A/N Long weekend, bonus update!

The night many years ago when Helen and Nikola danced to Glen Miller. If you want to know what they're dancing to (youtube dot com/watch?v=ZJE-onnw2gM). The Sanctuary under attack, and the death of Helen Magnus

FOUR

New York, 1921

Helen took the offered hand a touch bashfully as she was helped out of the cab. There was already a swarm of people outside the dance hall, chatting excitedly, smoking cigarettes and calling out to friends.

Nikola grinned at her cheekily, and tucked her arm into his. He had shaved his moustache, and had grown his hair a bit longer so that he could slick it back in the more American style. He had even lost his accent too.

"I think red's a mighty fine colour on you," he whispered into her ear, admiring her auburn-brown hair. She had dyed it recently from the normal blonde, and was still a touch self-conscious about the change.

"Now, you promised to behave," she said as she swatted him away from her ear. He merely chuckled, and lead her inside the dance hall.

It was packed with young people jiving and dancing in the middle of the room. The Glen Miller band stormed the stage, whipping up the energy in the room, with the man himself yelling out for people to dance.

Helen felt a little star-struck and giddy to be in the hall. Nikola re-appeared by her side with two glasses of wine. "Didn't I tell you I'd show you the fun parts of New York?"

"I didn't know you had seen any of America except the inside of your lab," she called back cheekily.

He raised an eyebrow and proceeded to knock back half of his glass. Helen mocked him, but she knew he had endured a rough decade in the new world. When the Wardenclyffe Tower had gone bankrupt the newspapers jeered at what they called "Tesla's Million Dollar Folly". Then had had lost the radio patent to Marconi. The final blow came with the rekindled feud between him and Edison when rumours began of their nominations for the Nobel Prize. Ultimately, neither had won.

Helen wished she could have been there for him through those hard times, but a humiliated Tesla was a wounded one. In response, he had locked himself away in his room at the Waldorf hotel and entertained no one but his pigeons.

Finally, after licking his wounds, he'd regained some of his former spirit. Helen suspected he had found something new to work on. Scientific discovery put him in a good mood.

"Hurry up with that." He nodded impatiently to her wine glass, downing the rest of his. Not to be outdone, and feeling like this particular night was meant for some mischief, Helen quickly and neatly drained her glass.

Nikola swept her into his arms and lead her to the dance floor.

They swung and grooved and jived in a crowd of youth, exuberance and mad energy. The atmosphere of the hall was infectious. Helen couldn't recall the last time she had so much fun. She forgot about her cares, her responsibilities and her troubles completely for a precious few hours.

She had never seen Nikola so uninhibited before. Normally, crowds of people made him distinctly uncomfortable. And she had no idea he could dance! But this didn't seem to be his first time at the venue. Perhaps he enjoyed escaping here, where no one knew who he was, or didn't care.

He twirled her with a little more force than she expected, and Helen found herself colliding into his chest with a giggle. He was more solid than she expected, considering how slender he was. He wrapped his arm around her waist, grasping her free hand, and led them to the music.

"You smell good," he purred into her ear, and laughed when she kicked his shin.

They were pressed right up against each other, and lightheaded and giddy, Helen felt almost drunk. Not on the wine, which they both had little of, but of the night. Enjoying the warmth and feel of being held by someone, she cradled her head on his shoulder.

Nikola looked down in surprise, but gave her hand a light squeeze. His breath stirred the hair around her ear and she felt goose bumps travel up her neck.

Lifting her head up, Helen looked into his dark eyes, they were curious but smiling, and she pressed her lips to his.

She felt him still underneath her, in shock, and he turned to stone as if afraid to make the slightest movement. She kissed him softly, teasingly, until the poor wretch was forced to respond. She could feel him trembling.

She knew Nikola had not always been celibate, but the state was more comfortable to him. Why need a woman when he had electricity? He found relationships distracting to his work. It was only now that he seemed to be allowing himself more normal social conventions (like friends and fun for pity's sake) but she could tell this was making him very uncomfortable. Poor lamb might start panicking at any second.

He kissed tentatively back, the hand on her waist only now allowing itself to squeeze her lightly. She could feel the heat rising on his face, and surprised him with a sly swipe of her tongue across his lower lip.

He drew back, flushed. Nikola could hear her heart beating rapidly. He could smell her blood, how it seemed to sing hotter, how it pounded just beneath her skin. He knew if this went any further…

"I think I need some fresh air," he mumbled. Helen's eyes lowered, but she quickly recovered with a smile. Too noble by half. Who would have guessed?

"Yes, I have a ship to catch tomorrow." She insisted he lead her out by the arm at least, and he hailed her a cab. She could tell he was still mildly shaken, but he kissed her quickly on the cheek before her cab sped away in the mist.

She wouldn't see him again until the war.

Tension ran high through the Sanctuary over the next few days. Everyone was on edge, not hearing a word or sigh from their mysterious predator, but knowing something was coming. The silence was worse, as if signaling something more sinister brewing to come.

Henry's lab floor was littered with empty energy drink cans, and even then Helen found him asleep at his keyboard once a day. Kate spent all of her time in the gym working out her frustrations on the several leather punching bags. Will had his ear permanently glued to the phone trying to find out what he could from his friends in the FBI.

And John paced endlessly in his room like a lion trapped in a cage.

Henry kept a live watch on the activities of he other Sanctuary Heads, but so far they yielded no results. He had been blocked out of those feeds, and try as he might he couldn't break the encryption. He worked simultaneously on trying to keep all traces of Druitt's file in the network from going to the major intelligence networks.

But it was daunting. They couldn't tell what had already gone out, and what a Sanctuary Head might have already coped from the network database.

Helen was determined they would not play the game by someone else's rules. She ran all the counter-measures she could, blocking off her own Sanctuary's files from the other Heads and running what interference she could to Interpol.

Unable to stand his unease and frustration any longer, Druitt made his way up to the gym. He could already hear the determined slaps and grunts of someone working grimly from the hallway.

When he walked in, Kate was already dripping with sweat, her teeth grit together. She glanced up briefly to see Druitt enter the room, and went back to deliver a flying kick to the bag in front of her.

"I think it's dead," Druitt intoned dryly.

She smirked at that, but delivered three more fast blows with her fists before leaving the bag and searching for her towel. She sat down on a press-bench heavily, panting lightly as she wiped her face.

"Do you want a beer?" She asked.

"Perhaps."

Kate gestured to a small fridge tucked in the corner of the room. Druitt found a half-full case of beer inside, and pulled out two cans, passing one to her. She deftly cracked it open and took a long swig.

"This sucks for you, doesn't it?" She looked thoughtfully over at him.

Druitt chuckled half-heartedly. "Yes, I suppose the appropriate term is sucks."

"I know what it's like to have your past come back to haunt you."

Druitt sipped carefully at his beer, sitting down beside her. "One far less gory."

She nodded in agreement, but looked at him thoughtfully. "Yeah, but I still know it's a lie when people tell you that it isn't your fault. That you had no choice. And what it's like to live with that."

Druitt looked at her with surprise, but felt a rush of gratitude and understanding for the clever, if somewhat coarse woman sitting beside him. Perhaps they were thrown together on missions so often because of this understanding. They both knew someone had to do what no one else could in good conscience. They both knew what it was to crave forgiveness, but never receive it from themselves.

The lights suddenly flickered in the gym and then turned off, plunging them into darkness.

"What?" Kate set down her can and stood up as the back up lights flickered on. She pulled out her phone. "Hank? What just happened?"

"The entire Sanctuary just lost power and shut down."

She smirked. "Were you downloading porn again?"

"Ha. Ha."

Kate snapped her phone shut and she and John jogged down the halls to try and reach the main lab. The hallways were dim, also running on back-up power, and when they reached the door it wouldn't budge.

"Damn." Kate kicked the door one last time for good measure.

Druitt looked about him, feeling uneasy. "Is it a normal occurrence for the entire Sanctuary to suddenly shut down without warning?"

Kate looked grim. "Sabotage?"

"I have to find Helen." Druitt closed his eyes for a second, as if searching for something. He then muttered "shield's down" and vanished in a flash of orange light. Kate silently wished him good luck and went to find another exit off the floor.

Druitt finally found her in the main laboratory, frantic at her keyboard. The robotic arms that extended from the ceiling were blasting lasers through the walls and equipment of their own accord.

"John!" She looked shocked to see him there, and looked back to her screen in panic. "Someone has activated the Sanctuary's self-destruct and overwritten my codes."

He darted his way over to her, navigating his way through overturned furniture and broken glass. "How much time?"

"Forty-five seconds…"

His face hardened into a grim mask of determination. He knew that given the choice she'd stay with her lab, but he was going to take the decision out of her hands.

"I have to get them out, John!" Helen bellowed, already able to anticipate his thoughts. She punched in a series of codes, eyes flicking nervously to the countdown listing twenty seconds remaining.

There was a series of loud "clinks" as cage doors opened. Abnormals swarmed out of their containers and out of the lab. Before she could linger over some other noble task to perform, John grabbed her hand and teleported before the countdown hit zero.

They reappeared half a mile away in Old City and heard an explosion in the distance. A trail of black smoke curled upward into the sky.

Helen sank to her knees, weeping over the destruction of her home, haven to all – now destroyed.

"We were very lucky … the hospital tells me Henry will be released tomorrow." Helen sat with her team, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

John had managed to find them all and taken them to one of the safe houses Helen had in Old City. The self-destruct had been concentrated to the main laboratory. Only Henry had been close enough to the explosion to be injured, and he was one lucky wolf that he had only broken his arm and received minor contusions, rather than being buried.

Helen had picked her way through the rubble in a daze before John firmly took her away.

Thankfully, most of the Sanctuary remained intact. The main lab was gone, along with parts of the east wing. The abnormals housed there … some had escaped and she didn't know where they had gone.

The others … she would bury them with all the dignity they were due.

"This is my fault," she whispered quietly so only John could hear. "They're dead because of me."

John shook her shoulders lightly, eyes boring into hers. "Don't. Don't even think it. This is the work of a madman. If you had just rolled over, could you even imagine what would happen if the Sanctuary was under their control?"

Helen remained silent, but she squeezed his hand firmly in thanks. It was exactly what she needed to hear, and to John's pleasure, he saw a fire light in her eyes.

"We have a lot of work to do," Helen began as she addressed her dejected team, a dangerous undercurrent of steel in her voice, "and the first order of business if to write up my obituary."

Will blinked sluggishly a few times; unsure if he had heard her correctly. "Your obituary?"

"Yes. Put it in a 'confidential' message to Declan that our Sanctuary was attacked, that I died in the explosion, and John has gone into hiding."

Kate slowly broke into a grin, tapping the side of her nose knowingly. "You want to flush them out."

"We'll act as if I'm still alive to the rest of he world, but the horrible truth will only be privy through safe Sanctuary channels … who ever has been targeting me will make their move once they think that I'm gone." Helen sat straighter, confidence returning to her in a rush. Someone had attacked her home, her family, and those under her care. They were going to very quickly find out what it was to intrude on her own.

"Helen Magnus." Will gestured grandly in the air with his best formal announcer's voice. "Doctor, scientist, legacy. And best tipper at Alfredo's."

Helen laughed with her team, feeling the exquisite companionship and intimacy of a true family.