For current Bingo card, again. Emotional piece, post SFN2, not linked to the one I just did.
This one will NOT have any other chapters. Sorry guys and gals, this is one of those emotional ones that wouldn't really work being continued.
Hope you like it.
"You've been avoiding me," Helen stepped into the lab, her heels making a rather distinct sound on the tiled floor. It reminded Nikola of a ticking clock.
You know, the kind that sit on top of sticks of dynamite?
"Yes," Nikola didn't try and deny it as he set down his pencil and turned.
"Why?" Helen stopped near where his work station was, hands moving to rest on the counter.
"I don't know," Nikola looked into Helen's eyes.
"Liar!" Helen suddenly yelled, her anger getting the better of her as she took her arms and shoved everything from the work station violently to the floor. Notebooks, pencils and some glassware hit with far too much sound as things broke and shattered.
Nikola flinched but didn't back away. If Helen intended to kill him he'd already be dead.
"Now I want an answer, Nikola," Helen's voice was low.
Normally Nikola would make a comment on how sexy that was.
There was nothing sexy about this moment.
"I think I'm entitled," Helen added, her voice softer.
Nikola's response, however, was all anger, "you're entitled? What about me? Do you think it was easy for me to walk away then? To know you were about to face someone you had a chance of losing to before the whole place came tumbling down around your ears?"
Helen blinked, her anger draining away to be replaced with guilt, surprise and a touch of confusion.
"Do you think it was easy to stand beside Heinrich watching as his home burned? As he watched the only place he'd known destroyed in an instant while thinking his mother might have died?" Nikola's voice rose, though it was more to cover the fear he'd felt then more than anything.
"Nikola, I-," Helen tried to answer.
"No one could know anything," Nikola walked around the side of the work station that didn't have his things broken all over the floor.
Helen stepped back. She didn't fear Nikola would harm her, no, that wasn't it. She rarely saw him lose his temper like this, to truly be upset and hurt not just sulking.
"I may be a bastard but there was a time I was your best friend," Nikola's voice was suddenly softer.
Helen's eyes filled with tears.
"And no matter how much I lost my way, no matter how many times I broke the rules even we set in place, I always, always came back," Nikola stopped just in front of Helen.
Helen bit her lip as she blinked and tears slid down her cheeks.
"It took me six decades to get back to you, and I was far from okay when I did but I came back," Nikola's voice got even softer, "you made me think you wouldn't."
"Oh, Nikola," Helen whispered, trying to apologize but the words wouldn't come.
Suddenly they were just holding one another. It was hard to tell who had moved first.
Helen clung to Nikola, arms around him, fingers gripping the back of his suit coat so tight if she were any stronger she'd have ripped the fabric.
Nikola tucked Helen against him, chin on top of her head as his own bastardly tears streamed down his face.
He wasn't a man who made a habit of crying.
He could count actually count the times in his life where he had been unable to not stop the tears.
He cried when his brother died.
He cried when Helen announced her engagement.
He cried when his mother died.
He cried when the white dove left him.
He cried when he first discovered Bhalasaam.
He cried, though in secret, when James had died.
Every time before when he had cried, it was because of a loss.
Helen could feel Nikola struggling against his own tears. She hated herself for making her best friend cry.
She hated he was crying again because of her. Because he had thought he'd lost her again.
Part of her was tempted to be angry, to shove him back and yell she had cried when he was missing for so long.
But honestly that wasn't fair.
As worried as she had been those sixty years, part of her always knew he would come back.
And as angry as she was with how ridiculous his arrival in Rome had been, she had been happy to see him.
Helen Magnus never did anything halfway.
Nikola Tesla knew that.
When the Sanctuary died, he hadn't known what was next. He knew there was a chance she had left herself so little room for error that Caleb had delayed her just enough, that she didn't make it out.
Helen let herself feel what she had suspected all along. The thing that Nikola Tesla didn't express.
Fear.
Helen held tighter, if that was possible, and the two stayed like that for awhile, just crying softly.
Nikola felt his tears finally stopping. He reached into his coat and pulled out a blue silk handkerchief. He shifted to gently wipe Helen's face.
Her eyes were red rimmed, cheeks flushed and she had a small bruise forming where she had kept biting her lip.
"You are the most beautiful creature I've ever seen," Nikola whispered.
Helen burst out laughing. She hit Nikola's arm for daring to say such a thing when she was sure she was a complete mess.
Nikola hugged her tight again.
"I'm tired of living in the past," Helen whispered, voice scratchy from all the crying, "I've literally lived through the past again. I'm tired of being there."
Nikola gave a nod, saying he understood.
"I want to go forward," Helen whispered, looking up at Nikola from her spot tucked against him, "I want you to come with me."
"Then ask me again, truly ask," Nikola whispered.
"Come with me, Nikola," Helen stepped back to look up into his eyes, "Go forward with me."
"Yes," Nikola answered.