Disclaimer: I don't own Sanctuary. I also don't own the title of the fic.
Spoilers: "Sleepers"
Author's Note: I took the title from the Josh Groban song "Now or Never", as it was my inspiration for this particular fic.
Now Or Never
She watched him sleep on her couch. A ray of sunlight broke through the curtains to splash against his skin making it look like white marble. She sighed over him, as she had many times before. Seeing him passed out on her couch brought out something in her, something almost maternal. It shattered her heart within her chest to see him so vulnerable. She saw a vulnerability in him that he'd managed to hide for all the years that she'd known him. He had always been so strong, so protective, so much the genius, but seeing him mortal again, stripped of everything that made him that person, broke something in her.
She watched him for a while longer; loathe to wake him, after the amounts of alcohol he'd consumed. She sat down next to him on the couch, pulling his head into her lap. He was rumpled, something she'd rarely seen. A man as vain as Nikola was always well dressed and unwrinkled. She ran her fingers through his hair gently, barely touching him, so as not to wake him. It had been an interesting night with him, a night much like the ones they'd spent together before the Five had fallen apart. His humor was biting and sarcastic, but it was unguarded. She liked it, had missed it more than she realized.
"Helen." Nikola rasped.
"Good morning, Nikola." She smiled down at him. He cracked an eye and winced at the light stabbing at him.
"Is it good? Because there's a hundred bongo drums being pounded in my head. Is that what being human means? A hangover? I haven't had one of those in over a century." He looked up at Helen, studying her as she looked down at him, her fingers still in his hair. "Ah, well, what's one more reminder of what I used to be."
"Nikola…" She trailed off, unable to finish her thought. She looked away. "I'm sorry Nikola. I tried…" He covered her lips with his fingers.
"It's ok. I know you tried. Besides with my new magnetic personality, I'll be back to my old self in no time."
"Optimism? How unlike you."
"Yes, well since I'm trying new things." She continued to run her fingers through his hair. Nikola saw the sadness in her eyes; the tears start to run down her cheeks. He reached up and brushed them away.
"I'm afraid of losing you, Nikola. You're all I have left." Her tears started to come harder.
"I wont leave you, Helen. I'll never leave you." He whispered.
"But you're mor…"
"Don't say it."
"But its true, and you will age and die now, and I will still be here. I'm tired of still being here, when everyone leaves me. First Nigel, then various friends and lovers, James, John is all but gone, Ashley. I'm losing you too. Minute by minute, your life is draining away" He sat up and drew her over, pulling her into his chest, holding her as her tears rained down and soaked into his shirt. He'd never seen her so distraught, not since the night John had admitted to being Jack the Ripper.
Helen breathed in his scent, allowing it to wash through her, to calm her. His scent was spicy, clean, and masculine. There was a tang to him that reminded her of his ability to manipulate electricity. She pressed her lips to his neck. She felt his answering shiver, and pressed her lips to his neck again, just over his pulse point. He pulled her closer, until she was cradled in his arms and across his lap.
"Helen. Don't start something you don't want to finish." He warned her quietly.
"Its now or never, Nikola. I want you."
"I…" She silenced what ever he was going to say with a kiss. When they both needed to breathe, she pulled away. "Ok. You win." She looked at him in surprise.
"Had I known a kiss was all it would take to win with you, Nikola, I would have kissed you a lot sooner." He gave her a devilish smirk, the one that said he was about to do or say something egotistical, or mischievous.
"There are so many more things you don't know about me, when it comes to you, Helen." In that moment, he was the old Tesla, the one that she had first become friends with at Oxford, and so much more.
"I look forward to finding out what else you've been keeping from me."
"And I look forward to it as well." She kissed him again before laying her head on his shoulder. He hugged her tighter, to him. She sighed in temporary contentment.
"I love you, Nikola." She felt him stiffen slightly. "I mean it. I always have."
"What about John?" He asked the question that had been plaguing him since they had she had first announced her engagement to the man.
"I was so stupid when I let him seduce me. I was pregnant. That's why I agreed when he asked. He knew that I didn't love him, not the way I should have. He didn't know about the baby though. I was going to tell him the night I discovered what he was. After that, events seemed to move so quickly. I worked with James the cryogenically freeze the embryo. When I couldn't stand the loneliness anymore, I had Ashley."
"Why did you turn to him and not me? I would have cared for you, taken care of you, loved you and your child even though she was John's. Why did you choose him in the first place?"
"He treated me like an equal, but also as a woman. When I was with you, or James, or Nigel for that matter, you saw me as an equal, but you forgot the woman. I was just another brilliant mind to join another group of brilliant minds. He saw the woman too. He loved me, Nikola, and even though I reveled in the attention her paid me, I didn't return that love. I was in love with from the moment you spoke to me on campus. I loved your brilliant, if wild ideas, your sharp blue eyes. The way you talked to me, but you never gave me any sign that my affection was returned."
"Perhaps I'm a better actor than I realized. I was devastated when you chose John. The night that you agreed to marry him, I got blind drunk. Even James, the ever observant, had no idea what set me off, only that I showed up on his doorstep at three in the morning, barely able to stand, let alone form a coherent sentence. I have always loved you, Helen. I meant what I said in Rome. Its you I always come back to."
"Maybe we can put all of that behind us now. I wont let you go this time, Nikola. I wont let you go ever again."
"I'm yours forever then?" She nodded. "I think I like the sound of that."