By the time they reached camp Will was wheezing for air, "Oh man," he muttered.
"Everybody," Helen's voice rang out clearly between the tents, drawing more attention as Will bent double, finally able to suck in the breath of air his aging body badly needed. "Time to break camp."
Nikola had already headed straight for the lab tent, to finish the packing they'd started before they'd left. It was insurance - everyone had been asked to ready themselves for a quick exit, just in case, but even so, there was a dazed look amongst the scientists, as if they hadn't really been expecting it. They stared with concern, wondering what had gone wrong.
"We need to get out of here stat," Will reiterated by way of explanation, trying to mask his momentary weakness and allay the sudden fear he could see in some of their expressions, "Dr Ironsi, you're in charge of the lab equipment, Norma, command, Dr Farina see to the kitchen. Cho, can you open up the Jeeps, get them loaded."
"Did it go... badly?" Norma stammered as Will headed towards the main tent.
The old Sanctuary Commander put a hand on the girl's shoulder and looked straight into her wide eyes, "I need you to focus for me, okay. We'll explain on the way."
Helen turned from the scene to assist, unable to help the jolt in her guts at the naive uncertainty in Norma's voice. Why was it always the good kids who got dragged into the most dangerous situations?
0
Darkness had set in but the air was still, the moon fat in the sky as Will opened the driver-side door hours later - hand hesitating on the frame, as he glanced back at Magnus.
The drive to the city had been long, dusty, and tense. He'd snapped at Tesla no less than three times: first for the vampire's snark at his suggested course of action - it didn't matter that Tesla had a point, or that the new plan was better. Then for the aggravated and completely uncalled for driving instructions on how to avoid pot holes in the desert, not to mention last - but by no means least - Tesla's whining about the window being open. Apparently it was making the sand get in his eyes, and ears, and nose, and Will had basically told him if he shut his trap he might find there was a whole lot less to complain about.
They should have gotten more of a telling off than Helen's mild warning, but they all knew it was the stress, the logical processing of what might come if they didn't evacuate fast enough. Their fleet of jeeps were loaded with everything: their research, their lives, their dead colleague, all in a mass exodus for civilisation, the city… escape. If they were still around when the cartel regrouped they would have a battle on their hands and far too many civilians to protect.
Norma had contacted the Sanctuary en route, starting to download as much as she could to their server as backup - including the photographs they'd taken at the cartel's camp. The hard evidence Will and Magnus had collated was sat in the back with the techie, to be evacuated with anyone who wanted out of this madness as soon as the Sanctuary could send transport. Henry was briefed to offer satellite surveillance of the area, give them a status update on the cartel camp, and so far it looked as if the scorched caverns had been abandoned. Problem was, there was no way of knowing for sure whether the survivors had all disbanded into the desert, or even how many had survived the blast - so their little convoy hadn't stopped for anything.
The drive had provided plenty of time to discuss what next and Will had argued quite effectively that they couldn't afford to lose the impetus on this case by leaving the region entirely. He'd volunteered to lead whoever wanted to stay in an investigation unit. Set up shop somewhere in the urban sprawl they'd ventured into, maybe a warehouse - preferably abandoned - where he could put some of that FBI training of his to use. Just like old times, you know, before his daily routine consisted of international crisis meetings, abnormal healthcare, and Hollow Earth.
Helen had agreed wholeheartedly, even managed a smile at the witticism, but as Nikola had already pointed out half-way through their conversation, she couldn't afford to be a part of it. Magnus had been defiant for all of about sixty seconds, before Tesla had intimated the details of what he'd seen in that tent - namely the SCIU agent who could place Nikola at the scene if he'd survived. It would be enough to draw scrutiny on the area and they all knew it - then Henry had come back with a hit on one of the photographs they'd sent before the raid, providing a positive ID on another government agent already well known to them. Whatever SCIU were up to, this wasn't a passing coincidence.
So here they were, on the outskirts of the city, outside a ruinous detached house in the Colonial style. Helen wasn't a big fan of invading other people's property unless she had to, but it was a few hours of laying low and, to be honest, it didn't look like it had been lived in by anyone but squatters for a year, maybe more - chances were they'd be out of the country before they came back. Then, perhaps, her charade of death might last a few more years at least?
Will was giving her that concerned look of his, debating whether to bother repeating the same overused line he always did.
She was even pre-emptively smiling her reassurance in response.
"We'll send the transport on tomorrow as early as we can… something discreet." He assured her, "Best keep radio silence."
"Thank you," she responded, knowing intrinsically that it wasn't what he wanted to say... "Look after them."
He chuckled with a whiter-than-white smile that made his eyes wrinkle, "Come on Magnus - babysitting scientists? Isn't that basically my job... between babysitting abnormals and actual... babies."
She smiled back. "Go on," she nodded towards the waiting driver's seat, unable to find the energy to be witty now that she had finally stopped. It was like someone had pulled the plug on her verbal faculties. She hadn't even realised how much she wanted to just lie down and sleep.
"You take care of yourself, okay?" he finally said as she turned for the safe house Norma had identified for them.
There it was, Magnus smiled to herself, that old familiar phrase. "Don't worry," she glanced to call back at him with a smirk, "if Nikola starts complaining I'll gag him."
Will couldn't help flinching like a sixteen year old boy just being told that his mom quite liked tying up her boyfriend in bed... and that train of thought was too disturbing for words, "Well gee, thanks for the mental scarring."
Pushing through the door Helen laughed beneath her breath, pausing only to wish him luck before disappearing inside.
0
The view from the back porch of the house was remarkable, a panorama of the city with nothing but sand dunes beyond, lights twinkling along the roadsides, and a small garden teeming with life. Somewhere down there the other scientists were already making for whatever appropriate hide-out Henry had sourced for them, and now Will and Norma would be joining them.
To her left Nikola had appropriated the cleaner of the two garden chairs - legs stretched out in front of him, arms loose and looking a little lost without a glass to hold.
"All we need now is a bottle of Chablis."
She gave him a look. "And a fridge," she smiled curtly, sitting on the arm of the nearest chair as she admired the view.
He sighed at this minor tragedy in the libation department, a short pause before he took a very different tone. "You know," he was being serious now, she could hear him shift, see from the corner of her eyes the way he'd sat up in his seat to lean over his knees, "they were this close to knowing."
She exhaled her own sigh, as if it might prepare her for wherever this conversation was headed. With Nikola it was never obvious. Not like Will's concern, or Henry's need for reassurance, John's border-line outrage or the way James had always lectured instead of telling her how he really felt. Nikola might be fishing for his own emotional validation... or for how she was feeling, or even just trying to get her to acknowledge that this was only the start... the beginning of the end, for another chapter of her life.
"I know," was all she said.
The power went out. Not just the kitchen light, but the glow from the street on the other side of the building too. Not that power cuts were suspicious in this part of the world. Even in this day and age Africa was not known for its continuous, uninterrupted power supply, and the stars here pierced through the veil of darkness at full force. No, it wasn't just the power cut - more the fact that everything had gone disturbingly silent.
Wordlessly they stood to attention, Magnus grabbing her gun from its holster in readiness, looking to each other with every sense on full alert. Nikola's eyes had even turned fully black to get the most out of his improved night vision in his vampire form. She took point, being the one with the long-range weapon, gently pushing the back door open again and creeping inside.
"Will?" she asked aloud, really hoping that he'd call back, casually reporting a minor setback. Or, at the very least, reassure her he'd not fallen prey to some mysterious attacker - but experience was telling her otherwise.
Nikola leaned in, whispering against her ear, "I'll go round, see whether the car's still there."
She nodded - feeling, rather than seeing him leave, as she continued to sweep every nook and cranny in what little moonlight made it through the back windows. It was just one open-planned room between the front and back doors, curtains drawn. The kitchen was in the basement level, bathroom and staircase to the right of where she stood - the sort of early 21st century conversions of 19th century homes that holidaymakers with too much cash might indulge in - or professional criminals looking to escape a jury. It had since been ripped and pilfered of all its fixtures and fittings. Any piece of furniture worth a damn replaced by whatever the last illegal occupants had salvaged. It was a wonder the place had still possessed a lock, really, and now she was pretty certain there was something tucked in the deepest shadows to her left.
The crash of a window breaking on the front side of the house shattered the silence, sent adrenaline kicking through her veins, a body slamming through and flooding the room with enough light for her to see a man in the room with her. Shooting him in the shoulder of his firing arm, she saw another and pulled the trigger again before she even had time to blink, the deafening sound of her high calibre ricocheting from the walls.
Nikola had burst through the hole he'd created, claws tearing into the arms of another assailant hiding in the darkness on the opposite side, wrenching the man's limbs out of their sockets before he could fire. Against the sounds of pained screams, Helen made sure she wasn't about to be attacked from the rear with a quick twist of her head, but the zapping sound of that abnormal weapon and a more familiar shout of pain, shot down her back with terror, until she had trained her gun back towards Nikola's attacker.
Pulling the trigger her finger slipped, a knife suddenly slicing into her arm - the sharpness of it making her hiss as she missed her target entirely, losing her gun to the floor. The knife-wielder grabbed a fistful of her hair, right at the scalp, pulling her against him until her eyes were stinging from the pain and his knife could close in on her neck. Helen breathed steadily - she'd been in this position far too many times, one might say she was a veteran. Elbowing him deep into the solar plexus she grabbed for his knife hand, ready to twist it back and make him plead in submission, but she lost her grip on him. He pushed her off with all his weight behind it, slamming her into a body at her feet, a man still groaning in a puddle of his own blood.
Still that new weapon crackled and pulsed behind them, punctuated by Nikola's frustrated reverberating cries, as he desperately attempted to deny them the satisfaction of putting him out.
Between the crackle, the searing heat burning his still-healing insides, the broken glass cutting into his skin as he writhed on the floor, Nikola felt the magnetic fields in the room with an unusual clarity. As if they were leaping off of a page. The man fired again, an extended burst intended to finish the whacked-out abnormal in front of him, and Nikola concentrated on bending the field until it broke, reversing the polarity of the charge currently destroying his body until the weapon, finally, overloaded. The safety elements expanded beneath the unanticipated force, exploding, the energy ripping through the whole room. It levelled every one of the heavies still standing, pushing over whatever debris lay in its path with a pulse of extraordinary force.
Helen was being attacked by one of their injured antagonists when it hit, his hands grasping to wrench at her leg. Desperate, she took advantage of the sudden shock that rattled through the structure, beating him over the head with the butt of her reclaimed pistol and gasping the sizzling, burnt-smelling air. In cover she sat, eyes roving over every inch of the room, not entirely sure whether taking a peek higher than waist height might be suicide.
God, this day just wouldn't bloody end.
"Helen," - it had been a while since she was quite that happy to hear his voice call her name. She glanced up, to where Nikola was supporting himself above the overturned table, reaching down to give her a hand up.
Just the sight of him - she could feel her body fighting for the chance to breathe in relief, but they weren't out of the woods yet.
Grasping his outstretched hand she levered herself up more than pulled. His limbs were still tender, if that flinch was anything to go by, and for once he wasn't bitching about it. Which meant that weapon really had hurt. More than a truck, more than a bullet, probably more than that geo-electric tunnel he'd braved in Bhalasaam - since he'd still had the strength to joke after that one.
"Come on," he breathed, hair standing every which-way.
Once he was sure she could stand he tugged her by the hand, out the back door, high-tailing it before anymore of the goon-squad arrived.
0
They hadn't said a word since, and seen as though he seemed so certain of where they were going Helen did not question their meandering path into the city. She had presumed, at first, that they were looking for Will and the others, but they were pausing too little to check for a hideout they had never been to before, let alone a place they had purposefully received no directions to. If they could be sure that they weren't being followed, that their enemies hadn't cottoned on to where the team were located, she would've called him on his cell, but they couldn't risk it.
Like Will said – radio silence: if the warehouse was under threat, he was more than capable of handling it. He would know what to do... he would get them out. God she hoped they were alright. With any luck they had shaken any attempt to follow them, or been ignored entirely. For all they knew, they were the only ones who'd been attacked.
Suddenly Nikola pulled her down an access alley, up a set of stairs against a big anonymous building that looked like it was concrete, and distinctly industrial in nature. That was until you reached the top, where a patio, vine-covered awnings and overgrown pot plants, gave way to a wooden door that was younger, and a damn site heavier, than it looked. Nikola cracked the lock magnetically, pushing it open and pausing enough to extend a hand for her to go first. He might've been unable to muster the air for a quip, but Helen could tell from that stupid smirk he was thinking it.
She smiled as she stumbled through, with as much relief as amusement, finally sagging against the blissfully cool, tiled wall beyond. He closed the door behind them, the lights coming on, though Helen couldn't remember hearing a switch. Nikola propped himself up, back against the door, throwing a gesture towards the lock to secure it once again.
Out of breath, he looked about as shaken as she felt in every inch of her limbs. Shaken and... annoyed, it seemed. He exhaled heavily, looking at her with the same exasperation as someone who'd just been put through the wringer and shaken out to dry. Pissed off, hurting, but mostly just glad to still be standing.
They'd made it. Safe, and alive.
Helen let out a half-laugh of relief she just couldn't hold in, eyes drifting to take in her surroundings now that they'd finally stopped.
It was an apartment, or the lounge to be precise, in a vaguely Moroccan style... surprisingly Western really, with the couch and cabinets laid out as they were. Why did she get the distinct impression...
"Nikola..." she turned on him, that piercing intelligence of hers cutting through the fog of exhaustion and the onset of adrenaline withdrawal.
God, he thought, heart still thumping at the night's exertions, if there was anything which made her look sexier than wielding firearms it was that.
"Where are we-"
He cut her off with a kiss, full of the sheer impossibility of it - him, her, together… alive. He loved her so much.
The kiss grew deeper as she drew him close, more impassioned, as she reacted to that heady thrill of being able to taste another's want of you; like some decadent spice, making your lips tingle until the sensation spread right through your nerves. Her skin felt threadbare, hyper-sensitive to every touch and it elicited a contended 'mmm' from her even as he started to pull away. It was far too much space.
"Don't stop," she breathed, sealing the gap again and returning the favour as if it could blanche out how she'd felt watching him subjected to that torturous device. The race of fear she hadn't quite registered yet, let alone processed. All those moments that might have been. The times they might not have gotten out alive.
The thought of a daughter waiting for them back home stung in a way she had almost forgotten.
His hand tugged on her linen shirt, pulling them both more upright against the wall: her tongue delving into his mouth in a dextrous slide that egged him on. She could feel his fingers popping her buttons, the cooler air raising gooseflesh across her chest, dancing across the lace of her underwear.
Pulling the zip of his field jacket in a single decisive sweep she couldn't get the grubby, torn garment off of him fast enough - he was far too preoccupied with brushing the tender skin along her sides. She pushed him away, to push the fabric off his arms, giving him a short kiss to sweeten the deal, and another - as they raced to remove every fastening on his shirt.
Fumbling over one too many buttons the two of them soon changed tack, heading for each other's belts in unison. Nikola was quickest, fingers sliding beneath the loosened fabric to feel that firm backside of hers, and pull her into him. Her hands slipped from his buckle at the movement, unintentionally brushing against his erection and taking him by surprise.
She tipped her head to gloat at his pleasure-ridden gasp with the most gluttonous smile, unable to help her own slight moan at the way her hard nipples brushed through the fabric between them as she moved. More. God, they needed more.
Gripping his trousers she forcibly shoved them down with his underpants, leaning into where his lips hovered so close to hers, eating up the grunt as she ignored the prominent obstacle between his hips and the floor. Her hands slid eagerly across his back in encouragement as he started working those oh-so-practical underpants of hers down her sleek limbs, never letting her lips lay still for so much as a moment. Her legs hitched around his hips as he freed them, until he had her balanced against the tiles - a shock of cold against her back that made her hotter, her entry wetter as it whispered against him, hard and ready for her.
He grasped the back of her head through her loosened hair, their foreheads leaning together so that she could see his eyes, bristling with determination. Breathing the same air, he sank decisively into her body.
She hissed, fingertips grasping his shoulder at the sharp intrusion sending shocks right through her erogenous zones, and rolling through her abdomen. The hot white flash of pleasure and pain turned her outward breath into a repressed moan as he withdrew, so, so slowly. Too slowly, for Helen not to follow him down, legs coaxing against his hips.
Caught up in the searing warmth, the pleasing pressure of her hugging onto him, he failed to find any kind of rhythm. For two or three agonisingly sensitive thrusts her hips twitched reflexively, begging him: to go faster, to pound into her - screw her senseless. Not that the encouragement was really needed, when her body writhed like that each time he slid inside. He grasped her sides determinedly, guiding her to just the right angle to make her involuntarily sound out each note of pleasure at every forceful push, every heavy drop onto his flesh. It roared through like fire, a rapid pace that was almost desperate to hold on, to keep her there, joined to him. Her voice punctuated the air against his neck as he drove in hard - sounds coagulating into half-formed words still too primal to make sense. They were soon panting with the exertion, the ferocity of it, her flesh moulding to him, holding him close enough to taste the salt on their sweat, the odd fleck of desert sand.
Burying himself deeper still as her insides began to quicken and relent, Helen gasped in surprise. "Yes," she sighed out, adjusting to the sudden sweep of sensation opening up to her, and in such a contrast to before, "oh God yes. Nikola. Mmm."
Her grip was bruisingly tight, but he barely noticed - they were so close. "Helen," he echoed, catching her bright blue eyes as everything started to shimmer, kissing her with a passion to match the swell that broke in her. It silenced his long cry of satisfaction - its only escape a hum against her chest, from his lungs to hers, until he gave her one more thrust that dipped and circled. She ripped away from his lips just to breathe, as the tight knot inside suddenly burst into a heady rush through every synapse, every feeling fibre of her body.
The sounds escaping that wondrous mouth were as delicious as the tremble of her muscles. He reached to brace a hand against the wall, his legs desperate to give way, but he couldn't... not yet. It felt too good, with her clinging to him, the heavy pants in his ears from both of them, her fingers languorously trailing up his back and into his hair as she leaned into the wall.
She was eying him with that look of complete and utter satisfaction which, frankly, he'd not seen since she was pregnant with Sofija: though he was more than ecstatic to see it now. She stretched out like a cat with a 'Hmm' of contentment and heavy-lidded eyes in a move which gently released him - even as it held him captive, with the most awed smirk on his face.
Sometimes she wondered how he could still look at her that way... after all this time. She kissed him, almost chastely, unwinding her legs as she did so and standing once more - albeit a little too shakily to go without his supportive hand, pressing her against his lanky frame for some sort of stability. She sniggered at her own inability to stand, staring into his all-too-close gaze as he smiled knowingly back, and feeling the utter exhaustion in every inch of her body.
"Ugh," she bemoaned, "I think... we should find the bedroom..." she trailed off, unable to manage another word.
For once, too tired to tease, Nikola brushed his nose against hers with a grin purposefully designed to mask the fact, and keep her on her toes.
"Right this way my lady."
Somehow, Helen just about managed to roll her eyes.
Author's Note:
One more chapter folks… wonder if you can guess why Nikola felt confident enough that they weren't going to be found for some sexy time. :D You see, all this action was just a pre-text for some smut... and some snark. :) Any excuse.
To my Guest reviewers, thank you for your kind words. It is always fun watching Helen blow stuff up, I quite agree. Frankly if Sanctuary had to end, Season 4 was probably THE most Sanctuary way it could have done so.
JanSuch – cheeky ;)