Hello fellow Teslen shippers,
What you should know before reading this fanfic is that I… well… I may not have seen every episode of Sanctuary. *dodges tomatoes* Yes, yes, I know, I suck. I did watch some Helen/Nikola episodes to familiarize myself with the show. This story was written as a birthday gift but I'm so pleased with the first few chapters, I thought I'd write this short little intro to whet your appetite, so to speak.
The story in its entirety will debut on October 15th and there you will get more information.
~KateMarie999
Introduction
Nikola Tesla leaned into his computer screen, staring at the numbers and letters as though willing them to tell him the answer he so desperately sought. He was so close to a solution, he could just feel it. The code was unraveling before his eyes… wasn't it? Perhaps it was his twenty-fifth cup of espresso doing that. He did notice that his gaze had become a bit more shaky.
"What am I missing?" he muttered to himself, tracing some of the numbers with the tip of his finger. "Come on, Tesla…"
Nikola was so entranced with his work that he didn't even notice a door open and shut behind him. A few seconds later, he became uncomfortably aware of a presence just over his shoulder. He spun around in his chair.
Helen Magnus, her face as radiant as ever, stood behind him, staring at the screen. He jumped, startled, but she didn't seem to notice. After taking a split second to compose himself, he smiled.
"Well, what a pleasant surprise, albeit unexpected." he said, crossing his arms.
"Have you been here all night?" Helen asked, still not looking at him.
"Unfortunately, yes. This code has proven to be a lot more difficult than I had anticipated." he replied, turning around to stare at it again.
"You seem to have made a lot of headway." Helen pointed to a section that Nikola had, thankfully, solved a few hours previously.
"Yes, that was a few hours ago. The patterns were fairly easy to crack. I'm having the most trouble with this section here." he said, pointing to the one section that had baffled him for the last three hours.
Helen stared at it for a moment. He thought he could see a smile playfully tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"Nikola, have you gotten any sleep?" she asked rather abruptly.
"No. I can't be interrupted, not when I'm this close to cracking this code. I can figure it out, just… just leave me alone." Nikola waved a hand absentmindedly in her direction. "I'll let you know when I've got it figured out."
"You really need to get some sleep." Helen said in an irritatingly superior voice.
"No, I always work best at night. You know this."
"You do realize it's seven o'clock in the morning, don't you?"
Nikola turned to face her. "Are you here to patronize me or are you going to let me get back to work?"
Helen finally smiled. "No need. I've got it figured out."
Nikola chuckled. "That's impossible. I've been working on this for three hours. There's no way you could walk in here, take one look at this, and figure it out."
"Nikola Tesla, you may be a genius but without sleep, you're completely useless. Now take a look." As Nikola turned his chair around to face the screen, she pointed to a section of the code. "This section is exactly like all the others."
"Preposterous, oh Helen, don't you think I'd have noticed that?"
"It's exactly the same but it's in reverse."
"No it isn't!" Nikola protested.
But a second glance at the code in relation to the others proved his statement wrong. Helen was indeed correct. After three hours, he hadn't managed to notice that glaring detail. Feeling a rare moment of embarrassment, he sighed.
"I think you're right." he said. "I should probably get to sleep."
Helen then did something completely unexpected. She placed her hands on his shoulders and began rubbing his back. Nikola was speechless for a moment and then closed his eyes, allowing the pleasurable feeling of her gentle caress to wash over him.
They were silent for a few minutes, her rubbing his back and him thoroughly enjoying it. He didn't say anything and she didn't seem eager to speak up.
"Now, don't you feel more relaxed?" Helen asked him at last.
Nikola nodded, still not trusting himself to speak. Then, as suddenly as she had started, Helen took her hands off his back and gently smacked his shoulder.
"Now get to bed." she commanded in a smooth voice. "I want my computer back."
"Ahh, your ulterior motive is uncovered at last." Nikola winked at her.
"Call it what you like, now go." Helen met his gaze and the two lingered for just a moment.
Finally, Nikola turned around and walked out the door. A few minutes later, when he was finally lying down on his bed and staring at the ceiling, his enormous mind began to think about a section of science he had never much liked. Perhaps the social sciences weren't as useless as he had thought. If, of course, he manipulated them in his favor. And after what had happened that morning, Nikola felt as though he had cracked a completely different code.