A short (hopefully sweet) story for our favourite adorable couple Helen and Nikola... because I feel bad about all the angst I'm putting them through in my other story. :P I have no idea where this came from.

Nikola Tesla blinked.

If he hadn't been so good at counting time (and, yes, he was) then he would have thought that the past hundred years had never happened. It was as though the past had been washed away in the blink of an eye. A hundred years of history, more than that, seemed to disappear.

He was standing near an old tree in the gardens at Oxford, it had been a favourite then, his hand toying with the pocket of his waist-coat. Several pigeons fluttered around above in the clear blue sky. Several feet away sitting on the freshly cut grass, still wet with the morning's dew, was his favourite blue-eyed doctor. She was wearing a crimson top and was fiddling absently with a few stalks of grass. He could picture this scene, the same, but over a century ago.

She had been wearing a crimson dress. But instead of the dark locks, there had been blonde curls. Had it not been for that he would have wondered briefly if he had actually stepped back in time.

They'd been in England at the London Sanctuary chasing a tricky abnormal, and Nikola, feeling nostalgic, had suggested they stop by the old stomping grounds before they returned to America. They had time before their flight, which was tomorrow, to visit Oxford. She'd seemed hesitant at first, maybe suspecting he was up to something nefarious, but had eventually relented.

"Does this remind you of anything?" he said. She smiled.

"Of course it does," she said, "I'm old, not senile."

"Old indeed," he commented, she snorted, tugging on his hand so he would come and join her on the grass.

"You can talk," she said, satisfied when he sat with his back against the tree trunk, "You're only a few years younger than me."

"You like me as your boy-toy, don't you?" he grinned, "Admit it. You've always been turned on by the thought."

"Niko, you're incorrigible," she sighed. He flashed her his toothy grin.

"Only with you, my dear," he said. It might seem a ridiculous notion, a man in love with a woman for over a hundred years, despite them never being together, but his heart remained true. Helen Magnus had always been, and would always be, the woman he loved.

She muttered something he was sure was an insult.

"I have a plan, you see," he said, as she snuggled into his arms, her head on his chest and his arm coming to rest around her waist, "This century, you tolerate me. In another oh two maybe three, you'll like me. In six hundred years, you'll admit you love me."

He was toying with one her dark locks in his fingers. He'd done it with her blonde curls back in Oxford. He hadn't realised how much he'd really missed playing with her hair until now really. She was quiet, and that concerned him.

"Helen?" he said.

"You'd wait six hundred years for me?" she said, softly, seriously.

"Of course I would," he said, genuinely. He heard her let in a breath. "I meant what I said in Rome, Helen."

There was a pause, and he could hear her thinking.

"Nikola?" she said.

"My dear?" he replied.

She tilted her head to look up at him, one hand resting gently on his chest.

"I know how you love your plans," she said, "But would you be horribly mad if I decided to move it up a bit?"

"I'm not sure I follow, love," he said. She smiled.

"You don't have to wait six hundred years, Niko," she said, pecking him on the lips, "I love you too."

Nikola's grin probably could have powered one of his precious electric toys about now.

"Helen?" he said.

"Yes?" she said.

"You always have to foil my plans, don't you?" he said. She giggled as he rolled over, pinning her to the grass, and making whatever reply she had to that die on her lips with a kiss.

Just this once, Nikola would let Helen Magnus's foil of his plan slide. She had, after all, offered a very sweet alternative option which he simply couldn't refuse. World domination and any other plan he had too could wait. Right now, he would let her foil any plan if she kept kissing him like that.