Hi it's me again :). I won't be as long in posting chapter 7 as I've been with this one... In the meantime, I hope you like this lighter chapter, centered on Helen and Nikola (some of you teslenites have been complaining).
Enjoy!
"Of course, I'm glad we have an active partnership with Praxis and I'm relieved to see they don't perceive you as a threat anymore. But I'm not paying you to spend half of your time helping them with their power grid with no more than a fruit basket as a compensation, Nikola."
The vampire took a step closer to Helen, who stood her ground despite his grin, maintaining her straight face as he quirked his eyebrows seductively.
"Admit it, Helen, you just don't want me to leave your side."
She huffed and crossed her arms defensively, cocking her head.
"I only said we'd cooperate with the transportation system because it benefited us too. I fail to see how optimizing their power grid is a bargain. We have our own problems to fix." She argued.
He rolled his eyes dramatically.
"Henry and Erika are, it pains me to admit, vaguely competent at what they do. Plus, Praxis is a goldmine of new technologies. It inspires me." He retorted.
She pinched her nose and was going to try and compromise when a voice came from the door of the lab.
"I have a fundamental question."
Helen and Nikola turned as one person to stare at whoever was interrupting their bickering, only to find Sophie in the doorway, her stern, 'don't you fool me' face in stark contrast with her disheveled morning appearance.
At almost six years old, Sophie was still in that phase where learning a new word came with testing its limits by using it in each and every sentence. These days, the word 'fundamental' gave some sense of thrill to her life, making her sound like some kind of diplomat, always on a mission.
"I love those." Nikola stated, too glad to escape Helen's recrimination.
Sophie looked at her father, then her mother, as if to gauge who was the most suitable candidate for her question, and then put her hands on her waist, taking advantage of the movement to get her pajama pants back up from their crazy descent down her belly, being slightly too big for her.
Her gaze landed on Helen, dismissing Nikola almost entirely to focus on her.
"How are babies made?" She asked, very seriously.
A flash of white teeth in Helen's peripheral vision informed her that Nikola was very amused by the situation.
"Fundamental indeed." He chirped.
Helen ignored him, clicking her tongue slightly, her professional mode back on.
"Well there are lots of ways to make babies according to which species you're talking about." She explained.
Nikola raised an eyebrow, turning his head slightly to send her his 'really?!' look.
"I think Sophie is asking about how she, a human, was made." He clarified, earning an approving nod from his daughter.
Of course, the mystery of how babies were made would have had to be lifted at some point, and with Erika four-months pregnant with her second daughter, Helen should have guessed that the question would be on Sophie's lips before too long.
"Abby tried to explain to us, but it didn't make sense and I think it's no surprise she doesn't have kids." The girl elaborated with a slightly pedantic air.
That seemed to make Nikola's day as he grinned even more, delighted by his daughter's no-nonsense attitude towards Abby's way of simplifying problems. He had witnessed her at work, using baby-talk with Alice and Sophie who did not seem to take well to being talked to as if they were retarded. Over the years, the two girls had simply seemed to accept the fact that maybe Abby's brain was not working that well and they showed more patience with her, as if she were the only kid in the room.
"I will answer your question darling but your father and I were in the middle of a conversation that I would like to finish first, so I can be entirely yours."
Nikola pivoted, bringing his hand to support his chin in a theatrical movement.
"Please don't let me get in the way of our daughter's fundamental questions." He pleaded with a side smile that told Helen he was having way too much fun.
She sent him a stare that meant he was not getting away from their conversation and tilted her head to Sophie, inviting her in. There was no getting her way when these two sided against her, and she knew she would only waste her time trying.
The child sauntered in and climbed on an empty stool to get closer to her parents' height. She then stared at Helen very seriously, waiting for an explanation.
"You know how the body is made of very tiny parts that we call cells, right?" Helen began, earning a nod from her daughter.
"These cells all carry DNA, which is basically the recipe of what makes you you. Your DNA, for instance, says that you have grey eyes, light brown hair, and that you are a female."
Sophie's eyes lit up in wonder.
"Who wrote my recipe?" She asked.
Helen smiled.
"We all have a DNA. And to make a baby, you have to mix two recipes. Most commonly: one from a female and one from a male. The two recipes mix together and make a third one. That's why you have my curly hair and Nikola's hair color."
The girl chuckled.
"It's funny because you're both bad at cooking." She explained, making her mother squint playfully.
"I'd say we know what we're doing when it comes to making babies, thank you." Nikola chimed in with a snide smile.
Helen huffed and would have reminded him how poorly they had performed when they had conceived their child if said child had not been looking at her with interest.
"Now there are several ways to make a baby, but the traditional way to go involves your private parts. You remember what I told you and Alice about them?"
Sophie frowned.
"That we had to tell you or someone we trust if anyone touches them or look at them in a way that makes us uncomfortable?" She quizzed.
Her mother replaced a curl behind her ear, petting her head in the process with a smile.
"Good. We have organs there that, once you're an adult, produce special cells that, upon meeting with other special cells from someone of the opposite sex, create a new cell with a new recipe. And in time this cell develops into a baby."
The child pursed her lips, taking the explanations in.
"In the mommy's belly." She concluded, putting two and two together.
"Most of the time, yes." Helen assented.
"But how do they meet?"
"It depends. You can force them to meet, in some cases. But usually, it happens when people have sex."
Helen could feel Nikola's childish jubilation behind her back. She didn't need to see him to know he was enjoying seeing her try and explain what mom and dad did when they were naughty. She had seen that face on him countless times already, trying his best to unsettle her employees with ambiguous comments. He was all too smug about subtly letting people know he had seen the boss naked. It was also obviously thrilling to him to hear her talk about sex outside of their own privacy, it seemed. She made a mental note of making him pay.
"What does it mean?" Sophie asked, her curiosity piqued.
Nikola emphasized his daughter's question with a slight bump of his hip against Helen's butt, making her roll her eyes – albeit mentally.
"When you get older, you'll discover that touching your private parts can feel nice. It can also feel nice when you're an adult to let someone you trust touch your body, and to touch theirs if you both feel good about it. That's what's called to have sex, or to make love. You can do it with a man or a woman or both or even several persons at the same time if you're all consenting adults. But to make a baby, you need a vagina, which most women have, and a penis, which most men have. The penis is made to go inside a vagina and get male cells to mix with female ones." Helen developed.
Her daughter seemed skeptical, but thankfully not disgusted. She was used to hearing scientific facts going around the breakfast table, and she was analyzing what she had just learned, making sure she understood everything.
"That's how you made me?" She asked, her gaze going from Helen to Nikola and back.
They both nodded and Sophie nodded in return, satisfied.
"Have I answered your question?" Helen checked.
"Mmhh… Yes. But I have one more."
"I'm listening."
"Henry and Erika mixed their recipes already. The result is Alice." Sophie stated.
Helen nodded, expecting her to finish her thought.
"So the new baby is going to be another Alice?" She asked, frowning, not seeing the point in having several copies of the same child.
Helen smiled, amused by her daughter's thought-process.
"No, dear." She began, shaking her head. "There are tons of different possible combinations. Take… Say the muffin recipe and chocolate cake. You can mix the recipes and make it with only chocolate or both chocolate and blueberries…" She illustrated. "The results are close, but not exactly the same.".
"True." Sophie concluded.
It seemed to Helen that the conversation was over, but then Sophie grinned, and she sensed the Teslas' trademark excitement due to a brand-new idea and she swore internally.
"Could you have sex again so I can have a sister or a brother too? In case Alice likes the new baby more than me." The girl asked, her eyes full of hope.
This time, Nikola got bold and placed his hand in the small of Helen's back, getting even closer, surrounding her with his scent.
"I'd like to remind you we have the technique down now." He teased, his deep voice as full of hope as his daughter's face.
Helen sent him a dirty look, raising her eyebrow.
"Is pregnancy that tempting to you?" She asked, her voice sweet and innocent.
Nikola covered his stomach protectively with a grimace. As vampire, he had been forced to share Helen's symptoms. If the cravings had been somewhat fun to experience, the nausea following them had been very hard on him. And the mood swings… He still couldn't believe Helen had been through the same things while giving the impression that pregnancy was, physically speaking, a walk in the park.
"Ugh…" He moaned, his gaze far away in the distance, lost in his memories.
"Is that a no?" Sophie insisted, pouting.
Helen placed her hands on her daughter's shoulders, massaging them softly.
"I'm afraid it's impossible, Sophie. There's a moment in life when your body stops producing the cells you need to make babies. I cannot have any more children now, I'm too old."
Sophie shrugged and flashed her a reassuring look.
"It's okay mommy." She said, jumping from the stool. "Thanks for the answer. I'll let Alice know!" She shouted before she ran out of the lab and to her next quest.
Once the tornado of a child was out, silence fell between Helen and Nikola, and she exhaled shakily, feeling the air shift.
They had never even once talked about the possibility of having more children since Sophie was born. Discovering that Helen was aging faster as a result of their offspring being female had been a huge blow to Nikola, who had even asked if aborting could possibly stop the process. He had calmed down gradually, faced with Helen's resignation. She was aging, yes. A little faster than she had before being pregnant. But she still had a very long time to live, and she was relieved to know the end would come eventually.
Nikola gently took her elbow in his hand to get her to face him.
"You never told me you were sterile." He whispered. "I know I didn't really ask. I'm sorry." He went on, his face soft and sadness filling his eyes.
Helen shrugged.
"I might have lied to simplify. I had my tubes tied after Sophie was born." She confessed.
Nikola looked shocked. He had had no time to think about adding members to their family, really, and they had not talked about such a possibility. They refused to even put a tag on which kind of item they were – definitely not a couple in the traditional sense of the word but…
"What?"
Helen hardened her stance, feeling slightly defensive. She would not let Nikola – or anyone else for that matter - tell her what to do with her body.
"Oh come on, Nikola. You felt like having our child was a death sentence for me and you hated that." She reminded him.
He opened his arms wide.
"At first, yes! But then you insisted you were fine with having your life cut by one or two hundred years and you convinced me it was all good. I got excited."
She snorted.
"What on earth do you expect? Did you want a bunch of mini-vampires running around, breaking havoc and making us age at different paces? Is it a bloody race to you? A contest of who's gonna die first?" She asked, her eyes wide, studying Nikola's face to try and understand.
He seemed to realize the absurdity of the idea and he shrugged, defeated.
"Well no. But… I don't know. Having a son might have been the only way for me to lose my immortality. You know, seeing you die and drown Sophie with my sorrow in the vague hope she'll finally put an end to my misery does not sound appealing to me." He complained.
Helen rolled her eyes.
"You're so dramatic…" She said with a small smile "Listen, I'm sure there are other ways to regain your mortality. Ways that don't involve having to raise another child. If one day you become desperate, I'll help you find a way. I promise." She went on, this time taking one of his hands in hers.
"But right now, you have me, and Sophie, and quite a lot of time before us."
His lips twitched. It was not really reassuring to him, but she felt it was not yet time to mention that she had frozen her eggs just in case.
You never know what difference a few centuries might make.