Day 8: Baking

"Voila! Your Christmas feast, prepared with astounding skill, as always, by yours truly." After settling the tray he was carrying on Helen's lap, Nikola swept into an elaborate bow.

"Nikola…" Helen looked at the tray. "It's a pot of tea."

"It is. Made exactly how you like it."

"I have no doubt." In all their years together, Helen had never known Nikola to make her a subpar cup of tea: a particularly attractive quality, she privately thought. "But I would hardly call it a Christmas feast."

Nikola sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, waving a careless hand. "Oh, well, your hairy butler is coming up with the rest."

Helen's lips quirked. "Somehow, I doubt that the rest was prepared by mine truly."

"Oh Helen, my dear…" Nikola fluttered his hand over his heart. "You know how much I love it when you call me that."

"Perhaps if I had ever called you that before, I might. You're not fooling me, Nikola." She leveled a hard gaze at him. "I know why you're doing this."

He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. "Enlighten me."

Helen leaned in too, even if the motion made the fresh stitches in her arm burn with pain. "You're trying to distract me."

A recent unfortunate encounter with the poisoned fangs of a giant salamander had left Helen on strict orders of bedrest. Much to her chagrin, these orders had come from herself. (She had tried to argue that she had been half-delirious from the venom when she'd given them. After all, she had also told Nikola his eyes looked like the sea after a storm, which was of course utter nonsense.) Naturally, Helen would have preferred being up and about, but a particularly pesky vampire kept finding excuses to keep her in bed.

Nikola's eyes flicked to her lips before returning to meet hers, his mouth curving in a smirk. "Is it working?"

By now they were so close that they were almost kissing; there was only the barest distance separating Helen's mouth from Nikola's, and he closed his eyes.

"Not especially," she whispered, and pulled back.

Nikola stayed frozen there for a second before his eyes opened. His smirk remained. "I seem to recall distracting you pretty effectively the other day, at that gala in London – "

"Yes, well," Helen interrupted loudly. If the big guy really was on his way up, the last thing she wanted was for him to be party to the details of that (quite pleasant) diversion. "My point is that it won't work this time."

"Why not?" Nikola rested his chin on his hand, gazing at her plaintively, though there was still a spark of mischief in his eyes. "Have I lost my edge?"

She chuckled. "You've never had an edge, Nikola. Or if you do, I know you too well for it to work on me."

"Then what? Don't tell me my charming personality isn't enough."

"It's Christmas," Helen went on, ignoring this. "It's not as if I'm going to dive headfirst into a den of vipers."

"1935?" was all Nikola said, his eyebrows going up.

She gave him an annoyed look. "So soon after an injury," she added.

"1921," he said, still with that infuriating innocent expression. "Oh, and '44. And '39. Twice. And last year. And 1909."

"You were in America then!"

"James told me about it. And '28."

"Bloody hell," Helen growled.

"Face it, my dear, those heroic tendencies of yours are admirable, not to mention incredibly hot, but they have drawbacks. Not the least of which is that now I'm gonna have to go downstairs into the kiddies' little gathering," he wrinkled up his nose in distaste, "and ask Wolf-Girl if you can get up for a couple hours after all."

With a satisfied smirk, Helen fell back on the pillows. "Very good."

"You know, this counts as your Christmas gift this year, right?" Nikola said hopefully.

"Sorry, Nikola, Henry already told me you're hiding something in your laboratory for me, so you can't save it until next year."

"Damn. Well…" Nikola leaned over and kissed Helen's forehead. "I'll be back soon. Remember, I'm under strict orders from the love of my life not to let you jump into any viper dens, so I expect no more than the usual amount of weapons on your person once you're dressed."

Helen raised her eyebrow. "And how will you know?"

"Ooh!" Nikola grinned. "That sounds like a challenge."

"Perhaps it is. Now hurry along, Nikola, because if I stay in this room for another ten minutes I shall certainly lose my mind."

Still grinning, he squeezed her hand, winked, and left, leaving Helen to look about for just enough weapons to make things interesting.