/-/- Early Summer, 1876

"You've got the wrong answer."

"No, I haven't."

"Look, you did the math wrong in the beginning."

Nikola stares at the page of calculations and eventually sighs and crumples it into a ball. "Well, there goes an hour of my life I'll never get back." He tosses the crumpled paper into the corner of his dorm. "I need a break. And some wine."

Helen shuts her book and sets down her pen. "You're right. We have been working for a while. I'm not sure that I can possibly remember any more information."

"Oh, please, Helen, you know more than our professors. You'll do fine- not that you're actually being graded anyway." He looks up at her and winces. "Sorry."

"It's ok."

"So any fun plans for your summer?"

"Just working with my father."

"Fascinating."

"Actually it is. Are you going back to Austria?"

"Yes. Boring old Austria." Nikola moves his chair closer to Helen, getting as close as he can without actually touching her. "I'm going to miss you, Helen. Four months without you, without our little study sessions- it's going to be torture."

She smiles at him and rests her hand on his cheek. "You'll survive, I'm sure."

"I'll survive, but I won't enjoy my summer."

"Don't say that. It just means that you need to come visit me."

"You're inviting me to your house?"

"Yes, of course."

She's talking to him, but he's focusing on her thumb gently rubbing over his stubble-covered cheek. He's also focusing on her lips, which is the reason he knows that she's talking to him, but he's not hearing her words, he's considering their perfect shape and delicate redness and the slight curve upwards they have when she speaks. He tilts his head to the side and leans into her touch; his hand comes up to cover hers. She stops talking as he does this. He holds her gaze for a few silent moments and then he leans forward until he can almost feel her lips against his. He can feel her breathing, each breath coming a little faster.

Then he kisses her. He's gentle, timid and slightly afraid of her reaction. She doesn't pull away. His hand falls away from hers and she slides it into his hair. He likes when she does that, play with his hair that is, and he likes it even more while he's kissing her. It encourages him to kiss her with a little more pressure. But that just causes her to pull away. She smiles at him and strokes his cheek before moving away from him completely.

"I think that's enough of a break. If you don't study, you won't have much of a summer break to come visit me during."

/-

She hugs him tightly in the doorway. He groans in surprise at the sudden action but quickly drops his bag in favour of wrapping his arms around her.

"Nikola! It's so good to see you. Your trip went well, I hope?"

"Long, tedious, and boring, but ultimately completely worth it," he says as he smiles at her. She steps back and allows him room to enter; he picks his bag up off the floor and does just that. "Your letter said there was something important you wanted to show me?"

"Yes, very!" Her eyes are shining in the way they do whenever she's on to something interesting.

"Please, do tell."

From the far hallway, they hear heavy footsteps, followed by low, deep cough. "Is that him, Helen?"

"Yes, Father." Helen steps closer to Nikola. He gives her a look of shock. His posture slackens and he shoves his hands into his pocket. Helen elbows him lightly, but smiles brightly. Then she wraps her arm through his, rests her other hand on top of his bicep, and slowly leads him towards her father. "This is Nikola Tesla, my friend from school I've been telling you all about."

"Yes..." Dr. Magnus scans his eyes over the man, stopping for a long pause at where their arms interlock before finally resting on his face. "Croatian?"

"Um," Nikola glances at Helen, then back at her father, "Serb, actually."

"Hmm. What are you studying at Oxford?"

"Physics, sir."

"Good, good." Dr. Magnus turns all his attention away from Nikola and looks to Helen. "Are you sure about him?"

"Absolutely, Father. Please?"

Her father grunts a little. He looks Nikola over once again, while Nikola stares at Helen in confusion. Finally Dr. Magnus nods and retreats back into his study, where he had come from.

"What was that all about?"

"I want to show you what my father does- his work. Well, our work really." She takes a deep breath and drops his arm so that she can turn and face him. "I want you to help us. I think you're exactly perfect for this; you'll understand it all. Please, just go along with it for a few more minutes. If it's too much for you, then I'll never mention it again. You just need to promise to keep it secret. You can do that for me, right?"

"Of course, Helen. But what... what can your father possibly be doing? Secret laboratory experiments in his cellar?"

She smiles and takes his hand. "Come with me."

She leads him through a door he almost didn't notice and guides him down a set of winding stairs. It's rather dark and she hands him his own candle and tugs his hand to lead him off to the right. He's not sure what he's supposed to be looking at, or for, but then he sees it- whatever it is. It looks almost human like, but it's abnormally tall and broad. It wears scales instead of closes and hisses at Nikola. He tries not to be afraid of it and tries to straighten and look objectively through its barred door, but he's certain his face gives him away.

In the next cage, a creature unlike any Nikola had ever seen cowered in the corner. Helen whispers to him, "He's afraid of strangers."

"Oh..."

Helen tugs him along once again, taking him away from the cages of creatures and into lab where a man sat at the bench. "This is Peter, he makes a lot of the devices that my father and I use to capture and tame the abnormals- that's what we call them." The man doesn't look up from his work to acknowledge them, but Nikola steps closer all the same. There are bits of metal and wire and different materials in front of the man, littering the entire bench. That's when Nikola notices that the man has no tools and his hands are mostly stationary, and yet the pieces are being moved around, warping and assembling themselves in mid-air. Nikola twists around, mouth agape, to stare at Helen. She just smiles and gestures for him to follow her out into the hall.

"So... Abnormals?" he says.

"Yes. Some you've even heard stories of- werewolves, vampires, mermaids. There are thousands of different species. Potentially millions in total."

"And what- what do you do with them?"

"Some are too dangerous to be out on their own. We keep them here to protect both them and everyone else. Some are just afraid, they need protection or training to control themselves. And we study them, try to learn what makes them unique."

She's smiling at him, that big excited smile that he can never look away from, the one that makes him smile in return. So he does. "I was thinking," she says slowly, she even bites her lip a little, something he's never seen her do before. "You should stay here for the rest of the summer. My father's charged me with three of the abnormals to study and, if possible, help. You could work with me with them."

"You're serious?"

"Unless you don't want to?"

"Helen, this... this is amazing! There's no way you could tear me away from here."

"Good."