A/N: I don't own Sanctuary or the Sanctuary characters, and I'm making no profit from this. Portrayals of actual people are entirely from my imagination and should not be construed to be accurate representations.
There was a sudden disorientation and then something hit Nikola very hard in the back. No, he was on his back and had hit something . . .
He could hear voices, but couldn't move, or open his eyes. He heard footsteps approaching and someone yelled "Cut! Turn that damn camera off!" fairly close to him. A different voice said "Stay back. Everyone take twenty. Has someone called an ambulance?"
Nikola wondered vaguely why anyone should call an ambulance; not for him, surely, he was a vampire and would heal himself. But he did feel very odd, disoriented and lethargic.
Someone touched him, held his wrist. "There's a pulse, he's alive" from one voice "Thank God" from a second, "Don't move him" from a third. Good, I really don't feel like moving just yet Nikola thought.
He faded out for a while. Then there were other voices and hands on him, running over his arms and legs. Someone put something around his neck that held his head still, and there was some fumbling and pressure at the back of his head. Hands rolled him gently to one side, something slid under him and he was eased onto his back again.
Warmer, blanket he supposed, straps across his thighs and chest. Then he was being lifted and moved head first. Where were they taking him? For that matter, where was he?
There were a couple of bumps and he went into shadow, an enclosed space, then there was a different lighting. There were shuffling sounds around him, door closing, the vehicle moving, and a siren. So he was in an ambulance, how odd.
Something cold on his chest, "Heartbeat sixty" a man said. Tightness around his upper arm, then gone, "One ten over seventy" said a second man. They were taking his vitals, which was a rather silly thing to do, he was fine. Something in his ear, "Ninety-seven point eight." Nikola double-checked; yes, he was fine, although he had a bit of a headache.
He opened his eyes a slit. One of the men saw him and said "Just lie still. Can you tell me your name?"
"Nikola Tesla. What's yours?"
The man frowned fleetingly but then smiled a little and said "I'm Jim and this is Ted." Nikola noted Ted was doing something to his arm. "We're EMTs and we're going to take care of you until we get to the hospital."
There was a beautiful dark-haired woman in the ambulance too, behind the men. Nikola hadn't noticed her before but she moved forward a little and said "Jon, you're going to be fine. I'm right here with you."
"Thass nice" Nikola said, suddenly feeling groggy. Oh, they had a needle in him. Whatever they were giving him made the headache go away, but made most of his awareness go away with it.
He woke up in bed. He finally felt fully awake, and the bars on the sides of the bed and the institutional look of the room made him realize he was in the hospital. He had a bandage around his head, and he was wearing one of those awful hospital gowns, but at least he was covered by the sheet and blanket.
He wasn't alone. The woman from the ambulance was there, and there was a man with her he didn't recognize at all. They noticed he was awake.
"Welcome back, sleepy-head" the woman said kindly.
Nikola replied "Hi Helen. Who's that and why would you let them take me to a hospital of all places?"
The two people exchanged a concerned look. "My name isn't Helen, Jon, it's Amanda, and this is Damien. You remember him, don't you? He created Sanctuary and he's the producer of our film."
Nikola looked at them, suddenly a little worried. What was going on, was this some sort of cover story for a mission? But a quick sweep of the room showed no cameras and there was no one else there.
"Is this some kind of a joke? Because I have to say it's in awfully poor taste."
The man Damien spoke for the first time. "It must be the head injury. Maybe I should get the doctor."
Helen, who for some reason was calling herself Amanda, nodded and said "Good idea." She pulled a chair up to the bed and lowered the railing on that side as the man left the room.
She sat, took his hand and asked "Exactly what do you remember?"
Nikola looked at her speculatively. Either everyone here was crazy, or he was crazy, or something very peculiar had happened. In any case maybe he'd better start playing along so he didn't end up in a rubber room.
"Not much. I remember landing very hard, the ambulance ride, and waking up just now."
"And before that?"
"Everything is pretty hazy. Maybe you should tell me. But first, can I sit up here somehow?"
She found the bed control and raised the head for him until he was sitting mostly upright. "We're making a Sanctuary film. We were doing a shot where your character is chasing an Abnormal off of a roof and down a series of platforms that lead down to the ground. The CG artists will turn the platforms into packing crates later. Do you remember that?"
"Yeah, kinda." Or not at all, since I'm an inventor, scientist and engineer and not an actor.
"Everything went perfectly in rehearsal. Then when we were filming, Jack- the man playing the Abnormal?- he came down ahead of you, you waited for your cue and then you came after him. You were moving very fast, Martin was loving it, but when you hit the third platform it collapsed. Believe me, the stunt coordinator feels terrible and there's an investigation both by the studio and the safety people."
"How far did I fall?"
"Over twenty feet on to concrete. It was completely uncontrolled and terrifying I assure you. When you feel up to it, if you want, you can see it since the cameras were rolling."
"So I hit pretty hard."
"Honestly, I thought you were dead. When I saw the pool of blood around your head . . . I really don't want to think about that anymore. You're here, very much alive, and I'm very, very glad."
The door opened and a man in a white coat entered followed by Damien. The doctor introduced himself "I'm Doctor Cullen, Mr. Young. I treated you when you came into the ER. I hear you're having some trouble with your memory."
"A little, but things are clearing up." Especially after someone tells me what supposedly happened. Or maybe what did happen here, wherever here is; down the rabbit hole, over the rainbow, alternate universe?
The doctor pulled out a small flashlight and checked Nikola's pupil reactions. "Everything looks good. There is some swelling around the injury and you suffered a concussion. It's very common for memory problems with this type and severity of blow to the head. That should clear up in a day or two. If it doesn't or if you start having any odd sensations, numbness, loss of movement, seizures, vision or hearing distortions, you need to come back to the ER immediately."
"I can leave now?"
"No, we want to keep an eye on you for 24 hours. If everything is fine you can go home tomorrow."
"When can he come back to work?" Damien asked.
"I'd give him at least a couple of days at home, but no real exertion for at least a week."
The woman who denied she was Helen said "We can shoot around him."
Damien said "For a little while; I can reschedule the action scenes. I wrote the story heavily Tesla for the fans and now this happens, but don't blame yourself, Jon, it was definitely not your fault. And don't worry; we'll make it all work out somehow."
The doctor looked at Nikola and said "Don't let them talk you into anything. Head injuries are serious; you wait until you feel up to it before you do anything." Dr. Cullen left.
Nikola asked "Are my clothes here somewhere?"
"No, and you're staying right where you are until tomorrow; you heard the doctor" Helen- no, Amanda- said.
Damien added "Call me on my cell tomorrow, I'll send your clothes and a car to take you to the hotel." He wrote the phone number down and left it on a little table next to the bed.
At Nikola's blank look Amanda added "We're on location, remember?"
Nikola pretended to and said "Oh, yeah, that's right."
As they left Amanda said "I'll talk to you tomorrow. If you need anything, call, okay?" Then she snapped a photo of him with her phone, explaining "Just so I can show everyone you're really alive and awake. It will make the stunt crew feel better."
Nikola used the remote by his bed, turned on the TV and watched the news. It convinced him he really wasn't in his own world, or universe, or reality or whatever. And it also provided a cover so he could think.
While the set droned on he considered what had happened. He did remember now that he had been in his lab. When he'd slammed into the concrete his first reaction had been surprise because there wasn't anything in the lab that could explode. But he had been investigating a piece of Praxian technology. By itself it shouldn't have done a thing, but perhaps it had come into proximity with something else?
He closed his eyes and visualized his lab. He mentally walked around, seeing in his head where every piece of equipment, every tool, every nut and bolt had been. But his concentration was broken by someone coming into his room. An obnoxiously cheery woman had brought in a dinner tray and was chatting about how she loved the show and his character in particular. Nikola smiled back and murmured appropriate things trying to imitate some actor named Jon that he'd never met.
When she finally left, it occurred to him that everyone was seeing him as this actor. Nikola fairly leapt out of the bed and went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. But the face staring back at him was his own. Nikola frowned at the mirror. So he and this actor looked exactly alike? Was that significant? And if he was here, was the actor- there?
The guy would never be able to keep up the pretense that he was Nikola Tesla, no matter how much they looked alike. Helen would see very quickly that something was wrong. Nikola hoped she didn't shoot the poor guy; not being a vampire, a fit of temper on Helen's part could kill him.
Nikola went back to his bed and stared at the food on the tray. He dumped most of it in the toilet and flushed a couple of times, then got back into bed and sipped the tea. He would have to feed eventually, but surprisingly he wasn't very hungry considering he'd been injured and had had to heal his head. The interdimensional trip had been rather tiring too.
He had healed his head, hadn't he? With all the bandages he wasn't sure. A little doubt crept in. What if he really was this actor guy and the brain injury had completely unhinged him? He couldn't be imagining his whole hundred and sixty year life, could he?
There was one way to find out; but later, when he wouldn't be disturbed. Eventually the woman who had delivered his tray came and picked it up, and a different woman came shortly afterwards and checked his vital signs. Nikola cooperated, the faster to get rid of her.
He watched TV for a couple of hours since there was nothing else to do. Gradually the other noises on the floor subsided as the patients settled in for the night. Nikola turned off the TV and the main light in the room, leaving just the night light glowing. He napped for an hour or so and then got up.
He went into the bathroom, closed the door behind him and turned on the light. He considered how to get the bandage off. With a little work he was able to loosen it enough to slip the whole thing off of his head in one piece. It was a bit blood-stained, so he really had hit the ground hard. But Nikola didn't have a second mirror to see the back of his head so he felt it with his hand instead.
He could feel the bumps of the stitches, but there wasn't any pain and he couldn't detect the injury at all. That was a relief of sorts. Just to make sure, he vamped and admired his black red-ringed eyes, long white fangs, and black three-inch long claws in the mirror. Unless he was having a very serious hallucination, he definitely was Nikola Tesla, vampire, not Jon Somebody, actor.
Nikola got the bandage straightened out and wiggled it back onto his head. It looked rather rumpled and slipshod, but it would have gotten messed up overnight anyway, maybe. He went back to bed. Tomorrow he would figure out how to get back to the Sanctuary, tonight he was getting a good night's sleep.
A/N: I feel a little odd writing a fictional story with real people it I don't even know. What do you think? Is it weird, should I drop it or continue it?