By the time they arrived in Alexandria hours later, the familiar sense of foreboding had erupted in Helen's stomach. Rose was quieter now, keeping her bitter comments about why she didn't need either of them there with her to herself. She was keeping to herself, keeping her head down and shoulders hunched as if making herself smaller would keep her from intruding and a jolt of guilt shot through Helen.
She wasn't doing anything wrong, she reminded herself. Nikola was just her friend and she shouldn't feel guilty that they were finally getting back to what they'd been back at Oxford. Not that Helen necessarily wanted everything the same but the companionship and total understanding she shared with Nikola was something she'd come to miss in her time away from her life.
More than that though, Rose had made it perfectly clear how she felt about anything more than friendship between the pair. In fact, Helen had been yelled at on many occasions for her 'inability to be honest with herself when it came to Nikola'. But how could she be honest, after all this time how could she say what was and wasn't true? She had experienced so many lives, so many incarnations of love, how could she even begin to define how she felt for Nikola? He was... he was a pain, frustration, a headache with legs, the only person she could still trust yet the one she didn't want to. He was Nikola and for that she would always love him. Of course, that didn't mean she always liked him but he meant more to her than she could ever explain.
Allowing yourself to love him wouldn't taint that.
Helen looked up at Rose's soft words, watching the young woman as she drove their hire vanthrough the dark streets winding away from the airport. Her frame was, for the first time since they'd encountered each other earlier in the day, relaxed. Her face was neutral, not the carefully schooled neutral she'd been toting all day either but she looked to be entirely absorbed by her driving rather than any inner conflict.
You seem to forget I can see the future, Rose added evenly. And while it may not be for certain, just as I know John shall be the death of me, I know that what you feel does not go unreciprocated.
Helen spluttered at that, clearing her throat uncomfortably as she tried not to look at either Nikola or Rose.
"Be nice Rose," Nikola said softly. "Leave her alone."
Helen's eyes widened at the almost protective note in his voice but Rose just sighed.
He's sweet but delusional, she muttered mentally with another sigh. He seems to think I'm berating you for allowing him to come with saucy memories of our heated trysts. I can if you'd like though I think trying to figure out why exactly I can only now sense John's presence is maybe a better way to spend the next hour or so.
"Rose I'm serious," Nikola said again, interrupting their conversation from the back seat.
"It's fine Nikola," Helen cut in before he could say more. "She wasn't..."
"Are you sure, because I know her malicious smirk and I'm fairly sure that was it," Nikola quipped easily, making Helen chuckle as Rose let out a long suffering sigh.
"You two are as bad as children," she said, shaking her head. "Between this and the footsies I'm starting to wish I'd made you sit at opposite ends of the damn plane."
"So we could pass notes," Nikola added with a grin while Helen blushed, something she hadn't done in years.
"Remember that night with Nigel at the party?" Rose asked excitedly, turning slightly to grin at him whilst still keeping her eye on the road. "You were positively livid when he started to cop a feel and-"
"Then you made James and I carry notes between you two all night," Helen finished. "I felt like a bloody carrier pigeon with the way you were always asking me to hold notes and such."
"Of course all that ended when you finally learnt enough Serbian to understand what we were writing," Rose said with a heavy sigh.
"I wanted to include you but no, someone said it would be unseemly," Nikola moaned.
"Did not!" Rose bit back. "I said that Helen would find it unseemly which she told me she did on several occasions."
"You knew?" Nikola asked, shifting to catch Helen's eye.
"Do you really not understand the concept of girl talk?" Rose cut in innocently and Helen rolled her eyes.
"Do either of you understand the concept of boundaries?"
"Nope," they replied in unison, both flashing her almost identical grins only to have Rose's disappear with a terrified gasp, her foot slamming onto the brake as she hastily parked them on the side of the deserted highway. Her fingers were white were she clutched the steering wheel, her breathing laboured and her face set in a furious grimace.
"Bitch!" she growled, slamming a fist against the steering wheel. "That lying bitch!"
"What is it? What's she doing?" Helen asked, laying a hand on her friends shoulder. Rose jumped at the contact, turning to face Helen with wide eyes.
"He... She's..." she growled. "Damnit."
"Rose, use your words," Nikola coaxed, grabbing her shoulder but she shook them both off.
"We need to find a hotel," she muttered furiously and, if Helen wasn't mistaken, her eyes began to cloud with red tears. In a second the van was back on and they were tearing off down the highway at a speed nowhere near to legal, her hands gripping the wheel tightly enough that the leather creaked above the roar of the engine.
"Rosie!" Nikola cried in alarm as she took a corner, sending him flying across the back seat. "What are you doing? Where are we going?"
"She's gone on an excursion," she said bitterly by way of response, her voice wavering. "They've left the country for the night and... and will be back tomorrow afternoon."
"What? Why?" Helen asked, fear clutching at her heart. What if they kept running, jumping from country to country? How could they ever stop them?
"A last night," Rose breathed angrily, her lips trembling as the lights of the city rose up before them. "A chance to say good bye." Her voice broke on the last word, her shoulders shaking for a moment before she straightened up, slamming her foot into the accelerator as if it'd take away her pain.
Helen and Nikola shared a look, both clutching to their seats as Rose continued to race down the highway. Cruel was one thing but this? This was a level beyond that of cruelty. A chance to say goodbye, a chance to run only to know that she wouldn't, couldn't. The concept reeked of John, the abject torture he knew it would subject Rose to obviously of interest to him and Helen felt sick, her stomach turning over and over and over as she tried to banish the image Rose had once shown her of John's towering figure, a bloodied knife clutched in one hand. The fear with which it had been presented was something she'd never been able to shake and now, the possibility of such a vision being realised had her both furious and frightened.
"No matter what," Rose spat acidly. "No matter what you both have to remember that... that I'm sorry and..." she swallowed heavily, "and that if I say to run, you get back to the van and leave the country as quick as you can, all right? Don't go back home, hide for a while. Then when she finds you... promise me you'll beg?"
Her voice was small by the end and Helen couldn't bring herself to respond.
"It won't come to that," Nikola snarled in reply, startling her.
"Of course it will," Rosie breathed. "This... she won't let me leave alive."
"Well we won't leave without you," Helen put in firmly. "So you promise me to stop all this talk of final requests."
"Helen..."
"I am serious," she cut in smoothly. "After all you've done for me do you really expect me to just lie down and take this? You are my friend Rose and, more than that, I refuse to believe negotiations will not work."
Rose said nothing, simply taking a deep breath and the speed of the van dropped a notch.
"Do you remember that first night?" Helen asked softly. "The sun had barely risen and I awoke to only Nikola curled into my side. You'd already run off to stand in the snow covered garden in little more than the cotton nightgown I'd lent you."
"I needed the sunlight," Rose choked out, nodding.
"You were just standing there, in the middle of the grounds, practically drowning in all that fabric and I just about had a heart attack."
"You thought I'd freeze off my feet and then you'd not be able to study me properly though you wondered at regenerative capabilities."
The van slowed a fraction.
"Then you came down and tried to drag me back in," Rosie continued, voice shaking. "I... I kept asking why you were so determined to get me inside."
"And I told you it was because I'd not let you come to harm," Helen finished, noting the silence from Nikola. It was a moment they'd never discussed much like the bed they had shared that night. She had been well and truly engaged to marry John by that point and although she'd enjoyed having him home for a brief time, that level of impropriety was not something she'd expected. .
Rose sighed, her breath trembling and she nodded, a small smile flitting across her features but Helen could tell she was keeping something from her.
"I'll try and refrain from the glass half empty predications," she said weakly, not meeting Helen's eye.
There was most definitely something that she wasn't sharing.
Helen turned to Nikola but he only shrugged, holding a hand up to deflect from the questions they both knew only Rose would be able to properly answer. And, as usual, in her own sweet time.