Nikola only closed his eyes for a moment, his cheek resting against Helen's head, intending to get up and get her settled comfortably in bed in just a few minutes, but it was so warm here by the fire with her, and Helen fit into his arms so perfectly, and he was quite tired from healing all of those gunshot wounds before…
The next thing he knew, his eyes were flickering open to discover that the fire had burned low and the room had sunk into darkness. Helen's breathing was quiet and even, muffled in his shoulder, and her fingers were clasping his, resting on his chest.
Still asleep, she squeezed his hand with a determined grip, and Nikola smiled a little. She was holding onto him so tightly, though, that he didn't think he would be able to free his hand without waking her up. He turned his face and kissed her head, contemplating his options.
Sleeping like this wouldn't be a problem for him, but it wasn't likely be very comfortable for Helen, and she had looked so exhausted earlier that Nikola suspected she needed a proper night's rest (or several) in a real bed, which he intended to provide.
But he couldn't carry her to bed one-handed, which left only one course of action.
"Helen, my dear," he said in a low voice, attempting to wiggle the fingers that she had a steel grip on. Helen stirred, opening her eyes.
"Nikola?" she mumbled, shifting against him but not letting go. "Is it morning already?"
There was something almost forlorn in her voice at the prospect. Another pang shot through Nikola's chest, and he wondered again what Helen had been doing lately.
"Not even close," he assured her out loud. "Sorry to wake you, my dear. I know you've never offered any complaints as to my suitability as a pillow, but in the interests of medical care, you know, I thought you might prefer to sleep someplace a little more comfortable."
"Ah, yes," Helen said, blinking sleep out of her eyes. "You have a point." A rather sly smile came over her face. "Getting me into bed as soon as possible, are you?"
"Why, Helen, do you doubt my noble intentions?" he replied, grinning back.
Helen snorted as if to show him what she thought of his noble intentions. "Chivalry, thy name is Nikola Tesla. I suppose you woke me up just so you could remind me how heroic you are?"
"Actually, I woke you up because I can't move my hand," Nikola said practically. "At least, not without causing serious injury to you, which I was hoping to avoid for obvious reasons."
Helen glanced down at their interlaced fingers and actually turned rather pink. "Ah," she said again. "Yes." Slowly, she detached her fingers from his, grimacing slightly as she stretched her arm.
"Shall I romantically carry you to bed?" Nikola asked hopefully.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well, I suppose I can cradle you in my arms once we're there," he said, giving her a flirtatious wink, and Helen chuckled.
"I would be rather disappointed if you did not, Nikola." The corners of her eyelids crinkled when she smiled warmly at him.
His own cheeks started getting hot, and it was his turn to clear his throat. Now that Helen was safely dislodged, he rose and offered his hand.
"Shall we?"
Before they did anything of the sort, however, Nikola changed out the bandages on Helen's shoulder and got her a glass of water; wine might have been his drink of choice, but it didn't go a long way towards satisfying a human's thirst.
She was standing by the window when he came into the bedroom with the water, looking down at a basket on a small table nearby from which there emanated a soft cooing noise.
"It appears I'm not your only patient this evening," she said, nodding towards it.
Nikola went over to her and handed over the water. She accepted it gratefully and took a long drink.
"Hello," he murmured to the pigeon, reaching out a finger to stroke its small head gently. "I found her on the sidewalk outside just last week," he told Helen. "Her wing is broken, but she's doing well: I believe she'll make a full recovery."
He glanced over to find her looking at him with a strange, almost tender expression, but when he blinked it was gone.
"You have quite the bustling medical practice, Dr. Tesla," she said, her lips quirking.
"Only for you and the pigeons, my dear," he said with another wink. "Now, on that topic…"
Soon Helen was ensconced in bed on the side that Nikola would always privately think of as hers, even if it had been some years since she had last visited him here. He fetched an extra blanket and spread it over her, since it was a chilly night.
"Are you going to fluff the pillows next?" Helen asked with an amused smile as she watched him.
"Helen, might I remind you that vampires have a slightly different tolerance for cold than you humans?"
"Which is why you already had that blanket on the bed, correct?" She raised an eyebrow. "Nikola, there are far better ways of keeping me warm."
Nikola's mouth went a little dry, but he gave her a toothy grin as he slid under the blankets with her. "How very forward of you, Helen. Will this suffice?" He turned on his side and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against his chest. He wanted quite badly to kiss her neck, but that would have jarred her injured shoulder, so he only nuzzled her hair a little.
"That'll do very well for now," Helen said, sighing a little contented sigh that made his heart skip a beat, and snuggling back into him.
"And what later?" he asked.
"We shall see." She sounded like she was smiling. "Good night, Nikola."
"Good night," he said softly. Her fingers slid over his and she squeezed his hand.
Nikola lay there with her, counting seconds in the back of his mind until they turned into minutes and then hours, and Helen was fast asleep. But even with her in his arms, he found it difficult to sleep himself.
Carefully, he slipped his arm back from around Helen and propped his head up on his elbow, just able to see the side of her face from that angle. She looked better than she had earlier this evening: a little of the weariness had melted away, and there was still a faint smile pulling at the edges of her mouth. But there was still something haunted about her.
Nikola reached out, letting his hand brush through her hair, the dark strands soft against his fingers. The last time he had seen her, it had been as golden as the day he'd first seen her at Oxford, and cut short in what had been the style at the time. He'd thought very little of it: Helen was quite fond of changing her hairstyle often. Back at the turn of the century, it had seemed like she was switching from gold to brown and back every time he'd seen her.
But there was something different about her besides that. Nikola couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he might almost say she seemed older somehow, with a tired, cynical look in her eyes that he wasn't used to seeing on Helen. There had been a few times, especially during the John debacle or some other Sanctuary crisis, but this was the most pronounced. There had to be something going on at the Sanctuary that was troubling her, some secret that she didn't feel she could trust even to him yet.
Nikola sighed, wishing she would let him in on whatever it was. But all he could do was simply be here and willing to help her if she needed him. He eased back down, sliding an arm around her and cradling her against him.
In a few more minutes, his breathing had grown almost as slow and steady as Helen's. Even if he couldn't fall asleep, holding Helen was one of the most pleasant ways to spend a few hours that Nikola had ever discovered. He kissed her, whispering something he never dared to say seriously when she was awake, and closed his eyes.
A throbbing ache in her shoulder was what woke Helen up, although for a few seconds she couldn't remember why it was there. Then from off to the side she heard a cooing pigeon, and it struck her that she typically didn't wake up to this strong a smell of wine, and she remembered all of the events of the preceding night.
She had rolled over during the night and her cheek was now pressed against Nikola's chest. He was sitting up a little more than he had been last night, one arm wound around her and holding her up off her hurt shoulder. Right now, his fingers were brushing so lightly against her temple that she almost didn't notice them. When he saw she was awake, the motion stilled, but his hand remained cradling her face.
"Hello, Nikola," she said, and was rewarded by one of his sunny grins.
"Hello." His answering smile was so bright that it warmed Helen through. "Sleep well?"
Her shoulder was hurting quite a lot, but apart from that Helen hadn't felt more refreshed for a long time. "Quite well, thank you. I have only one complaint."
"Oh? What's that?"
Helen nodded to the bedside table. "Is that all there is for breakfast?"
On it sat a half-filled glass of wine, throwing little red flecks of light onto the table as it caught the sunlight.
"Oh, that," he said. "Not to worry: I'll have breakfast fit for the most ravenous of humans sent up in a minute if you'd like. That's just for me."
"Early morning craving?"
"Not exactly." Nikola reached over and picked the glass up, taking a sip and closing his eyes. "Mmm… No, I was famished this morning. Several dozen bullets will do that, you know. And I had to wash the stuff down with something, or else I couldn't kiss you good morning."
"A perfectly logical sequence of events," Helen said, her lips twitching. "Well, are you going to kiss me?"
Nikola grinned. "I thought you'd never ask." He put the glass down and turned, wrapping his other arm around her and kissing her good morning as thoroughly as she could have asked for.
He tasted like wine, as ever, and he held her just as tenderly as always, in this century or the next. Helen almost wished she could have stayed there for the remainder of her hundred years, in their own little world tucked away from everything else. Of course she couldn't, but just for a minute, she put her worries about the future aside and simply kissed Nikola.
During a brief lull in their enthusiastic good morning wishes, Nikola did indeed call down for room service, but neither one of them realized quite how much time had passed until there was a knock on the door.
"Oh, damn it," Nikola hissed as he broke reluctantly away from Helen and shot an almost comically alarmed look at the door.
"What is it, Nikola?" Helen brushed a finger through his hair, messy enough now after a night in bed that he almost resembled her Nikola in the future.
He gave her a look. "Helen, do I look like I'm seventy-five years old right now?"
Helen chuckled. "I suppose not. Shall I answer the door for you?"
"Having a stunningly attractive woman with a fresh gunshot wound in my bedroom might raise a few questions," he said. "I'll just tell them to leave it."
She kept an arm around him as he sat up, pressing light kisses against his shoulder and neck.
He cleared his throat. "Helen," he muttered. "It's very difficult to concentrate on sounding like a convincing old man when you're – you know."
"Well, it's very difficult to concentrate on giving a talk on abnormals when someone keeps blinking ridiculous flirtations at you in Morse code."
"Still holding that against me, hmm?"
"You can keep making up for it after breakfast." Helen smirked and released him.
Nikola cleared his throat again and called outside to leave the tray in the hall. His attempt to sound less like an immortal vampire and more like an aging human was backed with the full force of Nikola's theatricality, but it could have been a great deal more convincing.
"That's how you've been talking?" Helen said in disbelief after the hotel employee had moved back down the hall. "It's a wonder you haven't been discovered yet."
"I'm insulted, Helen. I always thought I could have been an actor in another life."
"I believe you should stick to being an inventor."
"If you're going to offer unsolicited artistic critique, I'm leaving to go and get your breakfast," Nikola said rather petulantly.
"By all means," Helen said, kissing him on the cheek. His annoyed expression evaporated completely, leaving only a pleased smile.
"I'll be right back," he promised her, returning her kiss on the lips this time before swinging his legs out of bed and striding to the door.
Breakfast went by quickly, but by the end of it Helen and Nikola were deep in discussion about their work, and time flew by without either of them taking much notice. (Helen had to hastily lift a cup of tea to her lips when he theorized about a wireless network of information in the future, thinking of future Nikola's absolute delight in the most random of memes.)
So Nikola called down again for lunch and the conversation shifted to the Sanctuary, which was far more difficult for Helen to navigate, as even her excellent memory failed her on occasion when it came to events from a hundred years in her past. Nikola shot her an odd look every now and then when she fumbled, but he said nothing and changed the subject.
"How long has it been since we've been dancing, my dear?"
"Are you offering?" Helen challenged.
He sipped his third glass of wine and smirked at her. "Perhaps. Are you accepting?"
Helen hesitated. On one hand, she did have work to do, and the more time she spent with Nikola here, the more likely it was he would figure out she wasn't exactly the Helen he knew. But on the other, she missed him and his infectious grin and his ridiculous remarks, and those long sixty years were on the horizon…
"Perhaps," she said.
Nikola's entire face brightened like the sun had just come out over it. He actually bounded up from his chair and spun in a circle before pointing at Helen with the wine glass in his hand.
"Then tonight, I'm taking you out dancing. Slow dancing," he added with a glance at her shoulder. "Can we avoid being embroiled in shootouts with abnormal-kidnapping mobsters for one night, do you think?"
Helen laughed. "I seriously doubt it. But where would the enjoyment be in that?"
"Oh, Helen, I adore you." He set the glass down and glided over, taking her hands and pulling her to her feet. (Helen quite wanted to tell him she loved him, too, but that probably would have destroyed the timeline completely, so she settled for smiling at him and squeezing his hands.)
"Shall we practice? It's clearly been a while since you've had any fun whatsoever," Nikola said, a troubling knowing edge underneath his flippant tones.
"I believe you're forgetting about this morning," Helen pointed out as they settled into each other's arms.
"My dear, you're utterly unforgettable." Nikola was leading for once since her left arm was painful to lift at the moment, but all he was really doing was swaying in place, apparently more concerned with being close to her than actually dancing.
"I would say the same for you if I weren't concerned your overinflated ego would expand and crush the continent."
She could feel him smiling against her cheek. "In that case, perhaps you'd better get out of the room right now, while it's still safe."
"No, I don't think so," Helen murmured, dropping his hand to wrap her uninjured arm around him. She turned her head and pressed a lingering kiss to his jaw. "I'm quite content where I am."