In Their Meadow all Starry With Flowers

Chapter 7

"Psychotic break,"

"Immediate isolation,"

"Cetainly dangerous"

Helen let the words sink in. Had she been wrong? Was it possible that she had wanted Nikola's insane scribbling to be "a clue" to something bigger, outside of him, something she could solve and control instead of facing up to the fact that it could be the tragic product of his genius finally imploding on itself? She had never been like Nikola, she hadn't got to where she was as a scientist by sheer brilliance and pig headed self belief, she had always believed in the power of outside observation. It was why she surrounded herself with people like Will and Henry, so why now did everything in her absolutely reject the findings of Will's colleagues. They were the brightest minds in their field, naturally they had no idea who the patient was that he was consulting with them about but even so, rationally she knew she should give them a chance. Even though his body seemed to brush aside any illnesses and infections, who knew what his brain would withstand, and she thought sadly, Nikola had never been entirely stable before he'd changed. She was interrupted by Kate flying in the door of her office, a panic stricken look on her face,

"Magnus! You gotta come now, Tesla's gone and..."

A loud crack drowned out the end of her sentence and sparks flew from the light fittings as all the bulbs exploded. The screen on Magnus' computer was flickering wildly and she had to shout over the loud whining hum that was rising through the building,

"Kate, what one earth is going on? What's happened?"

Kate grabbed her arm and started pulling her down the corridoor,

"Tesla woke up, then he passed out again, I don't know, but he's managed to take out all the electrics."

She yelled as the whine grew louder and they had to skip past flashing wires that were working themselves free of the walls as Tesla's monumental charge ran through them,

"But why? Why would he do that?" Magnus shouted back,

"He's not doing it on purpose! He's doing this in his sleep for Christ's sake!"

"His sleep?!"

"Yeah, now stop asking questions and run...I think we're going to have to take the stairs." Kate dragged Magnus past the big iron lift which was doing it's best to break free from it's own cables and crashed them through the stairwell door as the lights finally went out. Down they raced, taking the stairs three at a time, as the emergency generators struggled to cope with the power surge.

Moments later they hurtled into the lab only to be beaten back by the flames of the electrical fire that Henry was desperately trying to put out amidst his computer banks.

"Henry? Henry, are you all right? What's happening?" Magnus called to him as she edged round the flames trying to get to the second fire extinguisher on the other side of the room.

"I'm ok Doc, just a little crispy!" He leapt back as a monitor exploded sending hot plastic shards whizzing past him

"Crap in a bag! Anything you can do to shut him off? This is getting less fun by the second!" He pointed at Tesla in the midst of the flames, radiant with current and faintly smiling in his crumpled heap on the floor. Magnus ripped the extinguisher off the wall and began spraying the powder over the flames nearest her, Kate appeared again in the doorway and began helping Henry by smothering the smaller flames with a fire blanket from the hall. Their three pronged approach seemed to be working as they steadily worked closer in to the source of the fire, Nikola. Who without warning, sat bolt upright amidst the flames.

"NIKOLA!" Helen shouted, "Turn it off, stop the current!" He turned, looking at them blankly, his eyes lit with the blue glow of the electricity coursing through him.

"Helen?" He peered through the smoke and sparks,

"Nikola! The current!"

"What? Oh. Yes." He had a vague, dreamy look on his face, but as suddenly as it had happened the electricity he was channelling through the room stopped. The whole place went dark, the only light now coming from the small fires in Henry's monitor bank, the only noise the far off whine of the emergency generators as a dim orange light feebly glowed through the fumes. Magnus slumped against the wall,

"Thank God"

Nikola pulled himself up on the smoking remains of his bed, his flesh charred on the hot metal as he leant against the headboard, he blew on his hands as they healed before their eyes.

"Now," He began, his voice still a little distant, "Who wants to tell me exactly what is going on here?" He raised an eyebrow at them "I'm looking at you Doctor Magnus, I let your pet Ken doll make me all sleepy and I wake up half naked in a fire with a hysterical nerdwolf crying because his little blippy things went boom"

"Hey! I am not crying!" Henry said angrily, "I've been fighting a fire, it's the smoke!"

Helen furiously looked round her destroyed infirmary, at the smouldering equipment, the charred walls and the tarry liquefying remains of the mattress drooling onto the floor under the bed Nikola nonchelantly leant against and willed herself not to scream at him, the final straw was when he continued, looking narrowly at the pool of melted mattress slowly inching its way towards his bare foot,

"Also, you might want to get some mattresses that weren't salvaged WWII surplus, I always said you were cheap Helen..."

"Enough!" She exploded, "Nikola, will you STOP for just one second or I will knock you out again, and this time I won't need drugs. Have you looked at this place? My infirmary is ruined, valuable and difficult to replace equipment has been destroyed, Will has been thrown into a wall, and our lives were put in danger, all because of you, you and your ridiculous refusal to seek treatment for what is probably a dangerous mental illness, Will was probably right, maybe we should lock you up and force bloody tranquilizers down your throat before you lose what few wits you have left and go feral on us..." She caught herself as the others gaped at her.

"Mental illness." Nikola hissed through the drifting smoke, "Is that what you and your pet have decided? That I'm insane? He, I could have guessed, wouldn't have had the cognitive abilities to look past his monkey training but you Helen? Of you I expected a little better"

Kate grabbed Henry who was open mouthed and spoke quietly in his ear

"I think we better let mom and pop duke this one out on their own don't you?" They quickly scurried for the door as Helen moved towards the scowling vampire.

"Nikola, I didn't mean that, you know I didn't and I'm sorry. I'm worried about your health and things would be so much easier if you could stop your sneering flippancy for just a few minutes. The fact you can't remember why you're here is significant as people experiencing nervous breakdowns often have blackouts." She recalled with mild horror that those going through psychotic breaks from reality also suffered blackouts and the fact that Nikola was so much more dangerous than any of the other abnormals she allowed to walk free in the Sanctuary came crashing into the forefront of her mind.

"Breakdowns?!" He practically snarled at her, staggering away from the wall his eyes dark, "Blackouts? The only reason I blacked out my dear Helen is because your quack of a psychologist hypnotized me and obviously did it wrong." His steps were shaky but there was no mistaking the menace in his voice, "And if I ever find out that he's damaged me in some way, I will make him scream like the little girl he is before I snap his neck." His face was drawn, his bruised looking eyes hellish in the half light as his anger forced his vampiric side into the open and in that instant Helen realised that he wasn't just angry, he was terrified. All Nikola had ever had was his genius. His family had never been rich, or influential, he'd never had anything to make him special other than his brain and unfailing ambition. The fact that she, of all people, was losing faith in the stability of his mind must have cut him to the core.

Nikola inwardly choked down his fury and with as much dignity as he could muster in just a pair of pyjama bottoms that had become rather revealing in the fire and with legs that felt like jelly attempted to brush past Helen as she stood between him and the door with a slightly ashamed flush spreading over her cheeks. But as he made to step forward he lurched into her, his anger no longer enough to keep him upright. She grabbed him round the middle to steady him even as he tried to shove her away,

"Get off me woman, I can make it to the door without your pity" He growled and tired to extricate himself from her grasp, but his usually preternaturally strong limbs failed him, he felt bizarrely disconnected from himself, like he was trying to control his body from another room by remote control.

"Oh yes, you seem more than capable." Said Helen sarcastically as his hands trembled on her wrists, she was determined not to show her concern even though her heart was sinking at the feeble limp fingers clutching at her, where only hours ago his long hands had held her immobile.

"Helen, don't condescend to me, I'm not a truculent child and I'm not going insane. Now let me go, I just want to go to bed." His eyes were back to their usual washed grey, and achingly tired as he looked at her, his face close to hers as he leant heavily on her. She sighed.

"Fine, you're perfectly sane. You're right, I'm wrong. Now please can we have a truce til I can help you to your room because I'm about to collapse under you."
"Wouldn't be the first time..."

She looked sharply at him, it was so unexpected that she was slightly relieved under the instinctive annoyance to see a glimmer of the real Nikola in his eyes. She nudged him in the ribs and he winced.

"I can just as easily leave you here you know." She chided as she pulled him, wobbly legged down the corridor.

"Oh but Helen, we both know that won't happen, not when there's the chance for you to take me to bed." His eye teeth glinted as he smirked, looking down at his sooty, mostly naked body, his modesty only protected by the pyjamas that had more or less singed off into a holey pair of shorts.

"And if you'd wanted to get me into something less substantial than my usual attire you only had to ask...oof!" She had poked him in the ribs this time.

"Stop it Niko." His old nickname just slipped out and she just hoped he hadn't noticed, "Behave yourself or I'm getting the Big Guy to put you to bed." She risked a glance up at him as she pulled his arm tighter around her neck to steady him as she opened his bedroom door ushered him in, and kicked it shut behind her. He was looking at the floor in front of them, his face soft and a faint smile on his lips but he said nothing, as she sat him on the edge of his bed and fussed around him looking for a fresh set of pyjamas. Where had that "Niko" come from she wondered. He'd not been Niko to her since they'd fallen out over John. She still couldn't think about that argument without cold shame running down her spine. She'd known all along that he'd been in love with her, and she'd used that against him, called him jealous and controlling, an untrue friend. She'd even mocked him for it, told him he was pathetic for running after her and hoping that she might love him in return. She'd crushed him all because he'd been suspicious of John joining their circle. He'd not been a scientist, he'd been a philosophy student, a discipline Nikola held in deep suspicion as being little better than theologists. In return Nikola had used her gender against her, belittling her, accusing her of using her femininity to poach from greater minds than her own. He'd hit her where it hurt and she'd sworn never to forgive him. Yet still neither of them had stopped attending the meetings of The Five, it was almost as if they both knew, despite their frosty formalities, that they had not meant the dreadful things they had said. In the end, it had been his hand she reached for when the pain of transformation hit.

"Here, put these on" Helen handed him a pair of black pyjamas, her hands and voice brisk to cover up her sentimental slip. He looked up from his gently smiling reverie, his eyes in the wide searching gaze she remembered from their youth. He looked at her as if trying to see through her into her mind and she felt his slim fingers reaching for her, the tips just brushing her hand. He hauled himself upright on one of the posts on his bed and stood in front of her for a long moment without moving, until he broke his gaze and took the clothes from her. Neither of them moved away from one another, Helen's heart was beating hard to the point where she knew he could hear it. Her thoughts were racing, and she couldn't tell whether her resurgence of affection and embarrassingly, desire for this man was arising simply because of her fear that she might finally lose the last constant in her life or because now after John's final abandonment of her she could let herself feel for Nikola again, or even more embarrassingly did she just want to give in to her need for comfort during her time of hardship?

"Helen," he said gently as she realised she'd been staring blankly at his chest, "Unless you want to see more than I think you're ready for, would you mind turning around?" She spun on her heel, glowing red in the face as it struck her that she'd never actually seen Nikola so undressed as she was now. It also struck her how inappropriate these thoughts were when he was her sick, possibly losing his mind and about to drop from exhaustion. She tried to breathe deeply yet unobtrusively as she listened to him struggling to change while holding on to the bed post for balance.

"Well, you can turn round now, I think I'm as presentable as I'm going to get."

Helen turned and stifled a smile, his T-shirt was back to front and twisted on his shoulders where he'd tried and failed to turn it round and the trousers were just hanging on his hips as he'd managed to somehow pull the drawstring half into the waistband.

"Oh Helen, don't fuss!" He protested as she chucklingly tugged the T-shirt back up over his head and he wobbled on his feet with the vigour of her movements. She also noticed that he didn't try to stop her redressing him. Her hands brushed his cool skin as she pulled the shirt back on,

"Now do you want me to fix these?" She looked up at him coyly as her hands went to the waistband of his trousers and as the familiar leer spread over his face she laughed and prodded him hard in the chest, toppling him over onto the bed.

"Hey! That's called abusing your patient!"

"Are you casting aspersions on my bedside manner?" She picked up a cushion and hefted it menacingly, with a proper smile on his drained face he shrank away from her in mock fear,

"Ok, ok! Truce! Your bedside manner is delightful" He muttered "Delightfully distressing..." the puckish grin on his face hadn't changed over the long years and Helen felt herself grinning back. How was it, even after decades apart, and the animosity between them only minutes ago, their flirtatious sparring could just carry on as normal, like they were both twenty again. She rolled her eyes,

"Dreadful, you're dreadful, now get into bed properly, you need to rest." She pushed him back on his pillows and started to draw the sheets up over him. It wasn't until she felt his hand on her arm that she paused, noticing his face was suddenly serious.

"Stay." He said in a small voice. It had always been this way, she would make to leave after their evenings together and sometimes his pride would make him wait until she was putting her bonnet on and actually walking through the door before he would call after her. She never asked him why he started asking her, or why he shook and sobbed in his sleep, but it was her body pressed to his that soothed him and for a while, he had looked less drawn and pale. She didn't ask him why he needed her this time either. He watched her as she sat on the edge of his bed and performed a ritual they both knew from a lifetime ago. She removed her jacket, unlaced and slipped off her boots, took the pins out of her hair and let it snake down her back in it's long waves and slid under the covers, her body cradling his for a few moments until they rolled into that familiar position, what she thought of as "their sleep". She breathed in rhythm with him as her memories came flooding back, his long frame half draped over her, his leg stretched out between hers, hers twined round his hip, the warmth that spread through her as he moved against her. She remembered the first time she'd felt the weight of him, his thigh parting hers, the pressure of his hip against her, the roll of his ribcage as they breathed together, his cool fingers in the crease of her neck and how she'd wondered what it would feel like to be his lover, it was all exactly the same. The only difference was his silence, this time he didn't whisper about the future and the wonders he hoped to witness. His soft breath against her neck was the only sound as she felt him relax into her and soon she slept too. She would deal with what this meant in the morning, for now, she wanted her Niko.