Yay for part 11! :) Hope you enjoy this guys! Thanks for all the epic reviews! Love you all very much! This is for myska-na-mrazu who is currently overdosing on adrenaline! :) Oh, btw, go check out her fics "The Sleeping Beauty" and "Rowena". They are fabulous! Anywho... on with the warpath.

xx


Part 11 – An Explosion

She was taken aback at his abrupt change she saw as he spun around and glared at her. Was that hatred in his eyes?

"Where the hell is it?" He forced out. Helen stuttered.

"What? Where the hell is what?"

He pointed a trembling finger at the empty space on the table.

"The photograph. Of us. At Oxford." He spat. Helen mouthed a few words before her eyes narrowed in anger.

"None of you bloody business. Who the hell said you could come into my room and snoop about anyway?" she heard her voice raise dangerously. He clenched his teeth in anger.

"Helen," he demanded, "Where is it?"

"Get out Nikola!"

"Helen!"

"GET OUT!" she pointed to the door, her eyes deep blue in her anger. He glared at her before his anger spilled over, words leaving his mouth before he had the chance to check them.

"I wasn't snooping Helen! I came to check on you! How was I supposed to know you'd be taking a cold shower in the middle of the night!"

He saw her visibly flinch at the mention of that incident and she dropped her voice to a deliberate and low whisper.

"Nikola. Get. Out. Now."

He stood his ground. He was way too far past angry to ever leave now.

"No. I will not back down Helen. We need to talk. I mean really, talk."

"Nikola. I do not want to do this."

"Does it look like I bloody well care?"He spat at her, she had to stop dictating the boundaries of their relationship. It was breaking his heart.

"Nikola!"

"No! Just. Stop. Stop lying to me, stop lying to yourself, stop keeping things hidden, stop shutting me out, stop acting like we are OK. We are not OK."

"Nikola. I don't..."

"Helen! Stop it! You must know. You must know how I look at you. You must realise how I feel. I know it's obvious but I can't help it. I can't help the way you make me feel and I hate you for it! I hate that you break my heart every single day and I cannot do one solitary thing about it!" He was gasping for air as he shouted at her stunned form.

She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off.

"How many things have we just swept aside in our lives? How many incidents do we just not talk about?"

"Nikola. I can't do this."

"I don't care. You're going to sit there and listen to me."

"Nikola..."

"Let's start with Rome shall we? I told you I loved you Helen. I bared my soul to you and all you could do was flinch away from my touch..."

"You tried to kill me!"

"Oh for God's sake Helen, I know that you know I NEVER would have done such a thing. I was only trying to impress you. You were never in any danger, can we please drop the whole 'tried to kill you' thing now?"

Helen only glared at him, she couldn't argue. She'd always known he would never do her any harm.

"Moving swiftly on then? Let's deal with something a little older shall we? Hmmm, how about when we were chasing Adam Worth? Remember. Do you remember that dirty hotel room? The double bed we had to share but you insisted I took the floor? Do you remember whispering to me in the middle of the night to join you? How you allowed me to wrap my arms around you and hold you for the remainder of the night? Do you remember how you leaned back into me? Do you have any idea what that night did to me?"

Helen only stared at him.

"It gave me hope Helen. It gave me hope that maybe we wouldn't always be dancing around one another. That we'd finally end up together. But then, in the morning, you pushed away from me and acted like nothing had happened. It. Killed. Me."

She dropped her gaze then, looking to her hands.

"Say something!"

"What do you want me to say!"

"ANYTHING!"

"Fine. I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't! I was just scared. I was scared!"

"OF WHAT?"

"YOU!"

He gave her an incredulous look.

"Me? Why?"

"Because my heart had been blown into a thousand pieces Nikola. It's still not whole. I will never be able to trust anyone with it again."

"But I am your oldest friend Helen! You must know that I would never, never do anything to break your heart."

She laughed sarcastically at him.

"Oh really? What about that Christmas eve?"It was her turn to dig up the past. He swallowed hard.

"What about it?"

"You were a bloody coward, you left me just standing there!"

"Your maid..."

"Forget the sodding maid! Admit it Nikola, you chickened out."

"Well excuse me for being a gentleman!"

"You were never a gentleman."

"Oh for God's sake. I'm sorry Helen, OK. I'm sorry for not kissing you that night. I should have just thrown propriety and your good name out of the window and screwed you right up against that lamp post! Is that what you wanted?" He flung his hands up in the air. Helen's jaw clenched tightly at his callous language and she had to fight to not become turned on by it.

"Of course not! But you never spoke of it again!"

"Only because you never did! I thought you didn't remember! You had had a few drinks!"

"Oh shut up Nikola. You could tell I remembered."

"Oh really? HOW?"

"The Chancellor's Ball! All I did for a week was hint that I had no escort!"

Nikola ran a hand through his hair and chuckled.

"Oh Helen, another thing we have just never spoken of, well done, you're digging yourself quite a large hole here." He spat.

"ME?"

"Yes! You! Bringing bloody Harry Johnson with you when I'd asked you first! And then you're antics behind the old church!"

"You did not ask me first!" She forcibly shoved away the memory of Harry Johnson forcing himself onto her up against a ragged stone wall.

"Yes I bloody well did!"

"Oh yes? WHEN?"

"I wrote you that blasted letter Helen. I couldn't ask you to your face so I did it that way. And guess what, I just never got a response!"

Nikola knew something was wrong as he watched her face drop.

"Nikola. What letter?" She said timidly for the first time since they'd begun their argument. He frowned.

"You... You never got it?"

She shook her head sadly and he saw tears spring to her eyes.

"No. I never got any letter from you. Do you really think that if I had I would have taken anybody else?" She breathed. He gulped loudly and started to fidget with his hands.

"But... I gave it to... I..." he shut his eyes as he realised, "I gave it to Nigel."

Helen shut her eyes sadly.

"THAT BASTARD! He always did have a thing for you!"

She heaved a great wracking sob at his outburst. Nikola stopped abruptly and made towards her shaking body.

"Helen..."

"Don't!" she held out a hand to stop him. He paused in his tracks and looked anywhere but her.

"We are such idiots Helen." He smiled sadly, trying to fill the silence. She nodded, wiping away her tears roughly with the sleeve of her robe.

"He took me behind that church. I didn't want to go, I fought him. I never thanked you for pulling him off me Nikola. It was you, wasn't it, the man who dragged him away?"

Nikola couldn't bring himself to look into her eyes.

"Yes."

Helen nodded and continued to wipe at her face.

"Thank you, it would have been unmentionably terrible to have a first time like that." She'd never spoken of that night until now. She'd never dealt with her feelings about what could of happened, what he'd prevented. How he'd saved her.

Nikola nodded but still could not look her in the eye. That night had been utterly heartbreaking for him, to see her with other man, to watch as he took advantage of her. He'd had to act.

Helen heaved a great sigh before coughing to clear her throat.

"Right, where were we? 1870-something? What's next?"

Nikola fought off the urge to kiss away the tears he could still see worming their way down her face and tried to think of something, anything else they could talk about.

"Helen... I'm sorry, we don't have to do this."

Helen shook her head violently and pushed her tears away.

"Yes, yes we do. This stupidity has gone on far too long. I feel better even now. I feel lighter. Keep going."And she really did. They were finally classifying all the fleeting moments of their relationship. All the moments she'd always been confused by.

"Ok," Nikola started tentatively, "The boathouse." He stated plainly.

Helen sighed. "On which occasion?"

"All of them."

Oh, this would take hours.


The next chapter is entitled "A Kiss"

Just saying. o.O