Chapter 14 – Luftpause

Henry Foss currently had a lot on his plate. The annual Sanctuary Head of House meeting was happening in one week. MI6 wanted an update on their efforts tracking the latest red list traders on the black market. (Unlike some people at the UN, MI6 leadership had always seen the mutual benefits of a cordial relationship with James Watson and the London Sanctuary. Off the books, of course.) Then there was Lab 15's request for 20 more super-computer nodes and Lab 28's request for Lab 15 to stop hogging all their shared time on the computing cluster.

Plus, yesterday Alistair had kicked another boy at school for calling werewolves "lame" and Ashelia was in the middle of her "not eating anything green" phase.

So he really didn't need the added stress of Erika calling him in the middle of his Skype call with Declan yelling something about "Stefan" and "injured" and "get down here" and "no, NOW, it's IMPORTANT". As quickly as he could, he apologized and rescheduled for tomorrow, and headed out to the elevator to go see what had befallen the poor lad this time.

What are the odds that this is Nikola's fault? I'm going with damn high; he's been pushing that boy hard for the last few weeks. I don't care what he says, I swear, I am not hiring someone else, that kid puts up with way more of his crap than I ever did and I-

Holy shit.

The moment the elevator door opened on the floor with the medical wing, his HAP enhanced senses picked up the smell of burning flesh.

He ran down the hall and was at the doors to the main operating room in a heartbeat to see his worst suspicions confirmed. Stefan was on the table, clearly unconscious, his left arm a mess of charred skin from his hand to his elbow. Erika was in scrubs with one of the other doctors on staff, and had already begun treating the worst damage. Nikola was in the observation room, pacing back and forth tensely, periodically pausing to fixate on Erika's work before resuming his strides. He was a mess by his own standards, if not normal peoples', hair tossed about from frequently running his hands through it, jacket thrown haphazardly on the nearest chair. Henry didn't want to interrupt Erika's work so he quickly made his way around to the entrance to the observation room. Nikola glanced briefly in his direction when he entered, before turning his gaze back to the OR.

Henry didn't have anything better to say than the obvious question, "Nikola… what happened?"

Without turning around, Nikola gave him the brief overview. He and Erika had been getting coffee down the hall from the lab when they both heard Stefan start screaming. They'd rushed in to find a soldering iron in his hand and melted solder all over his arm.

Nikola's explanation was missing his usual grandiose tone and energetic gestures; instead he was tersely relaying the simple facts. He continued on to say that the iron was so hot, "I needed to vamp to remove it from his hand."

"Shit, did he notice?" They had never really gotten around to explaining Nikola's identity to Stefan, and this was not exactly how Henry had planned to do so.

"No, he was already halfway in shock, I doubt he'll remember and if he does, he won't trust his memory."

"That's good, I guess. How the hell did he end up like that?"

It was a simple enough question, but Nikola seemed to struggle before simply saying, "He fell asleep."

No shit Sherlock. "Come on, you don't sleep through third degree burns!"

"It wasn't natural-"

Henry cut him off, "Yeah clearly"

"Henry." The sharp way in which he was cut off made him look up at Nikola, who for the first time was making eye contact with him. "It was the Quetzalcoatl stone. He's been inhaling minuscule aerosolized packets of it during his heat test experiments. Erika thinks it weakened his respiratory system to the point where he couldn't get enough oxygen on his own, causing escalating bouts of fatigue that eventually lead to today's incident." The matter-of-fact explanation didn't match the harsh tone or Nikola's rigid posture and tight grimace.

Henry shrugged apologetically, "Sorry, Nikola, whatever you're not saying, you're going to have to spell it out for me."

Nikola broke Henry's gaze, glancing down at his shoes before putting a hand on his waist and resuming his fixation on the operating room. He didn't speak for a bit, but when he did his voice was quiet and halting. "Erika… Erika theorized that though the symptoms manifested at wildly different rates, there's… There's a possibility, and it's just a possibility mind you, we don't know if the rock was the real cause for Stefan's symptoms… But if it is… Erika thinks it may be the cause of Helen's… her… condition."

Henry felt every other thought in his head vanish in to a sudden vacuum, the perpetually moving gears grinding to a halt as he parsed what Nikola had just said.

"The rock? She and Will both got it out of their systems when they brought it back and she gave it straight to me. She never really worked on it, and I stopped after… after…"

"The explosion," Nikola said quietly. "Far hotter than any of Stefan's experiments."

"But, but it was within the force field radius, it wouldn't have been exposed to any flames or-"

"The shield had to be permeable to air so it didn't suffocate the wearer, remember? Air heated, and then convected through the force field, superheating the air within and thereby heating the stone. We know at least the first part of this scenario occurred. You recalled how she couldn't speak above a whisper for the first few hours afterwards because of all the damage to her throat from inhalation."

Henry still didn't see the connection, "But that was months before the symptoms started, and that was way longer than Stefan's been working on the rock to manifest."

Nikola sighed, and he seemed to slump forward a little, as though he had been deflated by the loss of air. Henry could see it was hurting him already, having to go through the motions and spell out another in a long line of theories. That he was even doing so meant part of Nikola really believed Erika's hunch to be justified. But they'd been down that road before, many times. Still, Nikola continued on.

"Stefan's symptoms would be from continual small dose exposure. Helen would've had a single concentrated dose that would've flooded her lungs, even possibly been embedded in the scar tissue in her throat. Perhaps at first it accelerated her recovery and we all just attributed it to her modified genetics. Perhaps her body was able to store enough of the chemical to release it in manageable doses for the first few months until it eventually ran out. It's… it's possible, I suppose. If the initial premise of the rock's effects are correct."

Henry didn't know what to say, this was leagues out of his area of expertise. Nikola barely seemed to notice his silence. He kept talking but the pauses in between each sentence grew longer and more strained.

"It makes sense… Erika's theory, that is. If the rock is suppressing the ability of the respiratory system to take in oxygen, it would cause increasing levels of fatigue… When you're asleep, you breathe less frequently because the body needs less oxygen, but the latter could cause the former as well… It would also explain why it didn't worsen without treatment; there would be no underlying disease to cause further damage."

"But if it's withdrawal… Shouldn't she… just recover from it? It would leave her system eventually, right?" Henry knew that much, at least. He remembered what it had been like looking after Helen and Will while they were going through detox the first time. Magnus had just been more bossy, less proper and polite than usual, but Will had been a bit more unpleasant. Though it had unfortunately prepared Henry for dealing with him in the years that followed.

"It should. But it hasn't."

Henry was struggling to find something to say, this being so out of his depth, but he knew Nikola. Nikola needed a sounding board, and as Henry was the only unoccupied sentient being in earshot, that gave him the old familiar role. He had to say something.

"Is this, is this something you or Erika would've noticed? The decreased levels of oxygen? That sounds like something you could test for."

"It is and I did. It was normal. It was always well within range, " Nikola said with a sigh.

Normally needing to defend his work would have Nikola stamping his foot or shaking his head or saying something like "You do know I'm a genius right?" but there was no such reaction this time, only dejection. When it came to the Doc, Nikola was well past the point where pride mattered in the slightest.

It seemed hopeless.

"Normal."

Henry, realizing his gaze had wandered with his thoughts, looked back to Nikola who continued muttering under his breath. "Normal. Normal, normal…. Normal."

What?

Nikola met his eyes and pointed at him emphatically, "Normal. I said her levels were normal."

"Yesss…."

"And they were, they were normal. But normal for who?"

He seemed to actually want an answer to his question, "Uh, normal for the Doc?"

"Which would be distinctly not normal for anyone else, yes?" Nikola was beginning to gesture with both hands, talking with a speed and passion Henry had not seen in quite some time. "The Source Blood's effect on her may not be obvious but it's significant. It influences her entire body, making each anatomical system function better than that of any human. That's why Helen has increased muscle development, an efficient and adaptable metabolism, accelerated recovery from injury, heightened brain function similar to James',"

"-Wait what?"

"All of which combine to produce her near ageless state, and that includes an advanced cardiovascular system. Helen should need far fewer breaths per second than the average person, especially when asleep."

"But she doesn't have one now? She's breathing at the same rate as anyone else?"

"Yes."

"Shouldn't the effects of the rock wear off though? Like any drug withdrawal? Shouldn't her body return to normal? Shouldn't the Source Blood know something's wrong and fix her lungs?"

Nikola seemed frustrated at his lack of understanding, then froze mid gesture, racking his brain for a way to rephrase his idea in a Henry-palatable way.

"Foss, do you remember how the respiratory system works?"

Oh so we're back to "Foss" now, are we? I'm a grown man with two kids and he still makes me feel like I'm in middle school, and failing.

"Um… Well, air comes in, lungs filter out the oxygen, which goes out to the rest of the body…"

"Through red blood cells, oxygenated red blood cells."

"So?"

"The blood needs oxygen to do its job. If it doesn't get enough oxygen, it demands that the body get more, triggering an increase in breathing rate. But imagine, imagine the body's like…. Oh, like… like a single Sanctuary facility. It's powered by a generator, yes, which needs some basic amount of fuel to start up?"

"Uh…ok?"

"Now imagine you buy a new generator. It needs much more fuel to get started, but once started, it's far more efficient and therefore produces more energy."

"Ok, yeah, I think I follow you… So far…"

"Now picture that over time you renovate the buildings' facilities one at a time – with more energy at your disposal, you can afford to power a more advanced network, increased lab spaces, high tech security, larger containment systems, etc. But THEN, one day, the new generator goes offline and you only have enough residual power to switch on the old generator again. Which means you have less energy being produced. What happens?"

"Well, we'd have to divert all the energy in to powering essential systems before we could restart the generator..."

"Yes, and if the essential systems required so much energy that you never had enough to do so?"

"You'd be stuck, you'd never be able to….Oh, OH, I get it!" Henry perked up, having finally gotten the point of the analogy, "You're saying Magnus' body is functional, but doesn't have enough oxygen to trigger any of the higher level Source Blood functions needed to repair the damage!"

"EXACTLY." As soon as Nikola emphatically cheered Henry's understanding, the excitement on his face quickly transformed into concern. The enthusiasm and confidence he had exuded just moments ago vanished and he shrunk back in to the posture he had when Henry first entered the room. Nikola raised one hand to rub his forehead in a now old and familiar gesture of unease.

"Henry… It's… What if…. No, no, I can't… I can't go through this again… Not again…"

Henry walked up and gripped Nikola's shoulder tightly. Ten years ago Tesla would've brushed it off, berated him, and chased him out the door. Ten years ago Tesla would've rather been eaten by a void monster than admit doubt or uncertainty. A lot had happened in the last ten years.

"I know the Heads of House meetings is coming up," Nikola continued, "and I'll get everything done for that before, I… but if this is… If Erika tries… I can't be here, I can't be here Henry, I mean it."

"I know, Nikola, I know. Take all the time you need."

A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the massive delay. A lot has happened in the last few months. Like a lot, a lot. Like of the "I quit my job and am changing careers" variety. Yeah.

Luftpause – the musical notation used to indicate to the performer a non-disruptive place to take a breath. Fitting given my accidental hiatus and the rather respiratory focus of the chapter, no?

Anyways, I hope this explanation was clear enough and if it's not here's one last try on my part. Basically Helen's body currently gets enough oxygen to function, but not enough for the Source Blood to have the extra juice to fix her lungs, leaving her in perpetual limbo. (And the symptoms of oxygen deficiency are nice and vague leaving our poor heroes at a loss this whole time)

Also, while editing this chapter I realized that my theory on how Helen's source blood works is actually (unintentionally) consistent with the flashback where we see her get injected, as well as the baby vamps and Tesla's revivals. Everyone's first breath is a huge gasp for air, possibly jump starting their new respiratory system. :)