through gritted teeth, "What were you doing?"
"Trying to prevent arrest by the constabulary should the person entering the garden not be yourself," he said with an put-upon sigh, "Yet another action your father would react ill towards. The things I do for peace."
"A veritable martyr, truly," Helen said, getting her heart back under control and grasping Nikola's arm to lead him towards the door, "The maids are gone for the night and my father is in his lab, so it should be fairly safe provided you are quiet," she said the last with desperate emphasis.
"I shall behave with all due decorum," he said pompously, "provided, of course, that you do not actually intend to cook."
"I beg your pardon," she spoke icily and stopped dead in the middle of the path.
Nikola freed his arm and continued towards the house, "I have tried your cooking. We all have. As cooks go, you make a good chemist, and I don't believe your intentions upon bringing me here were to poison me, as there were much more effective methods back at the lab."
Helen fumed as she caught up to him, "That might change. Perhaps you ought to desist speaking before it does."
She refused to look at him, but she knew that he was smirking all the same.
To their mutual relief, though Helen would never admit such, the pantry yielded up a gracious, if plain, meal without the necessity of tackling the oven. She apportioned bits and pieces to Nikola slowly, knowing from past experience that once confronted with food his body would stage a coup over his mind and try to inhale everything in the near vicinity. She would prefer not to save him from starving only to watch him make himself ill with too-hasty sustenance.
Not that Nikola cared past demanding wine.
"…which is where we should proceed from the ammonia experiments."
"I dislike speculating upon our next step before we have conducted the current tests," she had been drinking as well, it was one of the better methods of dealing with Nikola that she had gleaned from the list that the other four of them had drawn up one very late night, but it was not yet enough to render her incapable of clear thought. Just enough to take the edge off of Nikola. "We might discover something that will lead us in a new direction."
Nikola made a sweeping gesture, from which Helen barely rescued a precariously perched bowl of fruit, "There's no harm in theorizing our next step. Don't be so stodgy."
"Stodgy?" Helen couldn't decide what level of affront to take at this accusation, but allowed the wine to mellow her down from 'furious' to 'indignant,' "These is nothing 'stodgy' about following proper scientific procedure."
"That is a statement I would expect James to espouse," he remarked to the bread roll he was in the process of devouring.
"A resemblance I find flattering," she said, both because it was true and also because it was not a compliment in Nikola's eyes, "You know as well as any of us that going into an experiment expecting a certain result can alter interpretations of the data."
Nikola simply sighed and reached over to refill her wine glass.
"What are you doing?"
"Hoping more wine will make you less stodgy."
"I am not…" Helen trailed off with a huff and retrieved her wine glass. Clearly she would need much, much more of this to handle Nikola. Perhaps she ought to find that list again as well; she was fairly certain they had hidden it in her books sometime that night. She could use some new ideas.
As she sipped, Nikola shot to his feet and began to pace, outlining his notions of where their experimentation should lead. Somewhere around the third sentence that began with 'if' and contained the word 'then,' Helen began ignoring him and concentrated on the wine. Delightful vintage. Eyes flicking upwards she noted the steadier stride and renewed energy. A few more courses, a round of hygiene, and a good night's sleep would render him once more the irascible genius they all knew and loved. Though they would never admit the last unless under extreme duress.
With a sigh, she nudged the bowl of fruit nearer Nikola's path, hoping he would take the hint and grab a piece in passing. Task complete, she leaned back against the chair and cradled her glass of wine once more, simply observing her - infuriating, demanding, irritable, brilliant - friend. The next time her ear picked up Nikola repeating the word 'genius' she took a sip.
Yes, a delightful vintage, indeed.