Hours seemed to pass with unnerving speed as they worked to get at the heart of what had happened to their colleague, but very few had actually passed by the time Will pushed open the lab tent door. Tesla, his head bent over electrics, didn't spare him so much as a glance – as usual. On Nikola's right though, Magnus lifted her eye from the microscope on which she was analysing samples of blood and tissue. From the autopsy they'd performed on the still warm body of Dr Okonjo. Despite the topic of study it struck Will as an oddly domestic scene. Well… what passed for domestic with these two: their workstations separate yet almost together, an island quite separate from the rest of the room – which had been scrubbed clean after the post-mortem and was now occupied with a couple of assistants helping her process the test results. If their enemies were using any chemicals in defence, if they could learn one more iota about their weapons, Ibrahim's body would prove a valuable source of information. It didn't sound pretty, but it was practical and a damn site better than letting the people who'd killed him get away with it.

The others were seeing to other practicalities: chartering a flight and securing passage for Ibrahim's now-salted body to his home-town, and his waiting family. God that had been a phone call Will could've done without. It had always been his least favourite part of police work too all those years ago – informing the friends and family.

"Some of the IDs came back," he posited finally, noting the look of interest the lab crew cast surreptitiously in their direction. Going round the table he placed the file between Magnus and Tesla, "Weapons cartel."

Helen's eyes snapped up to his instantly, and even Nikola paused.

"They've been running guns between Lybia, Niger, Ivory Coast for years – big fish."

She knew that expression. That patented Zimmerman dismay and resolve mixed with the knowledge that this wasn't going to be any kind of good. The anxiety that there might not be anything they can do no matter how hard they try, though try, both he and they would. He had worn it when his face was much younger than it was now – but it seemed to suit him better these days, with a little grey at the ears and in the eyebrows, with the sun-weathered skin of an experienced man.

Picking up the file she acknowledged the hard work he, Norma and the team had put in, making a brief analysis of faces which she'd never seen before, and yet looked all-too familiar. Men high on power, delighting vindictively in the wrongs they could get away with. She was mildly aware that literally everyone in the room had stopped working, to watch her reaction, to catch a glimpse of their foe now that it had not only names and faces, but occasionally, even dates of birth.

"We need to infiltrate their camp," Will didn't sound in the slightest bit enthusiastic about it, but, given the circumstances, he just couldn't manage an extended silence, or worse, some 'zen' remark about letting things wait. Dr Okonjo had been a great scientist, but more importantly a brilliant man – in all the ways which counted, and his team was mourning the loss of a friend.

"I agree," she assented, putting the file down again. "They could have already started to move on – this might be our only chance to disable them."

Hands on hips, forehead leaning towards her, Will let out a breath of relief despite himself, "Right. I could put together-"

Neither of them had noticed Nikola deftly appropriating the file and flicking through it with a frown – until Will made to pick it up. "You know," Nikola cut in, pretending he was still reading where he stood, and refusing to hand it over, "I think given the circumstances, being able to take a few thousand volts, and a bullet or three might come in handy," he pointed out, watching for their response, "don't you?"

Helen understood precisely what he was getting at, "You're not going alone," she responded levelly, in a tone which would brook no argument.

"What – this is going to be a field trip for the whole class?"

She frowned disapprovingly at the glib affectation, "You have absolutely no idea what else they might have locked away – you need back up."

"Yeah," Will added eagerly, before the vampire ended up running away with any insane schemes which he'd entirely fail to clue them in on. "Plus, you don't have a particularly great track record with destroying things of intellectual interest…"

Tesla hardly denied it, shrugging with a smile which could only have been meant to bait the younger man, and did indeed manage to provoke a grumbling sigh.

"And I am not sending any more of our untrained colleagues in like lambs to the slaughter," she added – making Tesla instantly focus on her as though he might psychically change her train of thought.

"Well…" Nikola broached, "that's not going to be an issue if you let me-"

"No."

"Well, we haven't got time for a personnel drop," Will surmised logically, "So, what, just me and Professor Dramatic?"

The nickname earned him an unimpressed stare from the vamp.

"Oh no, I'm coming too."

"What?!" Will exclaimed to the backing track of Nikola's sigh.

"Helen…"

Her head twisted onto Nikola's oh-so-nuanced tone, more than a little aggressively, "We're about the only people here who've been properly combat trained, the only ones with any experience – and as much as Jamie would no doubt relish the revenge…"

"She'd be unreliable in the field," Will followed.

Helen nodded, even knowing she was being a massive hypocrite, risking both her daughter's parents in the same sweep, she knew it was the right decision – the only decision she could make. One independent agent was enough on a mission like this, and she wasn't happy with the odds, letting Will and Nikola go it alone. This could easily turn into more than a two-man operation, and frankly, she didn't trust anyone else in the camp not to get shot in the face as soon as the cartel clapped eyes on them. They were the most qualified people available.

She did her best not to look in Nikola's direction, and refocused on her work, knowing instinctively that he was giving her that wide expression. That look of a man desperate to demand that she change her mind, yet astute enough to know that kicking-and-screaming wasn't going to get him anywhere.

"Magnus…"

Will reflecting Nikola's concerns though, well, she hadn't quite built up a defence against that one – rare though it was – the unease in his eyes made her feel ever so slightly guilty.

"I know," she murmured, giving him a determined nod which said: get on with it; I know what I'm doing.

Will, it seemed, needed to look Tesla's way to believe she wasn't going to actually change her mind however, a fact which bristled her slightly. Not that he didn't know she was entirely capable of making up her own mind, but it seemed even the protégé knew Nikola had a certain leverage – what with the hundred year head start on knowing her. Finding nothing in the vampire's avoidant gaze, however, Will looked back to her with a never-ending-sense that he was the only one around here with his head still screwed on, "Fine. You're the boss."

She knew then that he disapproved of her lack of motherly prioritisation, or perhaps more that it would inevitably affect her later in some delayed sense of guilt or disassociation, even if her decision didn't outright kill her. Helen, though, had long ago accepted the fact that being disassociated was simply a fact of life when you were immortal. There came a point where it was harder to connect with people beyond the surface niceties of everyday life, and besides, the guilt she'd feel if something actually happened to those scientists out there, was more than she would ever feel for potentially risking her daughter's emotional stability. Maybe it was cold of her, maybe it was foolish, but somehow… Helen just knew that Sofija would always be loved and cared for, whether she was there or not. Just as she'd always known Big Guy or James would've loved Ashley as their own had it come to the worst, protected her as fiercely as her mother, so too would Henry or Maga, or Will, for Sofija.

Besides which Nikola was pretty damn hard to kill, and Sofija was going to have to live with both her parents putting themselves in danger on a regular basis. It made more sense for it to be a simple fact of life, right now, from day one, than to spring it on her when she could finally understand the difference. She'd never forgotten Ashley's expression the day she'd realised where Mommy was going on her little trip: the fear for her after witnessing the first dangerous abnormal loose in their home. Oh she'd coped well enough, she'd always had courage by the bucket load, and it didn't take long for it to become a normality she'd thrived on, but it had taken a good deal of convincing at first, and the pre-emptive terror in those baby blues had hit her like a stone at the time. Nope, Sofija was always going to know that her mother did a dangerous job: that she would come home tired, and battered, and bruised, and perhaps she might not come home at all, but that was okay – because Mum would always fight harder, just to come back to her, and if she failed, she would always be with her. She would always know just how much she was loved.

"I'll go prep the kit," Will finished, heading out with a shake of his head, "Briefing in an hour?"

"Thank you," she offered belatedly, and the meaning in it had them all regarding her with sincerity.

Once he'd left, she knew Nikola – who had yet to get back to work – was itching to say something. She stopped to meet his eyes with a sigh, but the words just wouldn't come out… for either of them.

"I can't-"

"I know."

She gave him an exasperated look – if he knew, then why was he looking at her like she'd asked him to take apart one of his experiments?

"You can't let them go in," he reiterated, "I get it."

Wait, Helen thought to herself, he didn't think she couldn't trust him, did he?

"I can't risk losing anyone else today," she started quietly, hoping he'd read between the lines, "not unless I'm there to at least try and do something about it."

He seemed to hear her then, the disgruntlement dropping in sympathy but not entirely relenting. He sighed dramatically, and she could tell from the tone of it that she'd won his silence on the matter – for now at least, "You're a chronic micromanager you know that?"

She couldn't help but smirk, raising one fine eyebrow as she prepared the last slide, "I was aware of the fact, yes."

Author's Note: Because I am a strong believer in the fact that what makes Teslen work is the fact that they can be their own people, and yet complement each other… that, in the words of an awesome song:

"I want you, and I want you to want me to want you/ But I don't need you/ Don't need you to need me to need you"

"I love you, and I love how you love how I love you/ But I don't need you/ Don't need you to love me to love you."

Also Will is not an idiot. Annoying as he can be sometimes in the show, he has his reasons: he's untrusting of Tesla because Tesla gives him no reason to be charitable and for the longest time, no reason to trust that his motives are to anyone's benefit other than his own (ah, Tesla without the ulterior motives? Never, but who those motives serve is another matter entirely)… and what I like is that as the show progresses you can start to see that slowly, very slowly, start to change. Partly because I think Tesla changes, somewhat, I mean, it was already there in him, but I think the 60 yrs of solitude did things to the guy that twisted it in the evil direction, and I think being de-vamped knocked some sense into him… especially regarding his friendship with Magnus and how, you know, he shouldn't take it quite so much for granted.

Anyway, sorry, felt like some character analysis :D Next time... man I can't wait till you see it because Tesla kicks so much ass. XD TTFN.