The Sixth Time

Columbia, 2009

Nikola Tesla was surrounded by steam in his suite in the Hotel Charleston in Bogota, showering after returning from his swim in their pool. He was lost in thought at he scrubbed hard at his skin, as though he was trying to wash away his mortality, his vulnerability. He was unprepared for the idea of dying, not when he still felt he had so much to do. Not when Helen wasn't yet his. She wasn't, was she?

His dreams of her were incredibly vivid, with intimate, almost comfortable knowledge of her body and blood that he could never have guessed, despite the few times they'd fooled around in the distant past. The idea of her consumed him, his blood heating at her nearness, his cock always half hard. He'd had to run away, especially as his control over his body was pathetic as a mortal. He was afraid he would crawl into her bed and beg her to let him touch her, let him hold her, let him hear her moan his name before he was old and wretched and wrinkled.

He looked down in disgust as his cock was once again achingly hard at the thought of her. A cold shower was an option, but he knew that wouldn't work for long. He took himself in hand, calling up a vivid fantasy of taking her in a private bath in Turkey, her body warm and wet and welcoming. He stroked himself, eyes clenched shut, so lost in thoughts of Helen that he didn't notice the door of the bathroom open softly, causing steam to swirl in playful clouds. When the sagging shower curtain was pulled back his eyes flew open, adrenaline rushing through his system. Then a naked Helen Magnus stepped into the stall, and his mouth opened in shock as he stepped backward, running into the cool tile wall.

He babbled, because he could think of no other response. "That's it, I've gone mad. I may dream of you, and have more fantasies than a desperate youth of fifteen, but I have never had hallucinations before."

Helen smiled, stepping closer to him, one hand tracing over the shell of his ear and the other hand wrapping around his cock as her heavy breasts pressed against his chest. "Are you so sure you are hallucinating, Nikola? Is it not possible that I've just broken down and chased you halfway across the planet to finally break the sexual tension between us?"

"If I believed that, I would be an idiot."

She leaned back and looked into his eyes, something amazing hiding inside of her own. "You are an idiot, Nikola Tesla. But I love you."

Pain rocketed through his skull, flashes of a twenty-five thousand days and nights with Helen Magnus at his side. She stroked his cock softly and nuzzled into his neck as he gripped her hips tightly. Two months without his wife, without even the memories he'd made with her, had drained him. They'd seen James die, he'd seen her lose Ashley, he'd been made mortal and all the time unable to give or take comfort in her. He found his eyes filled with tears as he tried to parse through everything once again.

"Ashley, is she…"

"She's recovering well, with Danny's help. River was perfect. Broke into the Sanctuary, planted your device, hopped through time, then collected the device again and broke back out. There wasn't even a flicker on the Sanctuary monitors, something we will have to rectify in the New Sanctuary. Our daughter finally got to meet her sister, something she's been taking about for forty years."

He smiled into her hair, proud of both of his children. Daniel the solemn, intense doctor, a mix of both grandfathers. River the brilliant and wild physicist. Both of them abnormal – Daniel the vampire and River an utterly unique specimen. With the right equipment and energy boost, she could hop through time, her wild golden-red curls her only clothing when she arrived. He remembered with amusement the first time he'd seen River, a naked little six year old in Helen and his bedroom, yelling at Mommy and Daddy that it was almost past time to implant her and she needed to be born soon! Later they would discover that little jaunt had blown out the Cardiff power grid for two days in 1954.

Helen laughed softly, as though she could read his mind, and tilted her face up for a kiss. Her grip on his cock grew stronger and all thought of their children fled, replaced by contemplation of the activity that makes children. Their kiss grew fierce, possessive, teeth and tongues, her hands buried in his wet hair and his still clutching her hips. He spun them about, pressing her against the wet tile. Her leg came up to circle his thigh, leaving her wet slit open and begging for him to thrust inside. His fingers moved to stroke through that wetness, two fingers pushing inside. His cock throbbed at the hot silky feeling of her. He removed his nimble fingers, ignoring her soft whimper of disappointment. Instead he moved them up again, circling over her clit and she growled, pulling at is cock until he was aligned with her entrance, circling her hips. "Now, missed you! Now!"

He wanted to obey, but he was mortal now and unsure of his strength to lift her up against the tile and take her properly. It would be a sad reunion indeed if they managed to fall in the shower and he died from a head wound. He pulled away, ignoring her cry of protest and spun her around to face the the wall as his hands pulled her hips back and positioned his cock. He took a moment to admire the beautiful curve of her back and the perfect roundness of her rear. She wriggled slightly, and he didn't wait any longer, pressing into her heat and relishing the squeak of surprise she gave that turned into an appreciative moan. Helen was loud and filthy when they made love, something he adored about her. Her gasps and commands, her swearing and the constant refrain of, "Fuck me, Nikola. Jebi me!"

It was the Serbian at the end that drove him absolutely over the edge, his hips pistoning into her until she was shaking with the force of it, her arms pushing against the slippery tile to meet every thrust. He continued to drive into her as one hand moved up to pinch her nipples and the other unerringly found her clit, flicking it in counterpoint to his thrusts until she shouted his name and slammed her hand against the tile. Her sheath clamped down hard, pulling his orgasm from him as he roared. He leaned forward and bit down against the scar on the back of her neck. Even with human teeth, the action was primal, instinctual and she convulsed around him again as her pleasure rekindled with his bite.

They stayed there for a long minute, panting and spent, the water trickling over them until he reached down to shut it off. Then, without a word, Helen grabbed his hand and pulled it over her lower abdomen, pressing his hand there with intent. He gasped softly in understanding, and called upon his newly manifested magnetic powers to take an image of what was hidden within his wife. And there, not even an inch long, was a fetus – their third child together.

"Apparently, I continue to have terrible timing with regards to my conceptions."

Worry swirled in his gut, but his response was flippant. "Well Daniel was conventional at least. He always is a bit of a perfectionist. River – I still can't believe James managed to build that stasis box from the sketchy plans you swiped from me."

"Yes, well, Daniel is the one who will be doing the transfer operation this time. River wanted to try and go back to interrupt our last tryst before I left you at Bhallassam, but I couldn't bear it. I want this one too. But, I can't carry this child now, Nikola. Not with everything I will need to do. I know you aren't actually going mucking about those caves in the north for another couple of months at least, because that's when I rescue you. This gives us time to build a stasis chamber and keep this little one safe, until we can be home together again."

He pressed a kiss against her shoulder and watched with magnetic senses as this little inconvenient miracle fluttered safe within Helen's womb. He wondered if he would dream of this little one as well, when his memories were once again locked away.

The First Time

New York, 1906

He was thrilled at his success, the press was eating out of his hand. Bladeless turbines* would conquer the world, making power so cheaply that progress would be advanced by centuries in just the next decade. He'd crush Edison and make himself so rich that the press would never question his sanity again! He slammed open the door to Room 327 at the Waldorf and entered the sitting room, intent on drinking two or three very good bottles of wine he'd swiped from J.P. Morgan at the last house party at which he'd been barely tolerated.

He was not prepared to see Helen Magnus laid out on his chaise-longue, her feet bare, her smile welcoming, already sipping at an excellent bottle of Burgundy out of a crystal glass held between her delicate fingers.

He stopped cold, blinking for a moment. Perhaps he really needed to get more sleep.

"Happy birthday, Nikola. You look good for fifty." Helen pushed dark curls over her shoulder and took another sip of her wine, her eyes raking over him with undisguised hunger that made him certain that she was more vision that reality. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to care. Why he would imagine her with long dark hair – a look that suited her beautifully, he didn't know. He dreamed of her that way sometimes, stealing into his mind with desperation in her eyes and a searing kiss left on his lips. What does one say to a figment of their imagination?

"I had imagined having a celebration of my accomplishments and the anniversary of my birth, but this is more reward than I had ever dreamed. Have you come to bake me a cake and worship me for the genius I am, Helen? Or am I simply hallucinating?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "You are an idiot, Nikola Tesla. But I love you."

He sucked in a breath, his body electrified in an entirely different way than usual by her words. He stepped forward, knelt in front of her, and lifted one of her hands to his lips, pressing a kiss against warm flesh that seemed very real. "Tell me truly Helen, am I dreaming?"

She laughed softly, and setting down her wine she ran her fingers through his hair, curving behind his ear in a gesture of affection that was more profound that the most passionate kiss.

"I need your help, Nikola. But in order for you to help me you are going to have to train yourself to forget I was ever here. If you can't agree to do that, then I have to leave, and you will most likely think this encounter is nothing but some dream wrought by exhaustion or cheap wine." He snorted and made to speak, but she pressed a finger against his lips. "If you can agree to undergo training to forget that I was ever here, then I will tell you things that will make you shake in your shoes and long for a time when you did not know even know Helen Magnus."

He stared at her, her blue eyes so deep, having seen so much. She was far, far different that the blonde Helen he'd left in London, still mourning all that had been with Druitt. He realized that he had seen her before. He remembered it now, as clearly as any other of his memories. The dark leather clothes she'd worn. Her demands for plans of the stasis box he'd built for her fetus. The hunger in her eyes that he'd never seen before.

She had come to him in 1898, and stolen something from him. That he could forgive. But then she'd stolen his memory, and that…that was a different story. . Why would she need another stasis box? For whom? Rage bubbled up, threatening the control he fought for constantly. A thousand reasons she would have done that, and few of them were good

"Did the transfer work last time Helen? Does someone else have a baby in a box now? Or are two gathering dust on your shelf together? Do you need me to fix something else for you?" Anger simmered under his skin, anger than she'd stolen his memories. He hadn't seen Helen Magnus in fifteen years, even if he wrote to her every week. He loved Helen so much that he couldn't stay in the same country and not try to woo her – and she was too damaged to be wooed. He could wait. They had eternity. But this…this was fracturing his emotions at the seams. "Will you simply erase my mind again whenever you need me? Who are you, Helen? What have you become?"

She pulled her other hand out from behind a cushion, revealing some kind of gun-like device that she clutched with shaking fingers. "This…James built this. It triggers a neural cascade that traps ten minutes of short term memory, sealing it away with a code phrase chosen by someone near the target. I never wanted to do that to you, Nikola. But I had no choice. I was under a time limit, and we didn't have time for the full training."

Her blue eyes shone with vulnerability he hadn't seen since when they'd first met, combined

with a lifetime of loneliness. He felt his anger draining away as she continued, her voice trembling slightly, "I vow I will never, ever use that on you again. Time stream be damned." She stood abruptly and dropped the gun with a thud. Tears in her eyes, she made to dart around him.

He wrapped his arms around her knees, burying his face in burgundy fabric of her dress. He didn't care what the hell she'd done to him. She couldn't leave him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm just a stupid, jealous fool. I will take your training, ljubavi." He looked up into her face, pale and perfect in the soft lamplight. "I love you. My eternity is yours. If you need me, I will be there. Whenever, wherever. I'm yours. Just tell me your damn secrets."

She let out a sob and sank down, holding his face in her hands and pressing her mouth to his. He opened his lips in surprise, and she darted her tongue out to taste his mouth. He was inexpert, lost in the arts of love. There had only ever been one woman who had inspired a physical passion in him, and other than some experimental touches on women who seemed eager to be seduced by Nikola Tesla, he was untested. He learned quickly, kissing her back with eager passion, his tongue sliding along hers, relishing the taste of her. His cock grew hard against her stomach, and his hands began to roam down her back, stroking the silky fabric and feeling warm skin underneath.

He realized something startling in very short order and smiled into her kiss. He pulled away from her lips a millimeter, just enough to quip, "No corset, Helen? Just what kind of a man do you take me for? Entering my rooms, drinking my wine, wearing scandalously few undergarments. A man would think you had seduction on your mind." He leaned in to continue their kiss, but she leaned back herself, a twinkle in her eyes.

"And I thought your constant string of innuendo was only a facet of your twenty-first century persona!"

The implications of that statement hit him hard, and he swallowed. "You are from the future. Our future. Together?" He licked the corner of his lips, unconsciously chasing her taste in his nervousness. "The child….the stasis box…"

She pursed her lips in amusement. "Yes. Ours. It takes me a very long time to get my head on straight I'm afraid. And then you went and disappeared on me. And then I had to jump through a rip in time, discovering I was pregnant only when stranded in 1898. I did not want to deprive you of seeing your own child grow up if you chose to do so." Her voice trailed off, suddenly shaded with insecurity.

He wrapped him arms around her, his eyes meeting hers with soul bared. "Thank you. I want to know our children as they grow inside of you. I want them to pester me with a thousand questions about why the sky is blue or why direct current is inferior or why their mother won't give them another biscuit. I want all of it."

She smiled like the sun, her face radiant, her eyes glimmering with hope and shinning with tears. "I've already told you far too much. Please, you will agree to the memory training? Even if you lose months of your life to confusion and false memory implants?"

"I've lost months of my life to the gambling table, to ditch digging, to wine, to Thomas Asshole Edison. I would lose decades, for you Helen. Centuries." She pushed herself up, sitting back on the chaise with a thump and pulling him forward until he was pressed against her as she opened her mouth to him , pressing her tongue against his lips and tempting him to taste her again. Long, glorious minutes were spent happily engaged, as slowly his cravat was loosened, his waistcoat buttons plucked open and his shirtwaist yanked from his trousers.

She pulled away from him, lips swollen and eyes soft and full of laughter. "You always wear too many clothes, Nikola. And that mustache!" She leaned back on to the slanted back of the chaise, her dark hair fanning out against the gold damask fabric. She rubbed her upper lip, twitching in a manner so utterly charming that his heart faltered in its elevated rhythm. "It tickles terribly. Very distracting. Especially during certain activities."

His mind spun, thinking of all the things he wanted to do to her. Depraved, wicked things that had chased him out of London and across and ocean to escape the temptation of her nearness.

"I shall shave it tonight."

Her laughter rang out again, lightening his heart from a burden he hadn't known he carried. "I'll help you. The next time the younger me sees you, you are clean shaven, and I remember quite enjoying the difference."

He leaned down to her, the warmth of her body under his and the promises in her eyes heating his blood to fever hot. He pressed his lips to hers again, before pulling back just enough to look in her eyes again.

"How long can we have together, ljubavi? How long before you disappear on me again?"

She closed her eyes, unwilling to show him what he knew must be bone deep loneliness. He could feel it, for it reflected his own without her. "In eighteen months, I will send you a telegraph and ship tickets and ask you to meet me in Vienna," she said 'Vienna' with such a caressing tone that he was certain it was a time he was going to enjoy. Then he couldn't think any more, as she cupped the back of his head and drew him down to her lips, kissing him with a raw need that thrilled him so much he had to work to keep the vampire at bay. One arm held him perched above her, and the other hand slid behind her head, tangled in the sweet smelling strands of her hair. His mind was caught up in the movements of lips and tongues, and even teeth – a dangerous game that thrilled him as she pulled his lower lip between her teeth and his hips rocked against her thigh, his cock hard and aching.

He barely noticed when his fingers drifted down the back of her neck, stroked over the raised skin of a scar there, in the flesh where the back of her neck met the back of her shoulder. It was a scar he knew Helen had not possessed the last time he'd set eyes on her, admiring the arch of her neck as she worked on some project or other, a blonde curl resting against porcelain skin. He traced it absentmindedly, trying not to rut like an animal against her legs, and she shivered under him, moaned as a nail scraped against the scar.

He pulled back, studying her face as he repeated the action, watching her face flush, her eyes dilate to become more black than blue, her body trembling. She turned her head, revealing more of the left side of her neck, and he realized it wasn't just any scar. It was the marks from teeth. Vampire teeth. His teeth.

Those wicked teeth appeared without him willing it, his talons tracing her skin with odd gentleness. "Mine." There was no question in his voice, just the layered tones of his ancestors and the sudden primal knowledge that yes, this was his woman. His mate.

She arched her neck against his touches, his voice making her purr in response. "Yours."

He banished his teeth and claws and pulled back, yanking her legs onto the chaise and planting his knees on either side of her legs, laying with his body completely over hers as he kissed her again, desperate to be one with her. Her hips rolled up, pressing against his throbbing cock and he shuddered in response, his lips moving to her jaw, her tempting neck.

His hand cupped over her breast, pressing softly, terrified of hurting her.

"I want you so badly I think I may just combust. I want to give you pleasure, Helen. But I have no idea what the hell I am doing, ljubavi. Teach me how to please you?" He looked down at her, expecting to see amusement and perhaps a touch of dismay.

She stared back at him, a touch of awe in her expression, her bruised lips parted. "You….you, all those years I thought…I taught you?" She grinned, "I must do an excellent job. You are the most remarkable lover I've ever known."

He growled, pushing her back into the cushions, his hips pressed against hers, his hands learning her shape. She pushed back, rolling him over, trapping one of his arms beneath them and throwing a leg over his thighs, the action causing her skirt to hike up, up revealing that leg up to her knee. He immediately took advantage, stroking over her ankle, her calf, drifting higher as he mapped every inch to sense memory. His mind may have to forget her, but he knew his body wouldn't.

Her hands were even busier, unclipping his braces, working the fastenings of his trousers as he was consumed with the feel of her skin under his palm. When she wrapped a hand around his cock he let out a yell in response, and she gripped him harder as she chuckled into his neck. He clenched his eyes shut, his hand gripping her knee as his cock wept at her touch, his balls already tightening, threatening to explode at her slightest movement.

He grit his teeth and bit out, "Helen, if you expect this to go much farther, you are going to have to stop what you are doing, no matter how delightful it is."

"Nonsense, Niko. You are far too worked up and of no use to me like this. Let me give you this, and then we'll see about starting your lessons." He could feel her grin against his neck, and he gave up, closing his eyes and letting her take control. Her hand stroked against him, her thumb circling, spreading drops of pearly semen as they leaked from him. Her strokes grew faster, surer, and when she bit the skin of his neck with her little human teeth his back arched, his blood pounded, and he came, streaks of white against the peach skin of her hand and the burgundy fabric on her stomach. He panted hard as she rose up over him, and he watched, shocked and intrigued as she licked her fingers of his essence. Her smile was positively filthy, and he could feel years of guilt begin to flake away, replaced by the very real possibility that her mind was just as deliciously depraved as his own.

He had confirmation when she suddenly stood, and pulled the silk over her head, revealing the unlikely but incredibly arousing truth that she wore absolutely nothing underneath that dress but her creamy skin. He stared at her, his eyes eating every inch of her skin, lips parted in shock, his cock filling with inhuman speed. She glanced down at him and chuckled.

"I did want to wish you a happy birthday, Nikola. That's why I'm here." She climbed over him, settling on his thighs, his cock brushing against her stomach as she leaned over him. "Apparently I also have to train you to please me. And perhaps I have a few questions about those bladeless turbines and their use with geothermal vents for power supply of an underground facility. It's going to be a busy year and a half, my love."

She was perfection, everything he could ask for in a woman. He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He watched as she rose above him, his own dark goddess, and in a moment she had gripped him again, aligning his cock as she slid down, slowly, her face tight with concentration. Hot, wet heaven tightened around him and his hands finally moved, gripping her hips to keep her from moving and driving him once again over the edge embarrassingly quickly. His hand move to touch where they were joined, his mind lost in a cloud of awe. Somewhere he recalled something from a book he'd read years ago, when he'd first thought of courting her. His thumb moved up slightly, finding a hard nub of protruding flesh. He pressed lightly and she gasped, rolling her hips and making him groan as her walls slid over his cock and pleasure spiked up his spine.

She leaned forward, trapping his hand against her hot flesh, her hands busy working at ripping open his shirtwaist and getting to his skin. "Maybe some of that future prowess is simply instinct, Nikola. Care to continue your investigations? That, my love, is my clitoris. You are going to become great friends with it."

He circled thumb and fingers as best he could, pinching that magic flesh and watching the skin of her throat move as she swallowed and gasped. She pushed up on his chest and rocked backward, her movements pushing his cock even more deeply inside of her.

He was very, very worried that he was going to come again, when a horrible thought blossomed in his mind. "Baby?" He squeaked. "Not…still one in the box…not yet…"

She stopped moving, but continued smiling with feline satisfaction as his fingers kept stroking her, as though his hand and mind were completely disconnected. "I ovulate rarely now – the benefits of great age. But I have taken precautions. I do appreciate you asking though. Very caring of you, my dear." She tightened internal muscles and he whimpered at the feel of her.

Desperately hopeful, he brought the other hand up to hold on of her heavy breasts in his hand, his thumb flicking against the tight point of her nipple just as the other thumb stroked her nub below.

"Nikola!" she cried out softly, her hips rising and falling again, and he smirked in victory.

"You are a very quick study. Now, plant your feet and arch your hips, and give me a ride, Niko. Take what you want. That's what will please me right now, my love."

He did as she instructed, planting his feet on the end of the chaise and arching up, driving into her heat as his fingers continued to dance. Somehow, she kept her seat atop him, powerful thighs gripping his hips as they both rode into a blistering climax. Their shouts echoed in the sitting room, and there was a great banging objection from the floor above as she collapsed against him, both of them panting for breath, sweat beading their brows. The sounds of their mingled laughter were a sweet melody that would be repeated many times in the coming months.

*On his 50th birthday in 1906, Tesla demonstrated his 200 horsepower (150 kilowatts) 16,000 rpm bladeless turbine.