Hi there! As promised,here is the Tesla interlude you asked for :). I hope you'll like this last chapter before *drums* the results of the pregnancy test, yay :D. R&R, I love youuuuu.

Nikola was deep in work, racking his brains over their transportation problems. His throat was dry, and he decided to refill his glass. He was about to take a bottle from a shelf next to the door when he smelled her, literally. He stopped, waiting. Helen's scent was unmistakable. There was that something he had noticed two days before, that swirling hormone or something that made his cold blood sing and warm up, shouting 'mine'.
He waited for her to knock, but she didn't. He got closer to the door, wondering what was going on in the brunette's head.
From where he stood, a step away from the door, he could hear her heart beating loudly, regularly, soothing his mind and body. If she wasn't knocking, then it was likely that she wasn't here on business. So why exactly was she there? Behind his door? He heard a sigh, and a small thud against the door. The vampire could picture her perfectly, her lean frame standing with her forehead on the metallic door. He heard a sniff, and he prayed that she was falling down with a cold, and not crying. He hated that when she cried. Helen in tears was the only thing that made him feel powerless. And coming from the last sanguine vampiris on Earth and father of modern technology, that said something.
He was about to open the door anyway, curious to know what was happening, when he heard her heels clicking away from his lab and fading into the distance. Nikola sighed, shaking his shoulders to relax a bit. She wouldn't talk? Fine. Whatever.
So he got back to work, thinking that if he didn't solve the emergency breakdown, the next visit from Magnus would be to shoot him, or something similarly unpleasant.
He was interrupted again by a distinct knock on the door a few minutes later, or so he thought until he saw the clock had ticked an hour away. He froze. It couldn't be Helen this time. She was not the kind to change her mind in just about an hour, conscious that he had probably sensed her previous hesitation- Hesitation that he would politely pretend he had not noticed, and would never bring up in a conversation.
"Come in!" he shouted, his hands still buried deep in the brake system of a transporter caps.
"The door is locked Vlad."
Nikola smirked. He had never thought he would one day be glad to see Kate Freelander. Yet, he had to admit that between that symphony gone way out of tune with Helen and Henry cooing over his unborn child, he seriously needed someone to behave as if everything was normal. Moreover, he couldn't deny the girl was sharp and witty. If she had had longer legs, maybe, just maybe, he would have tried his luck.
"Can't pick a lock when there's none, can you?" He asked when he finally opened the door.
As soon as he saw her face, he knew she had been crying. What was it with crying women coming to knock on his door these days?
"William's office his down the hall and three floors down, if you're looking for a therapist." he said, half-jokingly.
She looked surprised for a second, before understanding he was referring to the traces her tears had left on her cheeks.
"Oh, no, it's nothing really. I was just wondering if you'd seen Magnus around?"
She followed him to his desk while the doors were closing on their own accord.
He turned to face her, failing to understand why a crying Helen would come by, turn back, and be looked for by a crying Kate, thinking she would be there. Were women always that cryptic?
"No." He lied. Well, technically, he wasn't lying. He had not seen Helen. "She's probably working."
Kate shook her head.
"I don't think so. I had never seen her so shaken up before."
Nikola frowned. What was it all about? He was missing all the pieces of the puzzle.
"I thought she would come to see you..." Kate finished, sitting on a stool.
"Well, she's not here."
An awkward silence fell around them. Kate had heard about the tension between the two geniuses, but it had been hard to believe, and as she didn't live with them anymore, she had no idea that Henry's testimony of how disastrous the damages springing from the explosion were was not exaggerated.
No wonder Magnus looked so run-down if she couldn't enjoy her oldest friend's support anymore.
"She's just seen an old friend die for the second time, you know? She's not okay. Damn, God knows I wasn't okay either, and I didn't even know the guy. Turned purple, caught on fire..." Kate explained at last, leaning her elbows on the desk and rubbing her temples.
Nikola jumped, forgetting all about his plan of getting to the bottom of the brakes problem at hand. So that was why Helen had come crying on his door. It had nothing to do with him. He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
"Human Torch was here?"
"Yeah. He... Or rather the new Enur just left with his new parents, or children to be... I'm not sure, it's disturbing. You know him?"
If he knew him? Okay, no. But God, he had heard enough about him through Helen to write his biography.
Nikola felt ridiculous. That was probably why Helen had spent lots of time with Oryunji, planning the combustion and deciding on their course of action regarding the baby and so on... The long walks in the garden shoulder to shoulder? All work-related. He sighed.

"No, but he taught Helen a few tricks. Martial arts and meditation techniques mainly. She admires him deeply."
He had considered going to Tokyo countless times to rip his head off. 'Enur this', 'Enur that'... Even the great James Watson, who was well-known for his absolute patience, had been slightly annoyed by Helen's frequent mentions of the phoenix. It had come to an end after his last combustion in 1912, after which they had had to help her let go of her grief. She had been an absolute mess, crying in James arms.
The inventor paced around the lab, followed by Kate's gaze.
Helen had tried to come to him, a clear sign that she needed to talk to someone... To him? Yet, she had decided not to knock on the door. She didn't trust him enough to share her crushing sadness, just like she hadn't trusted him with her 113 year old plan. What was he to do?
"Are you eager to go home to your Romeo or can you spare a moment to help me with that little problem of mine?" He asked, pointing to the corner of the room where he had installed a replica of the transporters on rails, plugged to his computer.
Kate turned to the experiment and smiled. It looked a bit like an old electric train toy.
"That's a beautiful toy you've got there, but what about Magnus?" She asked, jumping from her stool to crouch and take a closer look at the rails.
Nikola got back behind his computer, ready to give his simulation of emergency a go.
"I know better than to go after a grieving woman who obviously wants to be left alone for a while. Don't worry, she'll come out of her hiding place eventually, and then I'll be there if she needs a glass of wine and a story before bed."
He could only hope that what he was saying was true.