Full title is "Two of These Things Are Not Like The Other" but it's too long for me to put up :(

Question, how would everyone react to John being vaguely interested Abby? Random, I know but I was being crazy today and the thought came to me that it'd be hilarious. Anyone agree?

Anyway, here you are. Another chapter. Mid week. I'm so good to y'all. Today's chapter is for alwayssmilingsam who I managed to sucker into this fic despite her disinterest in original characters :P And for all those who reviewed.

Also, I only realised today how close we are to the end of this story! Only five chapters after this and then we're on to the sequel!

xx

It took them less than an hour to get everything set up, the serum was surprisingly easy to make and despite going over Nikola's notes three times, Helen couldn't find a reason they shouldn't at least try. It wasn't as if they had anything to lose.

As they made their way up to her attic bedroom, they were silent. Kate, Henry and Will had said very little, simply allowing Helen and Nikola to discuss his proposition. It made sense really, that they'd hang back from such a decision but Nikola's cool confidence in his plan wasn't comforting to Helen. She needed someone to present arguments against it so that she could be swayed to accepting it more readily. It was twisted, she knew but then if something went wrong, the immensely childish part of herself could blame someone else for talking her into it. As it was, she was almost thankful no one had. If this failed then it would be on her back in more ways than one.

Naturally, when Nikola had told her of his findings she'd been dubious. She didn't deny the strange connection she knew existed between herself and Rose but the way Nikola pointed out their genetic similarities gave her the chills.

"It's strange," he'd mused. "I would have thought considering how toxic our blood is to her you'd have died when we first injected the source blood."

Her eyes had bulged at that.

"Perhaps that explains why my transformation took so long."

"And why your change wasn't actually noticeable," he'd continued, handing her more of his research. "I know I'm not a biologist but I think it will work."

She'd agreed. In an instant she knew his assumption, whilst still being no more than an assumption, was right. It could work. If it didn't they had no idea of what could happen but the result couldn't be worse than this, could it? And even if it was, Nikola had grudgingly agreed to provide a vile of his blood just in case.

So here they were, standing silently in an elevator as Helen clutched a syringe filled with her own synthesized blood. They'd compared the three sets of DNA carefully, perfecting Nikola's process from Mexico to extract what they identified as vampiric in Nikola's DNA from Helen's to create the closest copy they could to Rose's. The idea was simple. She needed an energy boost to thrust her back into the land of the living and while that energy could be garnered from the sun, some of it appeared to be self generating. So, Nikola had hypothesised, give her body a kick start, show it how it was supposed to be creating its own energy and maybe she'd be able to fight back into consciousness.

The concept, when first presented to Helen had been baffling. She'd studied her own rejuvenating cells many times over yet never had she come to this conclusion. They were deteriorating but at a fraction of the normal pace and she'd simply assumed it was a lessened effect of the vampire's immortality but this suggested different origins entirely.

Just as Nikola had dormant genes within his DNA that lead to his vampirism, he gathered that she had some of her own. After all, her longevity was vastly different to that of the vampires. She was aging. Slowly, yes but aging none the less. The revelation had been startling but not nearly as startling as the idea that the injection of the Source Blood all those years ago had in fact kicked off a partial transformation within herself. Her body had absorbed the blood and it was prolonging her life but, due to the genes already embedded within her, she was aging, not frozen in time as Nikola was. Her own body was attacking the substance it considered poisonous in the most basic of ways only the poisonous substance was now part of who she was. It was strong, always fighting its way to the surface and while it could clearly stave off her body's defences for some of the time, it meant that in essence, she was attacking herself.

Death by extremely slow aging, not the way she wanted to go but somehow Helen didn't think she'd ever have enough time to complete her work.

"Do you have the vial?" she asked Nikola suddenly, turning to face him. Pondering her own mortality, while a disturbing morbid past time of her youth, wasn't something she chose to indulge in. She needed to think about something else so it only seemed natural to think about someone else's possibly impending death by her own hand.

"Yes," Nikola answered tersely as the doors clunked open. "But we won't need it," he continued arrogantly though Helen suspected it had less to do with confidence and more to do with a grim determination.

"I don't want to use it either," she continued softly. "But I will not let her suffer when there is a way out of it."

"Which is why we created that," he ground out hotly. "Don't think you're alone in wanting to save her Helen."

"That's not what I'm saying and you know it," she said vehemently as they strode towards her room where Will, Kate and Henry were already waiting.

"No Helen, you're saying that you have no hope. That you believe this to be futile and are simply humouring me for the sake of some perverted relationship between us that has been distorted beyond recognition because of your innate selfishness. You are saying it because you are incapable of caring."

She stopped, grabbed his arm to yank him back before slapping him across the face as hard as she could. It wasn't the most forceful blow she'd ever delivered nor the most damaging but for the split second after she'd done it, her hand stinging, it had been worth it simply to see the horror wash over Nikola's face. She saw the moment he realised what he'd said, the second his fearful daze departed leaving him with no witty comeback or damaging quip to deliver.

"Don't you ever say that again," she threatened quietly before turning and continuing towards the door, determined to forget about him and his cutting words.

It wasn't until she stood at the closed door to Rose's room that he caught up with her, grabbing her arm to roughly yank her back towards him. She fell into his embrace, startled by the tightness of his arms around her and unable to pull away.

"I didn't mean it," he whispered hoarsely into her hair. "I'm sorry."

Helen nodded as much as she could and would have pushed him away had it not been for the suspiciously warm drop of water that landed on her head.

"I know," she choked out, pleased when the tension between them faded somewhat. His words stung, reaching a place she often tried to deny but she still knew that they were not true words. He was afraid, just as afraid as she was of losing someone they'd known for longer than any human had the right to know someone. Because there really was a chance with this that it would go wrong. Everything they 'knew' was sketchy and held together by assumptions and jumps in logic. Perhaps there was too much vampire left in the serum, perhaps there was not enough, perhaps what she needed wasn't a boost but a virus like version of the foreign DNA to fight against, perhaps this was all foolish and they'd end up losing her anyway.

Nikola pulled away, not looking her in the eye as he turned to the door, grasping the knob with a hand that, to his credit, was only just shaking.

"We were wondering when you two would get here," Henry said, looking up from where he sat at the foot of the bed.

"Are we ready?" Will asked, standing up.

Helen nodded, not trusting herself to speak as she took a place next to Rose on the bed. Carefully she turned to the tray of supplies resting on the bedside table, grabbing what she needed. Methodically she swabbed the crux of the other woman's elbow before wrapping the tourniquet around her arm, taking the needle in hand.

"Wait!" Kate called abruptly and everyone froze, looking at her with confusion. "Shouldn't we, I mean, can't we..." she tried uncertainly. "Shouldn't we tell her what's going on?"

"She knows," Helen said quietly, feeling comforted by the gentle prod within her mind. Rose knew.

Taking a deep breath she raised the needle once more, finding a vein with ease. The needle easily slipped into her skin and Rose didn't make a sound. Hoping to hell that that was a good sign, Helen depressed the needle smoothly.

The result was instantaneous.

Rose's eyes flew open as a guttural groan was ripped from her chest, her body arching off the mattress.

In an instant, Helen ripped the needle out, tossing it onto the tray as she tried to calm Rosie's bucking body. She was moving from side to side, violent tremors rocking her body as she continued to groan and scream. Her jaw was set and she scrunched her eyes shut as Helen grabbed her hand.

"Rose," said urgently. "Rose you need to relax, you have to calm down and tell us how to help you."

Her eyes flew open once more and she squeezed Helen's hand tightly, their eyes locking as Rose fought the pain.

"What have you done?" she hissed accusingly before growling once more, arching her back and thrashing beneath the covers, pain etched on her face. Suddenly her wings burst forth and she screamed once more, releasing Helen's hand and fisting her hands in the sheets as she began to pant for breath, her cries emanating from deep within her.

Helen looked to Nikola, swallowing as she took in the pure fear in his eyes. The others all stepped back from the bed but Nikola nodded minutely at her, stepping forward to grab Rose's arm on one side as Helen did the same. Together they held her as still as they could, Helen reaching one hand up to find her pulse.

"What do we do?" Nikola asked, as he grabbed her arms more firmly.

"I don't know," Helen replied, unable to tear her eyes from Rose's pained expression. "I think it-."

Rose stopped, her body falling limp under them. Her brow was sweaty, her face paler than before and, as Helen checked her pulse once more she was disturbed to find it slower than normal. She was breathing but only just, short sharp pants making her chest rise and fall minutely.

"Is she..." a voice said from the doorway and Helen turned to find John standing there, his face a mixture of emotions.

"She's alive," Nikola muttered, not looking away from her.

"Just."

I know this one is a bit confusing. I tried to make it as clear as possible without spoon feeding y'all. Basically, as was established earlier, Rose is what she is because of something that kick started the transformation ages ago (this was discussed in like chapter 7 or something) and it is also established that anyone could have the genetics to be like her. Nikola discovered that Helen does. Does that makes sense? Let me know if you need more clarification.