Wet blood glistened on his black skin in the sun, drying quickly where it ran, crumbling… crusting like his dehydrated gums. The last 10 meters felt like a mile – sucking life out of him with every step – and as Ibrahim finally reached it, finally made it home, he wondered if the horrified stares of his friends rushing towards him were even real.

"Oh my God!" someone calls out as he staggers, "Ib? Norma get Magnus!"

He tries to speak but can't. Then he falls, with one great outward sigh.

"Ibrahim, stay with us. Dr Zimmerman! Dr Magnus! Jamie? Damn it!"

Ibrahim's eyes start to shut, the words in his ears growing distant, and though he's vaguely aware of the geologist holding onto him, of the people he's asking for, he wants to sink into the darkness. The strong, firm hands grip his arm, and a stern English voice breaks him back into the light.

"Dr Okonjo. This is Dr Magnus, can you hear me?"

His eyes roll slightly open, but barely, knowing he had something important to do… but not remembering what.

Helen found herself facing a body dotted with trauma – surface wounds here, there and everywhere, and a rather solid one to the gut. She made a discouraged sound, knowing every second was precious. "Dr Ironsi, I need the medi-kit – now."

It had been two days since they sent Ibrahim to investigate, but only a few hours since he'd last checked in – this shouldn't be happening.

The commotion in the camp which had surrounded Helen and Will as they'd dashed out from Command had died to a silence in those few precious seconds. The shocked faces of their colleagues, untrained in medicine, watching on in horror as Magnus attempted to stem the tide of those injuries. Praying, as Ibrahim struggled to pull himself back into consciousness.

"T- th-" he choked on his own words, claw-like hand dancing in mid-air as if it had a mind of its own.

"What, what do you need?" Will asked, realising that he was trying to tell them something and attempting to deduce it from his pain-ridden gestures… with little success.

Then he started convulsing.

"Oh bloody hell. Stay with us Ibrahim."

Ironsi came jogging back with her kit and Magnus reached for the drugs, letting Will automatically replace her hand for the pressure on that most vital wound. The liquid was prepped, the needle in his vein but he gave out a horrid gasp: body thrown by the heart attack that was ripping though his rib-cage. Helen finished the injection, automatically starting compressions – but the minute she started she finally realised how much blood surrounded them. It had pooled at their knees like the rain which never fell… and no transfusion equipment on hand. Quite literally, they didn't have enough blood for his heart to pump, even if she managed to start it again. Her hands paused as it dawned on her.

"Hey, you… you can't give up on him," Jamie sobbed, "You, you can't-"

"I'm sorry Dr Ironsi," Helen looked up empathetically, the solidity of her voice failing her, "there's nothing I can do."

There were tears already, growing more free at the sight of their happy-go-lucky lab-mate now dead on the floor.

Glancing about at the crowd which had questioned her, Magnus could feel her normally steady hands shake. She caught sight of Nikola, and was struck by the peculiar look on his face. It was so out of place she didn't understand it at first, then it clicked – why his eyes flashed at once with both compassion, and fear. Why he was stood away from the scene, though his gaze seemed to pour out every reassurance she wanted to hear… it was the blood.

"Magnus," Will's voice interrupted, demanding her attention on some element of the scene which had – in the tumult – escaped her notice. He was reaching into Ibrahim's right-hand pocket, which had been directly beneath his elbow as his directionless arm had waved about, finger pointed downwards.

Helen watched as the psychiatrist pulled out a phone, gazing at the screen with that muted consideration he gave every piece of evidence. "I think Ibrahim knew he wasn't going to make it," he sighed sadly, shaking his head in dismay and turning it round so she could see.

It was a GPS map, a route marked, plotting the path he had taken… ending right here at this spot. That he'd had the foresight to do this was typical of Dr Okonjo, but made it no-less chilling.

"How long had he been walking?" she asked quietly, stalwartly maintaining her composure but no less affected by the sight of the dead man's trail.

Will sighed again, head bowing as he looked in on the screen, certain that if she was asking something which seemed to cause such discomfort, she must consider it important. "About two hours."

Closing Dr Okonjo's eyes with the respect that was due, Helen rose up a little unsteadily from the ground and looked to Dr Ironsi, "Jamie, please, can you and Dr Farina help Dr Zimmerman – take Ibrahim into the lab tent. We need to find out who did this to him…" she looked about ready to collapse, until Helen rested a reassuring hand to Ironsi's arm, "I promise you. We will find them."

Ironsi nodded distantly, taking in a shaky breath. Then Helen registered the sudden absence of a certain member of the crowd.

"Hey…" Will approached Helen, flicking through the phone, "There's photographs…" he shook his head with a saddened respect for the man's efficiency, "Norma?"

The pink-haired abnormal responded with a rather croaky "Yeah."

"Get the route uploaded, and run these photographs alongside the database back home. See if we recognise any of these bastards."

She nodded enthusiastically, almost snatching the phone from Will's grasp and letting him get on with moving the body.

"I'll be over in a minute," Helen explained, "can you prep?"

It was Will's least favourite job, and they both knew it, but after what Dr Okonjo had just been through he really couldn't complain, so instead Zimmerman gave an unenthusiastic, "Yeh," and got to work.

The Doc threw him a silently emphatic thank you, cleaning her hands with a wet-wipe from th first aid kit as she quick-marched to her own tent.

Inside, Tesla was wearing a hole onto a patch of floor no bigger than one by two meters, pacing relentlessly in what she knew to be an attempt to supress himself. He was probably counting every single bloody step too.

Snapping to a halt the instant she arrived he span on her, finger pushed against his lips in a manner which might've been meditative, if his eyes hadn't darkened several shades at the barest scent of blood.

She didn't say anything, and neither did he, from where he stood on the other side of the tent. All she did was stride determinedly to his luggage, ferret out the case which she knew held his emergency medication, and threw him one pointed, maternalistic look as she undid the clasps.

"I'm fine," he bit out as she held the vial towards him, spreading the hand formerly at his mouth in a gesture which couldn't possibly hide the slight undercurrent in his voice.

Now she shot him a look of utter disbelief, "No," she posed flintily, bringing the vial and a syringe towards him, "you're not."

"Yes, I am," he sighed, but she'd noticed the slight flinch in the way he held himself as she approached, the tightening of his grip on the side-table where their files were stacked. The growl from his voice retreated just a little, but it wasn't quite enough to convince her that the violent scene hadn't completely affected him. "I can't afford to take this," he posed logically, even as she prepared the syringe, "it's my last one. What if we're stuck out here for another week? It's not like there's a plethora of herd animals in the vicinity."

Stepping up until they were almost chest to chest, she levelled dead into those coppery irises, "I really don't want to waste a bullet Nikola," She started pushing up the shirt he was wearing, exposing his veins. "But so help me…"

Nothing was ever simple, of course. She felt him tug and twist his arm against her, belatedly resisting the manoeuvre and forcing her to wrangle for control. In the end, though, he let her do it – and she'd be a fool to think otherwise. One twist and he could've broken her limbs. The only reason that syringe full of serum made it into his blood-stream was because somewhere, buried deep, Nikola was afraid. Genuinely terrified, that regressing into the blood lust was a very real possibility and willpower alone wouldn't cut it.

Her workforce was already traumatised; Helen thought to herself, they didn't need to add a rabid vampire to the mix just because Mr Egotist didn't fancy facing his limitations today. Even so, as she flicked her irked gaze back to his, watched the fangs appear through his open lips, listened to the heavy breathing – as though he'd been running for miles and miles – she had to admit it wasn't just about her employees. She couldn't deal with the thought of having another of her fears realised, another friend, another brilliant mind traumatised in her service. Not now, when her outer-body was more shaken than she might've expected by the latest death for her cause.

Yet another soul sacrificed on the altar of a better world. A world which, for so many years now, Helen felt as though she would have absolutely no right to live in when the time finally came.

Such thoughts brought a melancholy to her face – one which he studied minutely as the flood of nutrients hit his system. Picking up the smallest inflections, feeling the pound of her heart fade back to its usual levels, he realised she should've been out there: performing the autopsy, consoling the troops, but she'd come to him first. Not out of a lack of trust – she knew he'd sooner take a long walk in the desert than break his oath – but out of need. To be reassured… to remind herself that she had done, would do, all that she could for the people under her care. Oh, Helen Magnus always did such a fantastic job of that stiff-upper-lip, that war-time ethos of grinning and bearing, but she had never been able to hide it from him. Not when he was looking at least.

Before his fangs had even fully retreated he pressed his lips to hers, relishing the sudden grip of her fingers on his arm and the way she hung onto that kiss as though she could make it last forever. It didn't chase it all away, but it soothed her, restored her strength in ways she had, rather worryingly, come to rely on.

Noses still close together as they parted, their unfocused eyes finally met: two unspoken thank you-s hovering breathlessly, tingling the moist skin of their mouths with the sincerity so clear in their expressions. He shifted, so his forehead gently pressed against hers – letting her close her eyes momentarily, regain her strength. They had a job to do, and Ibrahim's murderers, those abnormal-torturers, were not going to wait for them to play catch up.

Author's Note:

Because I seem to have a thing for making a certain vampire takes his medication? I didn't realise until I was editing that I tend to write about it a lot. Maybe because we never got to see it in the show, maybe because it represents so much, who knows.

Thank you for the faves, follows and reviews folks! I promise chapters will still arrive on this one, but not as regularly as Vienna in Springtime which is, sadly, being slowed down by RL. This is a very busy time at work and I've been too strung out to find the wherewithal to write, but this has been sat on my computer for a while now so I thought I'd post it to tide you all over.