A/N Historical notes at end.

TWELVE

Shoreham, Long Island. 1903.

"Don't let me fall."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Nikola grasped her waist lightly, but firmly, her back pressed into his chest as she stared at the horizon and the faint hint of shore. She was giddy, as excited as a child, and it was her shared enthusiasm for discovery that had so endeared her to him.

"This makes up for your rather stony mood of late. I think I just might forgive you for never answering any of my letters." She giggled at him, saying all of it in jest, but he could see lurking in the corner of her eye that she had wept over the packages she sent him, never knowing if he even opened them. Three a week, like clockwork. It was too many times to shed tears over him.

They stood halfway up the tower, arms linked around the metal frame so the wind couldn't knock them over. The lonely, wind-swept landscape took her breath away, and she pressed closer against him, a sigh escaping her throat.

"Watch this," he murmured into her hair, and then grasped one of the cables wrapped around the tower. It hummed in his hand, and after a few moments, the top of Wardenclyffe tower lit up and bolts of lightning tore across the sandy beach. She gasped in astonishment, hand clutching his more tightly.

"That's amazing! How ever are you doing that?"

"This tower, which I hope to have more than one use for, is still best at one thing: amplification. Alone, I am a humble man with an uncommon talent. With this," He let off another dozen sparks which roared into life as massive surges of electrical current, bursting in the air as impressive as the thunderbolts of Zeus, "…I have the power to change the world."

She held onto him, he could smell the faint hint of perfume on her neck, and let out another gasp of awe. She then laughed. "Soon you will be too important to remember me."

His eyes saddened and he held onto her more tightly. "I could never forget you, Katherine."

Please pass our thoughts onto the good Doctor. We are ever so fans of his work.

Will and Magnus looked grimly at the screen. The message had been left for him, and it might help explain Tesla's sudden disappearance. "You don't actually think this spooked him, do you?"

Helen frowned. "Knowing Nikola, not likely. But perhaps his sense of self-preservation has outstripped his desire to help us. Selfish prat."

Will tried to be reassuring. "Well if that's the case, we don't need him. We have an idea of the facilities they have and the … containment cell they want to keep Druitt in. Henry's already looking at power surges that fit the requirements of that much energy, and I'm looking into any traces we have of where Beijing's equipment and resources could have gone."

"I know. You're doing a fantastic job, Will…" Helen bit the top of her thumbnail and Will gave her a wry smile.

"But…?"

She flushed slightly – he could always read her too well. Especially when she was stressed. "But if Nikola's gone into hiding again, I wonder what he knows that we don't. It's like rats leaving a sinking ship before the captain is aware of any trouble."

"Well, where could he have gone?"

Helen shrugged, trying to ignore her feelings of unease. "That's the question, isn't it?"

Nikola sat alone in a small café, sipping at a cup of coffee more to keep appearances than for sustenance. His accent or lack thereof would give him away as a foreigner anyway, so he didn't feel the need to keep up the pretense of being English by drinking tea as well. Horrid stuff.

He had already put in the call to have the Lighthouse tower be dismantled and shipped to different parts of the world. It seemed to have been untouched, more the fools they, and the only blueprint of its design were tucked away in his breast pocket.

He thought about the scrap of paper in his hand instead.

The last will of Nikola Tesla. All to Katherine Johnson. 1922.

The world was cruel to have her pass away three years later. Always with the number three, that one. Three letters a week. Three times she had joined him in feeding the pigeons at Central Park. Three times he had told her that he loved her. Three times she had broken her vows to Robert and made love to him in secret. That was what had made her so perfect, so unequivocally his…

He wondered where to set his next base of operations. He certainly couldn't go back to Argentina. But he would need a workhouse where he could reassemble the tower and knock out whoever it was that was hunting Helen.

Helen, now there was one who broke the pattern entirely. Five times she had shot him in the head. Seven times she had tended to him as her patient. Twice had she relented to kiss him of her own accord. Once, she had given in to his embrace and they waited out a thunderstorm tangled up in each other and the perverse imp of lust's mischief. Never had she confessed any love for him. Twenty-three times had he said the words to her. Only once of those twenty-three times had he said it with genuine feeling. Twice he had bit her in the name of scientific experimentation. Four times had she danced with him, and all four had been to Glen Miller.

It was a dreary list that had no rhyme or reason to it, no mathematical pattern, or even any kind of logic their century-plus friendship should entail. And he had waited a century to see if the pattern could ever re-adjust and correct itself, but she was a variable he could never predict.

Three times he had visited Katherine Johnson's grave … and then he couldn't bear to see her again. Couldn't bear to break the one thing that could remain constant between them and put a fitting seal to their end. In a twisted way, he had been planning on giving Helen her funereal tribute twice more so that in some way she could fit into his life with that unmistakable stamp that made her his. Even if no one else knew.

Having worked himself into a foul, depressed mood, he looked out the window of the café to see rain pouring down the glass in sheets. The coffee had gone cold in his hands, but he didn't care.

Helen stood outside, an arm thrown over her head to shield her eyes from the rain. She stood at the intersection, looking around for someone.

Nikola sighed inwardly. He was going to kill Declan. Little snitch. This now made it five times he had run away and she came after him.

She held something in the palm of her hand, consulting it. His eyebrows rose curiously … she was using a compass to try and find him because his presence always disturbed the magnetic field. Twice she had used that trick now.

Nineteen photographs they had taken together. Eleven from their days at Oxford. None of them taken after the Second World War.

One thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight times he had heard her laugh.

She walked a few steps towards the café, stopped, looked to her right and consulted her compass again. She walked a bit more down the street, before doubling back to the small pathway the café was on.

Ten times he had seen her cry. Seven of those over John Druitt.

She looked through the window of the café, and she recognized him. He could see the colour rise in her cheeks, the angry line of her jaw and knew he was in for a tongue-lashing.

He heard the chime of the bell that sounded whenever someone opened the door to the café. Thirty-seven projects they had worked on together as a team instead of the full company of the Five.

He saw the water dripping from her hair, a few delicate drops clinging to her eyelashes. Fourteen times she had fallen asleep in his room after nights of work that stretched into the morning.

She walked over to him, stowing the compass away in her pocket. He could hear her heart beating. Once, John Druitt had beaten him bloody over her.

She sat down, anger emanating from her, but always civil and polite to the last. He could see concern behind the irritation and betrayal. Eight times they had ever held hands.

One beat his heart skipped every time he saw her after an absence.

"Nikola, what on earth are you doing in London?"

"Counting."

"Helen, we need to get you out of those wet clothes."

Helen thanked the waitress when she brought over a cup of tea and kicked his foot under the table. She had tied her wet hair back, a towel around her neck to stop from dripping onto the floor. She sipped the tea, glad for some warmth, and ignored the lascivious grin on his face. "Suddenly decided to reacquaint yourself with England? I thought you hated the country."

"Hate's a strong word. I'm just flummoxed by the obsession with tea, curry and chips. Especially when you mix them all together."

Helen rested her head in her hand. "Care to explain to me why I'm chasing you around again?"

"I like having you chase me." He saw the look on Helen's face and he knew he was in for another kick, so quickly added, "Does Watson's boy know you're alive?"

"No, I had Will make some calls. It seems you've been behaving as incorrigibly as ever."

Nikola pretended to be offended. "I'm always the perfect image of the gentleman."

"Except for all the times you aren't."

Nikola sighed, passing her a napkin and gesturing to the drops of water running into her eyes. "I had some loose ends to take care of here now that there's a bounty on my head as well. There are some of my inventions you really don't want falling into the wrong hands."

"And you couldn't just tell me?"

"If I had no secrets I'd lose my charming allure—"

"—and I'd have so many less gray hairs because of you," she scowled, tossing her damp napkin at him, which he dodged with a yelp. He flicked it off their tabletop with a look of disgust.

"Don't worry, Helen, you still look fantastic."

"Nikola." She reached over the table and clasped his hand, her eyes pleading. "They have John."

He grew silent, his usual boorish humour quelled. She saw him fiddle nervously with his suit jacket, but he squeezed her hand lightly back soothingly. "You seem to attract hopelessly devoted men."

"I don't know what's going to happen to him – how long before they find out it isn't inside him anymore…" She looked down at the table miserably, before looking up at him again, her eyes brilliant and piercing. "We have to find the elemental before they find out what's going on."

Nikola's jaw almost dropped to the floor and his voice was strangled with incredulity. "You want to go chasing after that thing? You're insane!"

Helen's eyes similarly widened and she slapped his shoulder. "And you want to just leave him there to rot?"

He flicked her back, fussing over the crease in his suit. "John's a big boy, he made up his own mind to do this, and he can take care of himself."

"You don't mean that. Nikola, you're the only one with the ability to track down and contain this creature. We need you."

Nikola frowned, then pouted. "I see what you're doing here … you're trying to butter me up … stroke my ego. Feminine wiles."

Helen pleaded, "Please, I need your help to do this."

He considered her though a curtain of half-closed eyelashes, folding his hands under his chin. "You know, I'd be more easily persuaded if it wasn't just my ego you were stro-"

He heard the click of the safety of her gun being turned off, and then the cold press of the muzzle pushed dangerously against his thigh. His breath hitched in his throat, but he grinned despite himself.

She arched an eyebrow. "Finish that thought. I dare you."

"You're hot when you're angry," he whispered nervously, breathing an inward sigh of relief when Helen discreetly re-holstered her pistol.

"I could just pistol-whip you cold and drag you back to Old City until you cooperate."

Nikola leaned in so close their noses were almost touching, the tips of his teeth showing as he grinned. "I love it when you talk dirty."

"Nikola, are you going to help me or not?"

He withdrew, frowning. "And if I can't?"

She gave an irritable huff, blowing a stray lock of hair from her face. "Can't or won't?"

He glared at her. "Can't … I despise having to say this, but that thing scares me. I don't know what would happen if I came face to face with it, but I don't want to find out."

"Oh, Nikola," she pouted mockingly at him, "John's lived with it for a century – surely you're capable of handling it as well."

Nikola's face darkened and he looked away from her. She had the uneasy feeling again that this had something to do with when she thought he had died. She just wished she knew what it all was … and why she somehow seemed to be the center of it all.

Will put down his phone and rubbed his ear. He was amazed it could feel sore just from making calls, but his ear had been glued to the phone for over four hours.

"How long do you think the doc's going to be away for?" Hank asked, pressing a can of soda into his hand. Will gratefully drank, he'd been parched, and realized he hadn't eaten all day.

"Knowing Professor Hidden Agenda? I've got no idea. But I think we've got to hold down the fort for awhile."

Henry passed him his tablet and crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay, looking at the specifications for the containment cell they've made, I've been looking at power patterns, surges, radiation signatures … and I'm starting to think whoever this is has gone off the map."

"What do you mean?" Henry brought up a global map with the tracking dots of different satellites and power lines.

"It's blank. I don't see any spikes or surges where they shouldn't be. I'm starting to think they've gone somewhere super remote away from the main satellite grid. If I wanted to narrow the search I'd have to start assessing individual municipalities and local grids … but they wouldn't have the juice. I'm starting to think they might actually be running off their own power source. There's no way they can draw off that much energy and go undetected. They've got their own battery."

Will let out a low whistle, flicking through the rest of the reports Henry had drawn up. "Is there a reactor powerful enough to provide that kind of juice?"

"Yeah … if Genius built it. Or if they had access to some of the minerals in Hollow Earth."

Will caught on and slapped Henry on the shoulder. "Well done, Henry." Hank beamed. "I'm going to put some calls through to Ranna and see if she can enlighten us on Sanctuary activities down below."

"Will." Henry grabbed Will's phone and held it out of arm's reach, a stern look in his eye. "Eat something first. Don't make me tell on you to Biggie."

"That is just so not cool, man."

A/N

Katherine Johnson was the wife of Robert Underwood Johnson, two people who were among a very few group the real Tesla ever considered his friends or could get close to him. Robert Johnson was the editor of Century Magazine and published many articles on Tesla's exploits. Katherine Johnson is arguably, and in most popular opinion the only woman Nikola Tesla ever really loved. They shared a lengthy correspondence the entire time they knew each other, there are many records of their letters, although these letters only ever overtly express a platonic love (as Tesla was celibate).

Some influence for this relationship was also drawn from the Electric Company Theatre's play "Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla", where the undertones of a romantic attachment, often thwarted by a growing eccentricity, are further explored.