This one takes place during that period of time when Elizabeth was stranded in the 1940's. It's come to my attention that I did not put a whole lot of her experience in the main story. And since it has been a while since I've updated the scrap pile, please enjoy this extra long chapter!

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Nikola Tesla pondered, sitting alone at the desk of his room. It was 33 stories up, in The New Yorker Hotel. The most recent home of the 82 year old inventor was plain, but thankfully functional and clean. Both traits were critical to the man. As long as his sheets and towels remained spotless and his possessions remained in the correct places, he could not complain. And just occasionally, he would encounter a celebrity or dignitary in the building, but that was an irrelevant circumstance. He much preferred seclusion and the avoidance of strangers wanting to shake his hand. His fame was more of an irony than an honor to him, really. The things he has managed to do were notable at the time, but his vision exceeded his achievements by far. Far too many visions exist, far too many ideas and possibilities and improvements that he could have brought to reality, had he been given the chance.

The elder shifted in his seat restlessly, his stomach flipped with anticipation as well as hunger. For he is expecting a meeting with a rather remarkable guest. Of course, the anticipation of her arrival made him rather anxious as the hands on his clock dragged by. For the hundredth time that morning he turned to face the miniscule device mounted over his bed. 9:39. A wave of irritation overcame the inventor, for she agreed to meet him at 9:33! A tentative knock could be heard through his door.

"Please enter!" He called, and he heard the clumsy footsteps of his new companion. His head turned and his eyes met her sparkling gaze.

"You are late."

The girl shuffled uncomfortably, though her arms were laden with brown paper bags. After depositing two on the floorboards, the silky blue fabric of her skirt swished as she quickly spun around to pick up the third.

"I'm sorry! The elevator was a little slower than I'm used to. Anyway, how have you been?"

"Oh, the same as I have been yesterday. And the day before that." The elder turned back towards the desk and rifling through the drawers. Finally his bony fingers found what he was searching for: his tools. He gazed absentmindedly at one wrench, turning it over and over in his hand lost in his thoughts.

"I must have some platinum. A small block would be sufficient, perhaps five or six grams. By passing it through those circuits I might be able to..."

At this, Elizabeth paused in her ministrations and her pale eyes glinted with indignation as she gazed over her shoulder at the scientist.

"Mister, Tesla, I have brought you some assorted fruits and vegetables, salami and turkey in a hard roll for myself, and I have spent nearly fifty dollars filling out the previous order for you. But unfortunately, none of these bags contain platinum, silver, or gold... and they aren't likely to in the near future." Elizabeth responded in a low voice that dripped with far more sarcasm than she had intended. She immediately came to regret it though, when Tesla uncomfortably shifted in his seat.

"Miss Bradford, you are asking me to work on technology that is far ahead of my time! If it was possible to create time travel with stone knives and bear skins, I am certain that somebody else already would have!"

Elizabeth sighed and tried to bury one hand in her hair. Unfortunately, it was hard from the hairspray she had put in to keep her loose curls in place, and the texture quickly made her left hand recoil. Tesla's dark eyes pointed up at the ceiling at this observation as well her rouge-covered face.

"I am used to women from this era taking such care in their appearances, but why do you bother when you possess much larger concerns?"

The girl shrugged, her building frustration clearly affecting her if the stuttering was any indication.

"I r-re-eally didn't the f-fi-rst evening I was he-ere but... I have to blend in somehow in this -- time w-where people dress like..." Her voice wavered until it faded away. The woman sighed and closed her eyes in an attempt to calm down. Tesla couldn't help but observe that her eyelids and lashes were painted as well, though lightly enough that it was easy to miss. After another deep breath, she continued in a quieter, far more careful tone. Not that it made a difference of course, as her voice steadily rose in volume and irritation.

"And another thing. Are people here usually so mean, by the way? I know this is New York but... I-I've received more pa-passive aggressive remarks and nasty sidelong glances the past few days I've been here-- than I have the past seven years I've lived in Stillwater! Especially some of these other women, the ... cattiness-- while I'm just walking down the street or going into a shop. It's like everyone here knows that I don't belong!"

The elder said nothing at first, but his dark eyes glittered with indignation at the unexpected outburst.

"Yes, I suppose. I have never really paid much attention to the nature of strangers, my mind was occupied with other things." He spoke absentmindedly again, staring at what seemed to be a bit of space ahead of him. The sound of crinkling paper filled the room as Elizabeth busied herself with the groceries in an attempt to calm herself.

"Honesly, same. Most of the time. I guess..."

Her eyes met his, but she found no sympathy there. Only confusion, bemusement, some desperate attempt in his mind to work out the complicated storm of her emotions as if it were some sort of equation that could be solved. She wished him luck, because even she did not know what was bothering her so badly... or why she felt the need to express it to him!

"...nevermind."

She shrugged to herself as she shoved two huge, overflowing paper bags onto Tesla's desk. The innventor's eyes widened.

"Is all of this for me?"

The woman bent over a third bag that appeared to be for herself, although it was not nearly as full. The top of her head bobbed up and down as she nodded. Then she straightened back up, a sandwich in her hands.

"You are quite generous." He mused in a small voice, eying the pile of vegetables that had spilled out of the bag after he removed a rather sizable loaf of bread "I owe you a great dept."

Elizabeth, who by now had searched for a spot to settle down and eat, paused in front of a cushioned chair in the corner. The makeup did nothing to hide the flushing on her face as she peeked over her shoulder at Tesla. She already knew of the circumstances he lived under at the end of his life, but seeing how they affected him firsthand was another matter entirely. He looked absolutely nothing like the photos when he was younger. He had thinned greatly over time, now his pale skin stretched over his gaunt limbs. His face, though once bright, healthy, Elizabeth could even say handsome, now looked more like a skull complete with sunken eye sockets and hollowed cheeks. Whenever he moved he was slow and weak, and even now as she looked at him his hands trembled. And she suspected that age did not have that much to do with this. Elizabeth's gaze dropped to the floor, she adjusted her long skirt and sat down, in a manner as nonchalant as she could muster.

"No way, man. It's--it's on me."

He did not respond, he did not say anything for a long while as he meticulously prepared a cold meal for himself. The pair remained in their respective corners, a heavy, awkward silence clung in the air of the room. Well, silence other than the bustling of the city that can be heard through the open window. Elizabeth did not mind, she only ate her sandwich in peace and let her mind zone out as she looked down at the street below.

The physicist found it quite fascinating really, looking down at a new place and a new era. And it was quite a sight, as bleak the weather and as dirty the city may be. The sidewalk was absolutely filled with people, and to pass the time Elizabeth picked out a few individuals that stood out just to observe. A man with gray hair walked with a woman younger than he. Their arms entwined and both wore fine, very expensive clothes. A particularly loud pedestrian argued with an equally noisy car driver about the right of way in thick Brooklyn accents. At the building across the street, a group of workers that were supposed to be painting ended up flinging the forest green liquid at each other.

The woman smirked just a bit before taking another bite of the hard bread. Before, she never really thought of the past as more than just... well, the past. Just snapshots of important events and people that she had to memorize. Now, after befriending redcoat dragoons and being zapped in the 40's, she looked past the boring textbook information. There are obvious differences between 1941 and 2016, but she observed one glaring similarity that was more important than technology. People. Everyday people, talking and laughing and fighting... just living their lives. It was bittersweet for Elizabeth, as she knew that if she and Tesla failed, if she was trapped here, she could never really be part of life the same way everyone else in the 40's did. The physicist sobered now, and decided to turn her face away from the window. Immediately she met the gaze of the elder inventor, who appeared to have been silently observing her with a contemplative emptiness in his eyes that she was all too familiar with from her friendship with Amy.

"I suppose this city may be different than what you are used to. Is it not to your liking, Miss Bradford?"

"It's okay..." Elizabeth forced her voice to a lighter, cheerier tone, but it did not fool either of them.

"It--smells kinda bad though." Although it wasn't all that bothered her, she did not lie. It took her a whole day just to get used to the overpowering stench of the large city. Secretly, she found herself actually missing the kinds of aromas back home, even the more unpleasant ones she had to endure living near a college with a strong agriculture program. Hay and horse crap was more tolerable to her than diesel fumes and rotting food. The half-truth appeared to be enough to satisfy Tesla, who only nodded in response. He paused and hung his head downward, the trio of napkins he used up were meticulously folded in his hands before they were thrown away.

"What sort of energy source is used in the 21st century?" Tesla asked quite abruptly.

Elizabeth stiffened in her seat, a sizable amount of turkey and salami bulged in her cheek when she stopped chewing, froze, and glanced at him cautiously. She should have felt relieved that he did not force her to confront her homesickness any longer, but she knew that he would not like her answer. She swallowed, and after carefully wiping off her smudged lipstick, she reluctantly spoke.

"We... we still use fossil fuels, Mister Tesla."

Elizabeth was correct to predict that Tesla would not be pleased with this news. His face, radiating with curiosity and hope when he eagerly awaited her answer, dropped.

"Still, in the 21st century? I believed for certain that the practice of coal burning would have died out..."

"Well, there are new power sources that have been invented after your time. People found ways to produce energy from the sun, from wind, just as a few examples. Mostly just concepts though. There's some resistance to make these ideas a reality because--"

"--because of profit." The elder across the room finished her sentence before she could, his troubled eyes gazed down at the tile floor.

"Yes."

Tesla's shoulders slumped, his face sagged with melancholy.

"I cannot say that I am surprised. Man has a wondrous ability to evolve and improve themselves... but they will not if they continue to embrace motivation inspired by greed."

Elizabeth remained silent for a moment, the context behind his last statement did not escape her. Only a moment later she verbalize it.

"We all appear to be slaves to greed, one way or another. Several of your inventions were stolen by people who wanted to make money from them, and the rest were turned down, for the sake of continuing to profit by exploiting resources. Now..." Elizabeth glanced back at his starved form, and at the very few possessions he still had in his cramped room.

"Now you're the one who has to pay the price for it. It's not right. You should have been successful, not the oil and gas companies. You could've been richer and more famous than Edison. He is one of the people who stole your ideas after all!"

Tesla shook his head, then raised it to meet her burning gaze.

"I never cared about money, or fame. That is not why I tried to share my ideas with the world. I only wanted to help."

"Aside from your attempt at building a death ray?" She smirked at her quip, but he did not find it as humorous as she did. One side of his face twitched and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I have destroyed that device long ago. I have no desire to discuss it."

Elizabeth fell silent once again, her mostly eaten sandwich was placed back in the butcher paper and forgotten in her lap. Tesla's turned away from her, taking the timepiece out of a drawer in his desk.

"So tell me... how have you become a 'slave to greed?' Since you mentioned it, I am curious to hear how the future has become."

"Well... for one thing, where I'm from, the economy depends mostly on petroleum. It's dangerous to harvest, it literally creates a risk of earthquakes by removing it from the ground, and as we start to run out of it, well... The state can barely afford to pay teachers, and tuitions at university have climbed at an exponential rate by the 21st century. But that's all over the country, not just Oklahoma. The total amount I had to pay to earn my docorate was more than 50,000 dollars."

The inventor's eyes widened in shock at Elizabeth's admittance.

"Yeah. Even with scholarships, I'll be paying off loans for a while. On the plus side, I did manage to land a job that pays reasonably well, doing what I love at the university that I studied in. I can't really complain too much personally, but I know a lot of other students who weren't so lucky. Even after one finishes college, there's no guarantee they will get a good job."

"Mmm. That is a disturbing trend, but I am pleased of to hear of a woman academic. It explains much, as I cannot discuss with most people topics as cerebral as I have with you."

Elizabeth's lips, still a faint shade of red, spread in a bashful grin. But the conversation ended there. Tesla went back to the timepiece and focused all of his attention on it as if he were alone in the room.

"This will not work until I have a good conductor. Something small, mallable but sturdy..."

He looked all around him, in the drawers, the walls, and other places that he could neither reach nor have any hope of finding waht he was looking for. When he feebly stood up and began to tear his bed apart, Elizabeth once again attempted to run her fingers through her hair as a reaction to her mild puzzlement. Once again, she remembered the very unpleasant sensation of her hardened curls and her fingers untangled themselves. But not before she felt the cold, thin stick of metal she had placed to keep one section in the back up. Her fingers found the pin again, this time removing it.

"Mister Tesla?" A thin head snapped towards her, annoyed at being interrupted. She held the pin up for him to inspect.

"Will this work?"

He did not appear to be pleased at all. His face twitched and he stumbled away from her. His hands trembled harder and he had a little fit. She looked closer at the pin to see what was wrong.

"Oh, pearls...I'm sorry!" She exclaimed apologetically, lowering the pin closer to herself and prying the offending orbs off from the glue. This was one of several oddities that Elizabeth encountered from spending time with Tesla. His fear and disgust of pearls was one of the odder ones as well, but she was not one to judge. Finally the pin was free of all decoration and she handed it to him once he relaxed a little more.

"Yes, actually it is perfect for how I will use it. May I request one small favor?"

"Sure."

"Please throw the pearls away, somewhere else. I do not want those-- those spheres of... oyster saliva!-- to remain here."

The lady's mouth hung open just a bit, wanting to respond but not quite knowing how. Her right hand remained up in front of her containing the beads.

"Uh... okay. I'll be back, and I promise not to bring any more of these here."

Elizabeth promptly placed one foot behind her and spinned 180 degrees, causing the skirt to twirl up around her legs. She left him alone, and he sat back down at his desk. A rare smile spread on his face as he took the hairpin and inserted it into the timepiece.

"I do not usually have such sentiment for another individual, but I must admit that I shall miss her when she returns. How I would enjoy traveling to the future with her, although it must not be."

Tesla sighed, his pigeon set herself on the open windowsill as she did every morning. The inventor' thin arm stretched away, for her to perch. He was lost in his contemplative state, until the bird on his arm cooed and cajoled him into petting her.

"Oh, well. We have gotten old, little one. The time for both of us has nearly come. I do not believe in an afterlife, but I like to think that at least for one brief moment when I pass, I shall learn all of the secrets that the future will uncover."