Author's note : Sanctuary doesn't belong to me, I own nothing and earn nothing writing. (I wish I did XD) I just couldn't let the show end without giving it a sequel... So ENJOY :D Oh ! And this story begins two seconds before the old Sanctuary is blown apart... This is a one shot
00.02
Helen turned around to stare at her Sanctuary for what seemed to be the last time.
"Bloody Hell." She whispered.
She was not scared, no, she was bloody freaked out. Her life could come to an end two seconds later. Her future could now be altered by Henry's jacket. If the improvements Nikola had provided it weren't sufficient, the kiss they had shared only moments ago would definitely be the last. Would his panicked gaze be the last picture of him she would take to the grave ?
My house, my rules. She thought. But she knew that nothing would be left of her house a couple of seconds later.
"Not today" She cried, shutting her eyes tight.
xoxoxoxo
Nikola was blinded by the dust and deafened by the successive explosions of the buildings. He still had the sweet and warm sensation of Helen's lips on his whereas she was most certainly dead while he struggled to breath something else than cement dust.
When he finally opened his eyes, Henry was lying at his sides, looking very well alive. They stared at each other for a few seconds, unable to share any coherent word, unable to realize what had just happened. Everything they had had just caved in, including Helen.
"Magnus..." Henry sighed.
Nikola shook his head slowly, as if fearing stiff neck (that could be though).
"Gone" She wouldn't have kissed me if she had had a chance to survive. He added for himself.
"Bloody hell..."
"Come on wolf-boy, we should get out of here"
xoxoxoxo
a few hours later
There was nothing left of the Sanctuary. At dawn, there was nothing else but ruins, the story of a life destroyed by the fire.
All of this was definitely not the end Nikola had imagined, far from it. But he needed to find her dead body, he had to be sure she wasn't going to reappear anytime soon, whereas he would have had time to mourn for her, enough time to try to put an end to his life by any way. Because his life couldn't go on without the woman he loved and had loved for over a century.
Each time he closed his eyes, he saw her, standing in the middle of her laboratory, pleading him to go away as fast as he could, her deep ocean blue eyes swelled with tears.
I won't go away without you this time Helen, believe me. He thought while ducking to pass under the eave that had been supporting the great hall of Old City sanctuary for decades.
This kiss, her hand in his hair, at the back of his neck, ending up on his shirt... All that seemed so wrong to him ! He hadn't had time to realize that his wildest dream was coming true at last, time to kiss her back, to take her in his arms and let his hand wander in her dark curls he dreamed of every night since Oxford. He hadn't had time to make her understand what he had told her in Rome the year before.
That was what felt right. That was what he would do when he'd find her corpse. He would find her, he wouldn't allow himself to sleep before he had caressed her face for the last time.
Each step he took whipped up ashes that were still warm. In the chill of sunrise, the day after the explosion, it seemed to Nikola that his world was no more than ashes.
However, here and there, he stumbled upon charred remains of items he knew well enough to recognize them. In the living room, he found a leather sofa which had melted down, in Helen's desk room (or rather what was left of it), printed circuits belonging to computers lied around on the ground near what Nikola considered being the remains of a safe box blown by the explosion of the wing of the Sanctuary. Everywhere the vampire's feet landed, it broke pieces of broken vases. He even recognized a piece of broken glass coming from a bottle of Château Margot 1992 he had left half empty some twenty hours before on Magnus' coffee table.
He knew the sanctuary map by heart. He had spent nights of insomnia walking through the corridors. He would surely have been able to find his way blind eyed. That's why he knew exactly where he was when his slow steps led him to what was left of Helen's room. Actually, there was no more left than charred eaves fallen to the ground, ashes covering the ravaged floor, and the window frame, which glass had exploded, standing by miracle between two darken-stoned pieces of wall.
The sun was barely rising, but its pinkish beams reflected on a surface blackened by soot, as if to draw his attention.
Nikola knelt, with his heart heavy in his chest, and strokethe warm item to get rid of the thin layer of soot hiding its beauty to his eyes. When he recognized the silver jewel box he had offered Helen on a cold Christmas Night in 1895, he covered his tired face with his black hand, his pounding heart stirring in his mouth.
You had kept it...
A thin sad smile took place on his face, and he went on through the remains, the box safe in his shaking hands.
His heart melt when he arrived in the middle of the rubble of the laboratory where he had left Helen for the last time. Crows were busy pulling on skin bit on a corpse, struggling to get the most tender ones with their sharpen claws.
Feeling anger burst in his stomach at the sight, his teeth clenched and his nails stretched, and seeing a vampire ready to rip them off their lunch, the birds flew away, taking away what looked like a heart.
Nikola felt nauseous. He leaned against a iron eave which still stood without anyone knowing how it could, and he threw up what little he had in his stomach. It seemed to him that his lungs and his heart were going to follow all the wine he had drunk during the two last days. But they didn't. Instead of leaving him, they kept on reminding him he was immortal.
He stood there for a moment, regaining his strength to come closer to the corpse lying in the middle of the dust.
Caleb. There was enough skin left on its bones to assume the body was Caleb's.
Magnus had done great with him. She had managed to dig a hole right in the middle of the Praxian's ribcage with one of her computer directed tool.
There were two other dead bodies around him. Two skeletons that the crows, beetles and rats had found before him. There was nothing left of them but bones half burnt, making it hard to know which was whom.
Caleb was not alone when he had entered the laboratory where Helen had been waiting for him, he knew that. But how many men were with him ? One ? And the second body was Helen's ? Or two, and Helen had disappeared ?
Henry's jacket was nowhere to be seen, and Nikola wondered if the explosion had possibly blown it to dust, turning Helen to dust... A handful of dust among a sea of dust.
"Where are you Helen ?" He whispered.
Exhausted, he fell on his knees upon the thick layer of dust and ashes and allowed himself to cry. He cried as he hadn't done for over a century, since his brother's death. Dan had died while he was eight.
"Helen !" He yelled at last. It was a loud shout which reverberated on the buildings of Old City, coming back to his ears as the echo of a desperate man though he couldn't be. He pitied himself hearing the distress in his voice.
He needed to drink, now.
xoxoxoxo
Helen Magnus was exhausted. In forty-eight hours of time, she had avoided both a genocide and a rising of the Praxians. She had survived the explosion of her Sanctuary, and worse, she had lied to her friends, and to Will. She had betrayed and abandoned him, struggling against the tears threatening to roll on her cheeks when she had seen him so sad and lost.
She let her palm wander on the bruise his fist had left on her jaw and smiled. They were safe in the end, and her protégé had forgiven her for hiding all her plans from him.
"Dying in an explosion, it's so not Helen Magnus."
She closed her eyes and the ghost of a smile came to play with her lips again. His voice was sweet to her ears, and she stopped breathing for a few seconds. She had been so afraid to lose him while putting on Henry's jacket ! She had hold her breath, blinded by the blue light of the armor protecting her, until the last blast which had destroyed the last stone of her house. And she had known : Nikola and Henry had saved her, once again.
"The show must go on." She replied.
Nikola joined her on the rock she sat on. The place was wonderful, and the night was warm, making the chill of the fall which hid them from the rest of the world enjoyable.
"What a show ! It was a real... Nightmare."
For a moment, the water falling from stone to stone was the only noise breaking the silence which settled between them.
Helen didn't want to talk. She had hidden in there to be at rest, and feeling Nikola's warmth near her made her feel safe. However, she had said and done too much things those last weeks, and she was bored with it, bored with first steps.
"It's been a week since I last closed my eyes..." Words choked in Tesla's throat. He simply couldn't allow himself to talk about all the suffering he had endured. Helen cut him before he could continue:
"Neither did I, Nikola."
He would have liked to say more, to tell her how Kate and Henry had found him on his knees, in the rubble of the Sanctuary, weeping like a wee boy, crouched with the jewel box against his chest. He would have liked to tell her that the mere thought of not having the chance to kiss her back had been to much to bear. But he couldn't. She was there, exhausted, and she didn't need to be blamed for any more suffering.
Instead, he took his present out of his pocket, took Helen's hand in his, and put it in her palm.
She caressed the warm surface, and opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't find any word to describe what she felt. She wasn't here anymore. She was back in 1895, under the Christmas tree.
She admired the beauty of the box she had thought had been destroyed, her gaze lost in the complex carves of the silver.
Her eyes filled with tears when she understood what Nikola had done, and what he had endured for an entire week. In a flash, she saw him scrutinizing the remains, knelt near the bodies she had taken souls from by herself, thinking she was one of them...
He fingers suddenly closed on the silver box and she turned to the vampire at last, a smile glued on her face. He could smell her dull pain, and even see it beneath her smile.
"Will you ever forgive me Nikola ?" She asked him.
Her wonderful blue eyes were shining with hope, and she had the same gaze as the one she had shot him just before the heavy door had closed on her, merely a week before.
A devilish grin set onto his face. In his eyes, it was crystal-clear that he would forgive her. He was more than ready to do it as quickly as possible. Her face made it even more possible : it reflected the pain she had amassed during the 113 years she had spent in the past, being careful not to alter the present.
"A real kiss would most certainly hasten my forgiveness, Ljubav." He ensured her, leaning in deeply to get closer to her lips.
"In this case, I promise I'll make it a unforgettable kiss." She whispered.
Slowly, she cupped his cheek, her face getting closer and closer to his, until they nuzzled, breathing the same air.
His warm breath brushed her cheek, making her shiver slightly, bringing the desire she had always hidden back to herself. She was tired of ignoring her feelings for her oldest friend, and she knew Nikola would never give up on her. He would never break her heart. He had proved it so many times, but she had never allowed herself to listen to her heart, nor to the butterflies in her stomach.
She closed her eyes and claimed his lips with tenderness.
Feeling her so close against him mended all his wounds. He had been waiting for her, for a good hundred and thirty years, without ever giving up, and God, it had been worthwhile! Closing his eyes, he took Helen's hand and caressed her knuckles while his tongue slipped in her mouth to taste her. He allowed his hand to discover the small of her back as he was holding her tight against his body, stroking her skin through her satin dress.
Their embrace lasted a few minutes. None of them wanted to part, and they only broke their kiss to breath in.
When their eyes met again, Helen smiled.
"I'm tired..." She whispered.
They both knew her tiredness had nothing to do with physical pain. She was just tired with struggling to hide her desire for Nikola.
However, he lead her down slowly on the cold rock against him. She shivered when her warm body met with the coldness of it, or maybe it was the contact with Nikola's body that made her body claiming for contact. Anyway, she quickly fell asleep under the genius' caresses, her head on his chest, feeling safe and happy.
She knew from this moment that her new life could begin.